Club House
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.
Welcome to the W8BI Club Site
Dara’s Radio Room is a fully functioning “Ham Shack”, open to all DARA’s members. Guests are welcome to come and operate.
We have several HF Stations, ATV Station, VHF/UHF station, Digital station and Satellite station.
We maintain several repeaters. The photo below shows a portion of the W8BI 146.940- repeater on the left and the W8HEQ D-STAR repeater on the right. The W8RTL D-STAR repeater stack is located at the transmitter tower site of Educational TV Channel 16 WPTD.
2 Meter Repeater
146.940 (-600, 123.0 tone)
220 Repeater
223.94 (- 1.6 MHz, 88.5 tone)
440 Repeater
442.100 (+ 5 MHZ, 123.0 tone)
D-STAR Repeaters
W8RTL (Covers all of Montgomery County and parts of surrounding counties)
- 147.105 +.600 KHz W8RTL^^C
- 443.0500 -5 MHzW8RTL^^B
- 1283.5000 -12 MHzW8RTL^^A DV
- 1249.0000 Simplex W8RTL^^A DD
W8HEQ (Low Profile – Huber Heighrs, N.E. of Dayton) (Marginal Coverage)
- 145.270 +.600 KHz W8HEQ^^C
- 444.0875 +5 MHzW8HEQ^^B
ATV Repeater
421.250 (439.250 MHz)
FAST FORWARD TO 2012 – 2013
Dayton Amateur Radio Association
Club House, Radio Shack and Education Center
In the fall of 2012, the Dayton Amateur Radio Association (DARA) broke ground for an expansion project that was two years in the planning and design phase. Prior to the construction the building consisted of 885 square feet, a single room radio shack, a small meeting room that was crowded with 30 people seated, also had a unisex restroom and another room for our computer servers. All of the clubs business/board meetings, classes and VE testing were conducted in this small meeting room.
Currently the new addition consists of 4,076 square feet.
The meeting/board room has a modern conference/presentation table that can seat 11 people comfortably. Additional seating for 14 members or visitors is provided along the walls. With the addition of a modern audio/visual system, the board room also has the capability to conduct video conferencing and recording.
There is also a large lounge and kitchenette area that can be utilized for social and club events and even have limited presentations on a 70 inch video monitor.
The heart of the expansion is the addition of two meeting/classrooms divided by a movable folding wall that can be opened to form one large room. The west room has a 70 inch video monitor with capability to attach laptop computers for presentations.
The east room has an overhead projector, drop-down video screen and a mobile smart podium that can be moved to any room for presentations. One would connect their computer to the smart podium for projection onto the drop-down screen, monitors or both. Presenters will also have the use of wireless microphones with audio directed to overhead speakers.
These rooms will now support larger groups for meetings, license classes, VE testing and projects. For projects or testing of equipment there are four test/work benches. For security, all rooms throughout the complex have motion sensors and two wide angle EPTZ video cameras with data stored on a multi channel video recorder. LED lighting is the only lighting throughout the new part of the building that will greatly save on energy consumption.
Externally there is a large covered patio with two 6-foot park benches and three picnic tables, with one being an ADA table. Patio is ideal for cookouts.
The radio shack consists of HF, VHF, UHF, Satellite, APRS, Digital and D-STAR transmitting capabilities. Also housed here is an analog 2-meter backup repeater with voting system, both 70cm and 2-meter D-STAR repeaters and an ATV repeater. There are three towers supporting a Force-12, SteppIR, multiple vertical and dipole antennas.
The building now has an occupancy capacity for 244 people. Quite a big change from the fall of 2012.
So now, do we call this a radio shack, club house or an education center? Perhaps all terms are appropriate.