LWRA Ham Bytes – Week of 8/17/26

It is an amazing thing to see what has happened to our club! If you came to the meeting either in person or via Google Meets you would see the enthusiasm, we have to:
Greeting new folks and make them welcome!

Offer a helping hand to get new folks up and running either by advice or hands on assist. Hear the excitement of folks (even a few seasoned HAMS, isn’t that SPAM) I digress, venture into new realms of this hobby. We had three new members join this week. That is wonderful! Welcome to those who are getting the bird cage liner for the first time. I hope to see you soon and whatever we can do as a group to make your LWRA experience better please let us know.

Russ did a spectacular job with our future outlook for Field Day 27 and reports on the 26. Thank you again to all LWRA who help out with this.

The LWRA has a plethora of things to be grateful for. We have essentially three repeater sites with top notch equipment and spares for most. Very capable folks keep the sites going and then hear folks on the air. I know it could be more, but our LWRA repeater gets exercised quite a bit each day… AND THAT’S A GOOD THING! I hope to hear more drive time and sun setter or daybreak conversation as time goes on.

We will enjoy the Net this week, KB4FHP Mike. We will need all the help we can get on the LWRA UHF machine 442.425Mhz +5MHz offset with 127.3 on both TX and RX. We will operate in the analog mode for this net.

The Question will be “Home built antennas, your cup of tea or not?”

QRP- Getting close to the QRP time. We will be at Crystal Lake Park in Lake Wales 205 N 5Th Street, Lake Wales Fl 33853 talk in 147.330 127.3 TX and RX ( GMRS folks you can use the Bartow repeater for talk in.) I have accepted the challenge to be the hot dog guy. I will fix steamed dogs with regular condiments as well as some homemade hot dog sauce. Come check it out, nowhere as good as Big Dawgs or Top Cat… but I’ll try!

Homemade antennas are the theme (not the requirement) come play radio, play with some else’s radio or just visit and watch.

Saturday August 29th 9-12 (or so) See you there, I hope.
STILL SUMMER SO BRING A DRINK!

We still net a few net controllers for our GMRS associated nets. Third or fourth week on Bartow and W5DBH’s repeater in Haines City.

Dan’s W5DBH Haines City Net on Fridays 462.55 127.3 he needs subs and controllers for his 7 PM Friday net.

I need a third- or fourth-week controller for the Polk GMRS net for Tuesday at 7PM each week. 462.725 141.3. Also, standby subs for all three nets would be great. Let me know about any 863-412-2467

Thanks, Russ, for the celestial updates. Great net reminders on SIGNAL each day… a wonderful tool!

Net information on the next page

If you are NOT on SIGNAL and want info email me jml610@comcast.net.

One last thing.

Check out WINLINK Monday with Gary today, you can find more information on the Polk ARES web site.
Also, Winlink WED is another opportunity.

73 and I hope to ‘see ya on the air.’

Mike
KB4FHP jml610@comcast.net call 863-412-2467