Montague County Amateur Radio Club
** WX5ARC **

Dear Congressman Thornberry,

Montague County is currently lacking a local NWS Weather Alert station. Currently, only radios connected to outside antennas can pick up the Wichita Falls or Gainesville alert stations. It is important that the residents of this county be able to monitor one of these two NWS Alert stations from their homes without the need for an expensive outside antenna. Better yet, a local station in Bowie, Montague, or Nocona would serve all needs.

I am the 2020 President of Montague County Amateur Radio Club. We are trained Skywarn weather spotters who track and visualize weather phenomenon that is below the NWS ability to see on doppler radar. We report our visualizations directly to the FWD NWS via Echolink and Amateur Radio frequencies. Once FWD obtains our report, it may elect to notify TV stations of life threatening weather or sound the Weather Alert signal station closest that will cause the special radios to alert the owner.

Since we do not have a local TV station in Montague County, many folks do not watch the stations from Wichita Falls due to local cable not carrying them on their schedule. Hopefully you can see that we clearly have an urgent need for a local Weather Alert station in our county. Everyone would be better served when severe weather strikes and the health and safety of our residents would drastically improve.

Regards,

Michael Sherwood

My fellow VEs:

It is time to consider when we should be holding VE Tests Sessions in 2020.  The following are the proposed dates.  Please let me know if there are any issues with these dates.  Of course the time remains at 4:30 PM on these dates:

January 9

March 12

May 14

July 9

September 10

November 12

These dates should all fall on the second Thursday of each of the noted months.  

We may hold a “special” session during the year as needed or requested.

Thank you for your assistance as VEs.  Our candidates are always thankful for the sessions we hold.

73,

Gary

N5DGP

ARRL Radiogram blank worksheet available on the Ham Materials page.

The Club calendar now contains the Nets, Club Meeting, next VE test dates, and Birthdays of members. 

Ham equipment for sale is located HERE.

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Net Control can access and download a Tuesday check-in form.

Member weather stations are now online here.

The ARRL/FCC page now contains the study question pool AND a link to CW practice files on ARRL.

The latest Net Control Calendar is now published. All documents for NC Operators can be had via the Download link under the Tools at top of screen.

Weather training classes are posted and updated as needed.