License Classes
The Bellbrook Amateur Radio Club holds entry level (Technician Class) Amateur Radio license classes each spring and fall, starting the Sunday after Labor Day and the Sunday after the Super Bowl. For more information and registration instructions, click here. The classes are followed by an exam session. Both the classes and the exam session are free. See the Greene County ARES website gcares.net for information about the General and Amateur Extra license classes.
Amateur radio is authorized by the FCC and you must register with the FCC and obtain an FCC Registration Number (FRN) before getting a license. To visit the FCC website and login or register, click here.
Past Presentations
Copies of handouts and slides from past BARC Education Programs as well as additional educational material can be found here. The Education Calendar for future events can be found here.
Skills Night is Now Operating Afternoon!
Skills Night is being replaced with Operating Afternoon. Feedback from the Membership suggested more operating opportunities during the day rather than always in the evening. Operating Afternoon will be held the first Sunday of each month at 2:00 pm. Watch the website for information. These will be opportunities for members to work the radios at the clubhouse with specific goals in mind such as Parks on the Air or non-competitive Contesting for education purposes. New hams are especially encouraged to take advantage of Operating Afternoons. There will be several Mentor’s on hand to help answer questions and get you on the air.
Logging
Click here to view a special Operating Afternoon tutorial on Logging presented by John Westerkamp, W8LRJ.
Programming Your HT or Mobile Radio
Programming your new HT or mobile radio is easy using Chirp! The software is available for free download and runs on Windows, MacOS, and Linux. This presentation provides a step-by-step guide to using Chirp and importing a list a repeaters from the Internet. Although it is specific to the Baofeng UV-5R, using Chirp is the same for any radio. If you have several HT’s and mobiles, you can easily program all your radios at once with the same repeater info!
Download Baofeng Programming Tutorial.
Chirp CSV to program your Baofeng UV-5R Radio Be sure to read from your radio and save the original image first before using this one, just in case. You should also change the callsign and name in the Power-On message under Settings…Other Settings.
There is also a spreadsheet you can print or save that summarizes all the programmed repeaters and the clubs with which they are associated (thank you Jordan Rio, WF3G). Repeaters marked in green are the most popular local repeaters. You can also hover over the red square in the corner of some repeaters to get information on nets for that repeater.
Mentor’s Notebook
What Do I Do Now?
Congratulations on getting your license and welcome to ham radio! It is natural to have lots of questions and to wonder what you should do next or how to get on the air. This Mentor’s Notebook is intended to help you get started and answer many of the questions that new hams have. But what is a Mentor? A Mentor is an experienced amateur radio operator who acts as a teacher and guide for a new ham. These people used to be called Elmers in the jargon of amateur radio.
This notebook is mainly a local guide for what you can do in the Miami Valley now that you are a licensed amateur radio operator. There are sections on purchasing a radio, how repeaters work and a list of local repeaters, and some tips on programming your new radio. The appendix contains several, useful guides you can print out and keep near your home station. Be sure to take advantage of the Mentors listed in this guide. They are always happy to answer all your questions. Hams are great people so don’t be afraid to contact them!
The Bellbrook Amateur Radio Club (BARC) and the BARC Education Committee sponsor this notebook. Please consider attending a BARC Membership meeting on the third Thursday of every month and join the fun. For more information, visit the BARC website at bellbrookarc.org. In addition to this Notebook as a guide for new hams, the Amateur Radio Relay League (ARRL), the National organization for amateur radio in the U.S., puts out a podcast for new hams titled “So Now What?” You can access that podcast at the ARRL website at arrl.org/so-now-what. There are a lot more resources for new hams at ARRL.
Download the Mentor’s Notebook.