Club News
Greetings club member,
On October 12th and 13th 2024 the Wayne County ARC had a booth set up at the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival. Lucky for us it fell on the same dates as the Pennsylvania QSO Party. We had a special event call sign N2A associated with the ROI Freedom Festival. Basically, we killed two birds with one stone, much as we did with the Zane Grey event this past summer. At that event we had a special call sign, N2A and we set up as a Parks On The Air (POTA) activator station.
At this year’s PAQSO party we were successful in reaching 59 of the 67 PA counties, 24 US states, Canada and the Slovak Republic. It took a lot of planning, but club managed to pull it off in time. Getting our small games of chance permit was the worrisome part so we could have a raffle to increase our club finances. That fell into place without too much trouble. The club raffled off 2 emergency radios and an SSB 2 portable shortwave, AM & FM radio. The drawing is at the club meeting November 25th.
Saturday was a perfect Autumn day with lots of wind and mild weather temperatures. Our members interacted with people from different parts of the world along with many others in close proximity to Wayne and Pike county. We had the opportunity to meet ham operators from Japan, Holland, Canada, and others from the United States. We spoke to individuals directly connected to victims of the hurricane that caught North Carolina by surprise. The devastation, particularly in North Carolina was fresh on people’s minds and many of the conversations centered on emergency communications. I am convinced we planted several seeds in our visitors’ minds, and hopefully they will replant those seeds with the hurricane victims, family and friends.
We interacted with a mix of all different people from different age groups, different cultures etc. to those who had no idea of what ham radio was. There were many who had thought about ham communication but never did anything about it. It is possible we may see an increase in our membership. Unfortunately, the weather turned bad on Sunday, and we lost 50% of what we hoped for to increase exposure to amateur radio. Those who showed up from our club to make this event happen had a lot of fun, worked hard to get things set up and shared some meaningful memories.
Next up is the Winter Field Day. Let’s get charged up and volunteer! I can’t think of a single event I have participated in that we did not have a whole lot of laughs, shared some good cooking, and personally learned so much about amateur radio. These are perfect events for the novice to learn hands on and give our senior members a chance to share their knowledge and stories. I am a perfect example of receiving that knowledge from our members! Let’s keep up the good work!
Cheers!
