The next WVRA club meeting will be held on September 7th at the Wausau Marshfield Clinic, Talk-in on the 147.135/146.865 PL114.8 linked system. The next WVRA Board Meeting will be August 17th 2010, 7:00pm, at Godfathers Pizza in Schofield.
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Paul Harvey
March 19, 2003- America's quiet warriors are the legion of ham radio operators, 700,000 of them, who are always at ready for backup duty in emergencies--amateur, unpaid, uncelebrated, civilian radio operators, during and after floods and fires and tornadoes. After the 9/11 attacks, hams were indispensable in reuniting friends and families. Most recently it was they who expedited the search for debris after the disaster to the space shuttle Columbia, and right now, at this moment, they are involved in homeland security to a greater degree than you would want me to make public.
- Paul Harvey
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The Wausau Balloon Rally & Glow has become one of the WVRA member's favorite events.
This multi-day event has something for everyone…live music, food, children’s rides, plane rides, kite-flying demonstrations, a spectacular fireworks show, and of course the awesome hot air balloons! The size continues to grow every year.
Friday night saw a few ballons get off the ground and a number stayed around for the glow. Saturday morning, winds were calm and out of the south, so better than a dozen launched and navigated northward. Saturday afternoon, the Wausau area was impacted by a severe storm that came through. This kepts winds at or above 10mph until late, so balloons stayed grounded and no glow was held. The fireworks, once again, were awesome!!
We had plenty of folks come out to help, but trust me, MORE are always welcome! Special "Thank You" to the folks from the Merrill Amateur Radio Group for lending us a hand.
Field Day 2010 RECAP
The idea behind Field Day is for amateur radio operators to come together and collect as many call signs from amateur radio stations across the US, its territories and Canada. And while the 24-hour set up (that began on Saturday 1 p.m.) is geared as a contest, the station that collects the most call signs wins, the real exercise is to ensure communications in the event of a natural or man-made crisis.
So, no matter how you look at the WVRA’s 2010 Field Day event, you can’t be disappointed.
From the contesters point of view, (and I’m truly adding my own opinion to this), we did great! Strong storms moving in from the west Saturday evening created quite noisy conditions on 40M and 80M. The WVRA night crew, watching the weather and deciding to take no chances, shut down operations through the overnight hours of early Sunday morning for about 5-6 hours. Everything was back up running again by 0600 am. We totaled about 832 contacts.
Why am I so excited about this year? Well, I’ve been with the WVRA for six Field Days and I have never seen so MUCH participation behind the microphone! As some know, I came from a heavily dedicated contesting club. Basic rule is to never let the mic get cold and this year, it seemed like almost everyone took a turn and spent some time either logging or making some contacts! The participation was amazing and you all deserve credit for making the effort to try the contesting aspect of Field Day! Was it fun?
As far as the emergency preparedness exercise, we may be a touch more elaborate than what’s needed in an actual emergency, but that’s ok. This is how we train. If it had been an actual emergency, I’m confident we have the basics down.
If you had a part to play in the planning of this year’s Field Day, give yourself a pat on the back, you all deserve it.
If you didn’t help in the planning, but took the time to show up and mingle or participate, the rest of us say “Thank you for coming out” and hope you’ll come back again next year. You are all another reason why we get excited to host Field Day again and again!
Take some time and browse through this years pictures in our photo gallery.
Due to a large uptick in the amount of spam the the old club board e-mail address of board@wvraclub.org is receiving, it was decided to change the reflector to a new e-mail address to protect the board members from spam and the dangers that could come with them. The new board e-mail address is (don't worry, the spam bots can't read the way this e-mail address is listed.) Please update your address book with the new address as the old address will be taken down on Tuesday the 20th when the new board takes over.
Your 2010 WVRA Board members are:
President: Kim Baumann - KC9LFH
Vice President: Travis Augustine - W9HDG
Secretary - Stephanie Augustine - KC9LBD
Treasurer: Brent Schaefer - K9MIX
Director (Equipment Manager:) Dave Levorson - N9KNY
Director (Net Manager:) Dave Peters - KC9LFG
Director (Public Activities and Education:) - Dan Sharpe - KB9RXA
Congratulations to all who were elected! If you need to contact the new board before the April Board meeting, feel free to e-mail them at their callsign at WVRACLUB.ORG
Serving Central Wisconsin since 1934 An ARRL Affiliated Club since February 1st, 1935 An ARRL Special Service Club since February 27th, 1998
WVRA Club Systems
The WVRA Club open systems throughout Marathon County.
Updates on all the club systems, whether it be a voice or digital system, can be found on the web page for that particular system.
Wisconsin Valley Radio Association PO Box 363 Wausau, WI 54402.
If you would like to make a suggestion to the WVRA, you canprint this form, fill it outand mail it to the club or bring it to a club meeting and give it to a board member.
Pick n' Save Contributions
Just a reminder that the WVRA is a registered non-profit organization for the Pick n' Save We Care Community Dollar Program.
Please consider selecting the WVRA as one of your designated organizations. This can be done at the service desk at any of the Pick n' Save grocery stores. Our organization number is 942660.
The more people that select the club as one of their recipients means the club receives more money from the We Care program.
New Email Address Reminder
If you have changed your email address since you joined the club, please notify Brent Schaefer K9MIX so that the club roster can be changed.
Also contact the email coordinators Travis Augustine W9HDG or Jon Gelhaus KC9AEJ so that the club email reflector can be changed.
The WVRA has compiled a list of people who are willing to elmer other hams or people interested in amateur radio and answer questions for them and help them out if needed. The areas of interest could be HF, antennas, Packet, APRS, SKYWARN, ARES, contesting, or anything else you can think of. We will publish the list of volunteers here and their areas that they would like to answer questions for, so that other hams can contact the correct people to get their questions answered. If you would like to volunteer to be one of the "Experts", please email Travis W9HDG, with your name and area or areas of interest. The Elmer's can be contacted either on one of the club repeaters or by email at their callsign at wvraclub.org. If you would like to contact all the Elmer's with your question, they can be reached at
The WVRA 147.135 (114.8)/146.865 (114.8) is the official primary Marathon County SKYWARN repeater system.
Just a reminder that if you hear a SKYWARN net in progress, please hold your traffic until after the net has ended. The Rib Mountain Repeater Association (RMRA) 444.300 repeater will now be used as the primary link to NOAA weather at Green Bay for the region using IRLP, node number 4380.
To send e-mail to any member of the WVRA, just e-mail them at their call sign@wvraclub.org. We are trying to remove all e-mail links on this website due to spam problems.
Copyright 2010 Wisconsin Valley Radio Association, all rights reserved.
