Club News & Events

Club News & Events, Contests & Events

DCARC Annual Awards Contest

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What an amazing year we had in 2024! So many fun events and get togethers as we continued to learn from one another and improve in our amazing hobby. The pinnacle of which was our 2nd place finish in the OSPOTA contest. But the year consisted of much more than that one event, as we also participated in Winter Field Day, Summer Field Day, Amateur Radio Day and a few others.

So much fun was had, and it culminated in our club Christmas party as we finished out the year. The party was well attending, the conversation joyful and the food delightful. But as I reflected on everything, it seemed as though there should have been more.

So this year, in 2025, we hope to provide more. This year at our club Christmas party we look to recognize and give awards to radio operators who are furthering our hobby. But rather than just “spring” these awards on you, we want to let you know the categories and let you set them as goals for 2025. The awards are as followed;

1 – WAS (SSB) in 2025
2 – WAS (CW) in 2025
3 – WAS (Digital) in 2025
4 – Most contacts (SSB)
5 – Most contacts (CW)
6 – Most contacts (Digital)
7 – Most total contacts (all modes)
8 – Longest distance unassisted VHF/UHF contact
9 – Attend most DCARA meetings/nets
10 – Attend most events (Breakfast, Summer Field Day, etc)

We hope these goals will encourage you to operate more in 2025. We also hope they will fuel excitement and friendly competition. Also, we hope this will foster discussions for new categories/awards in 2026! From all of us, we hope you have a radio-active 2025!

Club News & Events, Contests & Events

2024 OSPOTA

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On Saturday, September 7th, the DCARC joined together at Independence Dam State Park for the annual Ohio State Parks on the Air contest. Many members came out to experience this contest and either operate a radio, help with logging, or even just provide support. Every member there was appreciated as it was a long day.

Scoring a total of 25,000 points was our goal this year. In recent years that would rank us somewhere in the top 5. But every year is different with some years higher than others. This is based on propagation as well as the number of parks (multipliers) activated.

Propagation was in our favor as we made contacts with 10 DX entities, 39 individual states, 49 different Ohio State Parks, and 511 total contacts. This all added up to a fun but exhausting day. But we believe the work was worth it as we totaled 25,039 points!

Obviously, we are excited for our success. Especially as we look back over the last 10 years from 2013-2023. In those 10 years, K8VON took part in OSPOTA only 5 times. During those 5 outings our highest score previously was in 2023 when we scored 6,270. This was far above the other four outings. In fact, if we added our scores over the 2013-2023 OSPOTA contest, we accumulated just 8,623 points.

That’s right, this year in 2024, we almost tripled our score over the previous ten! That is amazing and speaks to the devotion and dedication of our club to this event. 

All the logs have been submitted, and now we will wait to hear of the results. I will assume that we will hear of the results in early November. After all, that is the regular release date of the results. Until then, rest up, and then get out into the Parks to get ready for next year!

73, Kevin-W8NI

Club News & Events

N8RLB earns Amateur Extra

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During this month’s DCARC meeting last Monday, the club celebrated with Paul in his recent achievement of passing of both the General and Extra exams. While we’re all eager to welcome him to the full spectrum of HF radio, the group was just as eager to partake in the cake!

Congrats again, Paul!

Club News & Events

Boy Scout Klondike Derby

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The Blackswamp Council of the Boy Scouts is hosting the 2024 Klondike Derby this year at Camp Lakota.  It will be held on Saturday, January 20th.  This is an outdoor event that runs from 8:00am till 2:00pm.

They are asking for Amateur Radio support for this event.  The Van Wert club will be coordinating the event and supplying the base radio equipment.  What will be needed is for Hams to be at each of the 8 locations on the event route to provide any communications back to the base.  No one knows what the weather will be like that day so plan for cold and blustery.  We should get a time to be there soon. Also any frequencies that you might have to program into your handheld.

Please let me know if you can help out all or part of the day. I have to get a head count back to the planners pretty quick. Thanks.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
73 John

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