Community

Public service extends well beyond the more occasional emergency situation. CVARC members, like many other hams, volunteer their time and equipment to help with communication during public events, like races and parades, as a way to serve the community. By working with the event organizers, hams can get a message through from one end of an event to the other, helping the organizers stay on top of things. Every ham, regardless of experience has the opportunity to participate and hone their skills at these events.

Everything! Examples include:

• Marathons (full and half, and sometimes simultaneously)
• Smaller runs or fundraising walks
• Emergency Management Agency drills
  • (Primarily pertaining to our local nuclear power plant)
• Triathlons (typically two per  year)
• Holiday events with city officials

This list is not exhaustive. Over the years, we’ve been asked to help with many different things.

Every event includes a briefing, and materials sent out prior to the event. Those are generally sufficient. In some cases we may hold a meeting together to go through the “playbook” of what is expected from everyone. It’s also a great time to ask any questions you may have.

Amateur Radio is a big hobby that covers many interests. There are other local clubs that cater to some of these that you can join in addition to CVARC — or even instead of! But don’t worry, we all get along just fine. In fact, most local hams who belong to a club belong to more than one. Click on a link below to check them out.

• Rockwell Collins Amateur Radio Club (RCARC)
  This is the club at Rockwell Collins (formerly Collins Radio). They have some nice stations set up, and (of course) Collins radios. Membership is limited to Collins employees and retirees due to funding and facilities access. CARC sponsors Linn County’s only DSTAR repeater.
  
  
• Radio Farm
  Just a bunch of fun folks who really enjoy the hobby!  They host a contest station based in a farm house in Linn county.  There are ALWAYS adventures on the farm.
  
  
• Eastern Iowa DX Association
  The Eastern Iowa DX Association, founded in 1975, is a club with interests centered on DXing and contesting. They maintain a local repeater and a packet cluster.
  
  
• Softronics Amateur Radio Club (SARC),  KSØFT – This is the club at Softronics LTD in Marion. Membership is limited to Softronics employees, family members, and retirees.

The most asked question about the repeaters is “Where is the repeater located?”

Single-site 2 meter repeaters are extremely difficult to implement due to the 5kW 600 kHz WMT radio station in town.  The intermod generated between a repeater transmitter and WMT falls directly on the repeater input frequency which makes it nearly impossible to make work.  This is why in Cedar Rapids, all of the 2 meter repeaters use a split-site receiver and transmitter configuration, using physical separation to mitigate the intermod effects.

The 2 meter repeaters in Cedar Rapids all share a receive site which is located at the KCRG tower, in Hiawatha.  The audio from the receivers are sent via various UHF links to the transmitter sites around town and re-transmitted on their respective 2 meter output frequencies.

• The W0GQ transmitters are located on the tower at the Rockwell Collins C Avenue complex.
• The W0WSV transmitters are located at the Hiawatha water tower at Robins Road.

We are very grateful for the continued support we receive from KCRG, Rockwell Collins and the Hiawatha Water Department for hosting our repeater equipment!