News
WARA Featured In Milford Living Magazine!
In the Spring 2019 edition of Milford Living, WARA was featured for its outstanding outreach and engagement in the Woodmont community through Amateur Radio! Congratulations to all for this exciting coverage.
For the full article, check here.
Field Day 2023 Is Getting Closer
2023 ARRL Field Day is June 24-25
ARRL Field Day is always held on the 4th full weekend in June.
Field Day is ham radio's open house. Every June, more than 40,000 hams throughout North America set up temporary transmitting stations in public places to demonstrate ham radio's science, skill and service to our communities and our nation. It combines public service, emergency preparedness, community outreach, and technical skills all in a single event. Field Day has been an annual event since 1933, and remains the most popular event in ham radio.
The Woodmont Amateur Radio Association will once again spread out over the Trubee Doolittle Park in the Borough of Woodmont, Connecticut.
Woodmont Hams Participate in Winter Exercise.
The Woodmont Amateur Radio Association positioned its Mobile Communications Unit at Fowler Field this past Saturday and Sunday to participate in a 24-hour communications event called Winter Field Day.
Inside the trailer one could have visited a small control room with people talking, or using morse code or computers connected to radios with graphic displays showing all kinds of information. A large screen showing a map of the US and Canada with many sections of the states and provinces marked in different colors or a list of locations and a score board could be found at one end.
One could have overheard this strange conversation. “Whisky One Whiskey Delta Tango calling field day”, “Kilo One Alpha Uniform Sierra please copy my Mike Two Charlie Tango”, “I copy your Hotel 1 Mike Tango, QSL and good luck”. W1WDT, the Woodmont Amateur Radio Association (WARA) in Milford, CT had just contacted K1AUS in Billings, Montana as part of the Winter Field Day exercise and contest. While this may sound like a foreign language, it is the norm in contest contacts.
The purpose of Winter Field Day is to practice setting up a nationwide independent communications network that is completely independent of any infrastructure. If there had been a true disaster this past weekend that knocked down communications and power lines as well as cell towers and other conventional modes of communications, the Amateur Radio Operators, a.k.a HAMS, in that trailer would have been able to make contact with over 171 stations in 37 states and 3 Canadian provinces with welfare messages for families or emergency messages for FEMA, the Red Cross and other governmental and non-governmental agencies.
The contest component is to make the excise fun. Stations receive various points for each contact and extra points for each of the 84 sections in the US and Canada. The Woodmont Team earned 780 points for contacts plus a few hundred points in bonuses.
QRPer Article
One of our members, Conrad, is an avid POTA activator. He published a field report for one of his activations in the QRPer. Find the full text here: https://qrper.com/2023/01/conrad-packs-the-elecraft-kx3-and-ax1-for-a-new-york-city-pota-rove/
Climb to the Clouds - Mount Washington, New Hampshire
The Woodmont Amateur Radio Association assisted the New Hampshire Sports Car Club in providing radio communications for the event. Members of the club joined forces with approximately 50 hams to provide radio communications for the 3 day event in August 2021. The event required 2 different nets to be conducted in order to provide both safety and progress of competitors as they raced up the mountain road.
Article in CT Post about WARA and Ham Radio
There's been an article about WARA in the CT Post! On the 8th, reporters visited us at the Woodmont borough hall, and they wrote up an article about our club and general activities of hams. It talks about topics like how ham radio differs from CB radio, what uses it can have in a public service and emergency aspect, and what you can do with it. Check out the full article here.
WARA Mug Fundraiser
WARA has a new fundraiser! 12 ounce coffee mugs are for sale in the borough hall to raise money for our activities.
Please help us raise funds for STEM projects and equipment purchases. By purchasing a mug for $15 or 2 for $25, 100% of the sales goes to help us achieve our goals. If you would like to purchase one please contact us at warapres@gmail.com or simply stop by at our regularly monthly meetings on the second of every month at the Woodmont Borough Hall at 128 Kings Highway, Milford. Thanks for you continued support.
WARA Spearheads Connecticut's Entrance into the New England AREDN Mesh Network
Robert, WA1RJJ, has established the first Connecticut-based ARDEN Mesh node with connectivity to the greater New England Mesh network, administered by Jay, K1EHZ in New Hampshire, and Bill, NG1P in Maine. The AREDN node is in communications room located at the Woodmont EOC in Woodmont, Connecticut.
Utilizing the node naming convention standardized by the pair, Robert has now extended the Mesh connectivity in New England to five states.
Connectivity with ARRL Headquarters, in Newington, Connecticut is also imminent, following "some housecleaning" that needs to be completed on the Newington side. Plans are also underway for RF linking to Bridgeport and Westport. Also being explored are RF links to the VA Hospital in West Haven, with eyes on expanding into New Haven. A cross-sound RF link is also being explored.
Transient AREDN Mesh nodes are also being used in support of events such as the Milford Oysterfest and the New York City Marathon.
You can learn more about AREDN by going to arednmesh.org
More information on the status of Mesh Networking in New England is found at: nediv.arrl.org/spectrum-protection-use.
WARA High Altitude Balloon Launch Coming!
WARA is currently building and launching a state-of-the-art hot air balloon soon, which will broadcast its location and telemetry (APRS) using home-brewed Arduino kits. Arduino is an affordable and open-source platform for building custom electronics and integrates seamlessly into amateur radio. The balloon will also feature a number of inertial (IMUs) and atmospheric (elevation, speed, pressure, and temperature) sensors, in addition to broadcasting SSTV over the air. Come help us make history with WARA's first-ever balloon launch!
Most recently updated Feb 23, 2023