St. Charles Amateur Radio Club

The St. Charles Amateur Radio Club was organized by a small number of St. Louis area Hams in 1973. Some of the original charter members are still active in the club today. The Club boasts a list of more than 70 members. Over the past 34 years, SCARC members have gladly donated their time by providing reliable communications for many entertainment and charitable events. These include the ADA Bike-A-Thon, Festival St. Louis, St. Louis Scottish Games, Tartan Day celebration, 100 Acre Wood Rally and St. Louis Marathon, just to name a few. Members of SCARC are also trained weather spotters who provide observations to both the National Weather Service and the St. Charles County Emergency Management Agency during times of severe weather. There are 660,000 Amateur Radio operators in the US, and more than 2.5 million around the world. Ham volunteers provide emergency communications for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Citizens' Corps, the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and thousands of state and local agencies all for free! Anyone is welcome to attend our meetings, and any amateur radio operator is welcome to join the organization.

Club History

By Doug Durrett KC7DJI

In January, 1972, a St. Charles ham, WØDF Dave Fine, sent out 200 post cards to local hams inviting them to a meeting. In April of 1972, the first meeting was held. Twenty one people showed up. At the second meeting, seven people were in attendance. The club was growing by leaps and bounds. The club participated in its first Field Day in June, 1972 at Richard Boerding WBØNSM's barn in Orchard Farms. The Orchard Farms Telephone Company 1940's pole truck was used to put up the beam. The club became affiliated with the ARRL on January 16, 1974.

Bill Turner WAØABI organized a group of club members to attempt to put a 2 meter repeater on the air in April, 1974. There were only one or two repeaters in the whole St. Louis area at that time. Members of this group paid a monthly fee of one dollar toward support of the repeater and its operation and maintenance. The O'Fallon water tower was the installation site and the repeater as you know or may not know it still there today. Initially, the repeater carried the call sign WRØADV and was on the present 146.670 VHF frequency which today is WBØHSI. The first Garble was published in October of 1974. It was put together by Gary Leu WAØCXI - now NØGL. It was made up of three pages of information and cost 10 cents to mail. Gary arrived at the name Garble since, according to him, that's the impression one gets when listening to high speed CW. Future editors were Bill WAØABI, John KØFNW, Tim WAØTSY, Ron KOØZ and the present editor, Eric NFØQ. NØGL was the first to use a computer to generate a copy. As an added note, Tim WAØTSY hand colored the Club logo with marking pens for added enhancement on each Garble he mailed out! The club was incorporated with the State of Missouri on February 21, 1975 and the first Hamfest was held on August 22, 1976. The club transitioned to Board of Directors structure in 1977. In December, 1977, there was a club logo contest. Dennis KØDB designed our current club logo.

Meeting sites subsequent to the barn meetings were as follows:

La Petite Academy Date Unknown
Lewis & Clark Technical School Oct, 1974 - June, 1975
St. Charles Savings and Loan July, 1975 - April, 1979
Moose Lodge May, 1979 - December, 1984
McKinley School Mall January, 1985 - December, 1985
St. Peters Senior Center January, 1986 - Present

As you can see, the St. Charles Amateur Radio Club has enjoyed many years of success. With your help and dedication, we can look forward to many, many more years of the same!