A Little Club History…

…of BRARC as Recalled by John Helm, WA8PRJ/SK

(The date of this writing is unknown, but likely around 1999)

Before my days as an amateur radio operator, the Van Buren County area of Michigan had one club called the Van Buren County Amateur Radio Club.  It was eventually incorporated.

Many amateurs were a part of this club from counties surrounding Van Buren.  I joined this club in the middle 1960s, and we met monthly in different hams’ homes.

At that time, we only communicated on the lower bands and on 6 meters.  Some adventurous souls purchased 2-meter equipment, which was AM then. 

Most of us used HealthKit equipment called a “tower” which had a super regenerative receiver and only a couple vacuum tubes.  Besides events, we only had CW nets for practice and the 2- and 6-meter activity.  Most low band stuff was by individual efforts.  At meetings, members used to show off things they built and explain experiences they had in past days on the airwaves.  The annual Field Day Emergency Test was the big chance prove how good we were as operators.  It was a very big event for the club.

In the1970s, Bob Garvison W8RWK, used some obsolete 6-meter FM police equipment to build a repeater at the current repeater site and his home.  It was also linked by telephone line.  The er 52.640 MHz receiver was at the tower, and the 52.525 MHz transmitter was at Bob’s home.  52.525 MHz was also the simplex frequency for 6 meters.  You could use either simplex or duplex to raise someone.

Fewer than a dozen people took advantage of this.  I was unable to make it work on both simplex and duplex so I chose to use it on simplex, not using the repeater.  I had about three monitoring people to talk to most of the time within 20 miles from my QTH.  My wife and I used 6 meters up to the time I purchased my first 2-meter HealthKit.  HealthKit was a very popular brand among amateurs and still is missed.

Around the mid-1970s, the Radio Shack store owned by Dick Kingdon–also a ham–started the Black River Amateur Radio Club.  You could say he was the founder of the BRARC.  He found local interest from several young hams in the South Haven area.  

They wanted to join the Van Buren ARC, and they attended for several months.  However, they wanted to eliminate the travel to Bangor. They started holding meetings at the Radio Shack store in South Haven, thus forming the club and giving its name.  By the late 1970’s, the Van Buren ARC became inactive, and many of the active members migrated to the BRARC from VBARC.  

In the very late 1970s, a tragedy came about when a young ham and HealthKit engineer named Alan Fidelman was killed in an automobile accident.  He was not interested in the either club but wanted a 2-meter repeater so he could talk to Benton Harbor to his QTH in South Haven.  He used an old HealthKit HW202 which was one of the first two-meter crystal FM radios.  The newly-formed BRARC members were interested in a 2-meter repeater and started to help him with his personal project.

Due to not having much usage on the 6-meter repeater, Bob Garvison gave the site to Allen for the 2-meter project.

Alan also wanted to build a communications trailer. I remember that an old house trailer in bad shape was purchased for less than $100. The group spent several weekends gutting the unit and putting in benches, carpet and then painting it.  

In the spring of 1980, that trailer was finished and looked great.  The members involved in reconstructing the trailer wanted to dedicate it in Al’s memory. His family were so receptive to the idea and put on a dinner for the group and donated a complete station of Al’s for use in the trailer.

About a couple weeks later, multiple tornadoes went through the area starting at Van Auken Lake area near McDonald, Michigan. They cut a path to the city of Kalamazoo causing much damage.  The Amateur Radio RACES Emergency Coordinator at the time was Ed Alderman, KI8Z.  

The club members and the trailer provided communications for the American Red Cross coming from southern states during the next two to three weeks.  The club also helped feed over 300 victims and residents from its location in Glendale Michigan. Members also provided transportation to check on missing persons and as well as the delivering the food.  The county did not really support us at the time, so the club was on its own. The Red Cross was grateful for our efforts.

Eventually the BRARC became the only amateur radio club in Van Buren County. BRARC started improving its 2-meter capabilities with antenna up grades and equipment changes.  

The original setup was somewhat crude. A battery with a hole in it and a charger were located at Bob Garvison’s home. The transmitter ran with 15 watts. It was then amplified to 40 watts and was driven by a HealthKit HW-202 into a tower at the same location. The unit was mounted on the wall in an old, well-vented electrical box. The receiver was linked by telephone wires to the Bangor tower at the city water reservoir.  The receiver was half of the HW-202 transceiver and finally added a 20-dB preamp. It was hung by two screws in a very nice-looking radio cabinet on a stand.  

As with the transmitter, wires hung everywhere inside the cabinet and were not shielded to the standards we encourage now! However, the repeater really covered the area well. As well, we were having interference problems at the Garvison home resulting in messing up the TV.  Bob recommended that we swap receive and transmit (?) which fixed the problem.

The city made us pull in the antenna from a full wavelength to a quarter wavelength resulting in a loss of coverage. The leased lines were removed because of budget cut-backs. As a result, we rebuilt the station, using cavities and moving the equipment single, larger cabinet.

A ham and FCC employee, Dick Bold, built these cavities. The cavities were purchase for 100 dollars but were not good enough to operate just one antenna. So, two were required.  This caused a loss in coverage.

Later, the tower to the east was added resulting in a null toward Kalamazoo. Many thoughts were presented to fix our problem.  We tried many things. At first, we used a dipole which was already there and inverted a Ringo at the bottom of the dipole for the transmitter.   We lost much coverage, but it still served us well enough.  Eventually, we change the Ringo to a G7 antenna.  The next change was with the help of Cushcraft engineers and they recommended the dual dipoles we are using today.  

There were a few interference problems over the years. Lightning caused wiring at the telephone company to become shorted, resulting in interference with the public transit radio phone link. Another time, a crystal went bad and we were transmitting on two different frequencies at the same time. Some time later, the FCC recommended an upgrade due to interference we were experiencing from two different digipeaters—one in South Haven and one in Kalamazoo. They were each 600KHz apart, and when both transmitted at the same time, it caused our repeater to lock on. We added a pre-selector as a result of this and the recommendation.

We are now upgrading into the next century.  We have purchased a new trailer to add to our capabilities.  This new trailer is much larger than our older one, which is still in service.  The new trailer provides improved capabilities and allows room for supported government agencies.  

The repeater also is now in process of having a facelift too. We will be adding a new controller we purchased in the past few years. Also, a telephone patch may be just around the corner!

Many newcomers may never know the growing pains the area hams had, but the combined efforts made a difference.  I have met, worked with and been helped by many hams in this area. I would not have room enough to write their names and calls down.  Although I haven not mentioned them, I will always remember them. It is my hope that each and every ham enjoys the hobby as I have and makes their own memories.