The DARA Club House.
Since the inception of the club, we held most of our membership meetings at several locations. From the early days, we met at the Dayton Engineers Club for several years. Then we moved to Srepco, which we stayed at for several more years. We never had a place that we could call “our home’ Then in the sixties, an agreement was made between the Dayton Museum of Natural History and DARA. We were able to outfit a complete HF Stations on location and as part of the agreement, we would host several special events for the children that came by and for the members of DARA, we would be able to do contesting and HF operating. We kept this station for several years.
Then in the early seventies, A few of our members came across an old AT&T microwave relay station in Huber Heights that they wanted to get rid of. It came up for auction, and we actually won the bid. This was an exciting time for DARA as the Hamvention was growing, so was the DARA membership. A core team of members got together and planned the antenna towers, location, height. Path of the feedlines, guy wires. It took several months of work, good weather and a lot of sweat. Eventually, we got most of the key components installed and we now have a home we can call the W8BI Ham shack.
Many years later, we have updated the building by install a pitched roof. This helps with the heating and cooling and minimize the constant leaks having a flat roof. About the same time we installed a white fence around the property and installed a gate.
In 2008, we then paved the parking lot.