Welcome to the GARA.
GREETINGS Y'ALL FROM COASTAL GEORGIA!
Welcome to the Glynn Amateur Radio Association (GARA) website. GARA is a club of FCC licensed Amateur radio operators located in the Brunswick, Georgia area. We are also known affectionately as "Hams". Brunswick is located on the southeast Georgia coast situated in Glynn county on the Atlantic Ocean. Included are Saint Simons Island and Jekyll Island and this area is often referred to as the "Golden Isles." Adjoining counties include McIntosh, Wayne, Brantley and Camden counties.
The GARA Club owns and operates a 2 meter FM repeater licensed as WX4BWK which is located on the Sydney Lanier Bridge. GARA conducts a weekly net each Thursday evening at 7pm eastern time. Repeater frequency is 145.330 MHz with a tone of 131.8 Hz. Duplex offset is negative 600 Hz. The repeater can also be accessed on Echolink node 903179 (WE8J-R). The repeater and Net are open to all licensed Hams. Of course, a license is not required just to listen.
GARA Club meetings are held on the second Monday of each month at the Golden Corral restaurant in Brunswick at 6pm eastern time. Our Ham "Social" occurs on the last Friday of each month at 6pm eastern time usually at Hardee's. All Hams and those interested in the hobby are invited to attend.
Please feel free to look around our site and click on the provided links for more information. If you are interested in joining the GARA Club, please click on the "JOIN" button for more details.
Please click on the NEWS button above for Ham Radio happenings
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HOT HAM NEWS!!!!
CANCELLATION:
Due to COVID-19, the local monthly Hamburgers-For-Hams meet and eat dinner is cancelled for Friday, 29 May 2020.
FIELD DAY 2020:
The national Amateur radio Field Day (FD) is still planned to take place, but because of the continuing COVID-19 Pandemic, FD 2020 will be different this year. The ARRL organization sponsors the annual FD event and here is a link to their statement about FD 2020:
http://www.arrl.org/covid-19-and-arrl-field-day-2020
REPEATER NEWS
Brunswick now has a VHF Node to access WINLINK:
The callsign is K0TCM at 145.050 MHz.
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The Brunswick area now has two more open Amateur radio repeaters for our general use:
W4FLE
UHF Frequency: 445.740 MHz
Tone: 74.4 KHz
Offset Frequency: 5 MHz
Offset Direction: None (Simplex)
KB4CC
UHF Frequency: 443.025 MHz
Tone: 118.8 KHz
Offset Frequency: 5 MHz
Offset Direction: (+)
(NOTE: In addition to analog FM mode, this repeater will also operate in digital mode (Fusion)).
These repeater antennas rest atop a 100 foot tower and are open for community use. They are located at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) aboard the GLYNCO facility in Glynn county. They are federal government assets for emergency communications, and are also available for use by any FCC licensed amateur. As a part of the Emergency Management effort, the equipment is located in the Emergency Operations Center (EOC). During an actual emergency, this equipment will be manned by federal responders.
Our local community is blessed to have these Department of Homeland Security repeaters! Recently, for three consecutive seasons, our area was hit by two hurricanes and a near miss. Many thanks to Glenn McFarland (W4ULB) for his drive in making the EOC happen and influencing the equipping of the facility. How great is it to have a local Ham involved in this! He is an Emergency Management
Specialist there and leader for the effort!
NOTES:
- The W4FLE machine is cross-banded to the KG4PXG repeater in Dover Bluff, thus it is a Simplex repeater.
- The KB4CC repeater is Yaesu Fusion equipment and is in mixed mode which means it will operate in either analog mode or digital mode. It will work with any radio in analog mode. In order to use in digital mode, it will require a Yaesu Fusion capable radio.
Recommend everyone to try out these repeaters and of course, save the settings in your radio's memory.
