Morris Radio Club Celebrates 50th Anniversary
December 5th, 1999
On Sunday, December 5 members and friends of the Morris Radio Club held a 50th Anniversary brunch at The Exchange restaurant in Rockaway, NJ. As part of the celebration, Club President Robert Carroll read a Proclamation honoring Mr. Edgar M. Weed, K2BO of Morris Township as the only continuously active charter member of the Club. Mr. Weed now age 92 has been an amateur radio operator since 1922 when he first went on the air as 3JF.
Amateur radio has greatly evolved from its beginning in the early 1900s. Some of the radios now used by amateurs are as small as a cell phone. In addition to Morse code, amateurs now communicate via voice (AM, FM, SSB) and a number of data modes. They communicate with amateurs around the world and even bounce signals off the moon and the tails of meteors. Few people are aware that there are over a dozen satellites currently in orbit that amateurs around the world have financed to further amateur communications. The major national organization for amateur radio, the ARRL, has a very informative web site at http://www.arrl.org/
The Morris Radio Club has over 60 members and meets the third Monday of each month (except December) in the Office of Emergency Management at the Morris County Fire and Police Academy on West Hanover Avenue. Visitors are always welcome. Activities of the club include a monthly meeting program, conducting a No-Code training classes for individuals interested in becoming a radio amateur, and classes for amateurs wanting to upgrade their class of FCC license. The club also administers an endowment from which a scholarship is awarded annually to a deserving young amateur entering college. Additional information about the Club is available at the web site http://www.njdxa.org/mrc/
The Morris Radio Club traces its roots back to the spring of 1941 when several local amateurs formed a disaster communications unit for the Red Cross. The equipment needed for the headquarters control station and the mobile units were constructed by the amateurs. The amateurs associated with the Red Cross disaster communications unit were among the first in the nation to be activated under the War Emergency Service (WERS). Under WERS, the amateurs established and equipped WERS radio units in Morristown, Morris Plains and Morris Township.
Following WW-II, twenty-four amateur radio operators including Mr. Weed met on February 23, 1949 to form a radio club to serve Morris County. The initial Constitution and by-laws of the now non-profit Morris Radio Club, Inc. were formally adopted by the membership on June 14, 1949.
In keeping with the Club’s 50 year tradition of service to Morris county, members in 1999 have provided radio communications for a number of area events such as Morristown’s First Night, the St. Patrick’s Day parade, MS-100 Run, the American Diabetes Association Tour De Cure bicycle race, the Maccabi foot race in Whippany, and the Early Childhood Learning Center foot race in Chatham. Many of the club members are active at the county and town level in providing communications through Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) groups. As the result of flooding from hurricane Floyd, many RACES amateurs were involved this year in providing emergency communications. Club members are also involved with the Boy Scouts at Camp Allamuchy where some members have built, equipped and man a "Ham Shack" to demonstrate to the Scouts the worldwide operation of amateur radio.
The club annually participates in the ARRL sponsored Field Day (the fourth weekend in June) in which amateurs all across the United States go into fields and parks and set up antennas, equipment and emergency power to communicate for a 24 hour period to simulate disaster communications. Earlier this year, the Club also operated a special event station at Speedwell Village for the worldwide celebration of International Marconi Day. For these events, the club uses the call W2YD in honor of a now deceased charter member, Mr. Arnie Freeman.
