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| In 1950 there were five licensed radio amateurs in the village of Walton - W2LZ - Walter Wakeman, W2BR - Sheldon Brink, W2THO - Alton Terry, W2WQU - Carl McCoy, and W2TFL- Paul Rogers. All licensed in the year of 1931 or before. They were friends but no thought of forming a group club. They were all members of the ARRL so in the spring of 1950 when the QST listed the activities for June, the Field Day contest captured the interest of the group. They had an informal meeting to see if they could round up enough equipment to make a try at working as a group in the field. Each of the hams supplied a piece of gear so they ended up with enough equipment to run two stations in the contest: a home brew generator, a squad tent from the national guard armory, antennas strung from tree tops, all at More Park outside Walton. This contest with its comradeship and fun drew the bunch of independent hams together and by the end of summer plans were being made to try again next year. This action brought about the necessity to hold meetings, so W2WQU, Carl McCoy set about to work on some by laws for a formation of a club. He brought his by laws to the group in November 1950 and after a lot of talking and changing the laws were accepted and the group took the name of the Walton Radio Association. W2WQU was voted in as the first president. When other hams in the area learned of the WRA participation in field day exercise the club had an influx of members from Delaware, Chenango and Otsego counties. This brought the membership up to about 25. Field Day was the big program for the WRA but the club began to spread it's attention to service communications for the area. It made contact with the Red Cross and Salvation Army to serve them in times of health and welfare needs in communications. Most all the members of the WRA became members of the Amateur Radio Emergency System which is part of the ARRL organization. There were lots of other events that the WRA sponsored. Dinners were popular out at the area Eateries once a month was a regular fare for several years. Picnics were and are part of the social order. The club each year had inner club contests such as DX contest, QRP contest, work the most counties, work the most states. For all of these contests, the winner got a trophy. They kept the club busy and committed. A whole history could be written on the operations and happenings of Field Day alone but we will reserve that for a future note. Other things that will be covered are the clubs three years with winnings of three prizes: a first, a second and third for best exhibit at the Delaware County Fair. One last note which will have additions in this box later. The WRA repeater which operates under one of the clubs founders call W2LZ on frequency of 146.315 kHz, was built from the donations of members of the club and help from IBM. The repeater was operational on the 16th of September 1993. More on this operation in more history later. There are many other notes which will be added to this page later so please keep watching for the next page. This page was produced, thanks to: Paul Rogers, W2TFL. SILENT KEY |
Last Update Wednesday, October 22, 2008 11:19:01 AM by Webmaster