Our Association’s History

The Schoharie County Amateur Radio Association (SCARA) was established by a group of Schoharie County amateurs, along with a few from "just over the County line" in 1946. That date is based on the "best we can find" from old club records and "recall of conversations" with some of the original group, now all "Silent Keys".

If you recall your US History lessons, during WWII, amateur radio was "shut down". There were several reasons:  we were being “called to duty” in the Armed Services and Merchant Marine, much of our equipment was being “loaned” to the government (we had better receivers than many of the military units). But, the biggest reason was fear that AXIS powers would monitor Amateur Radio transmissions and use them as “direction finding” to guide their aircraft, and naval vessels, to US targets. It went as far as the government requesting hams to “get rid of their antennas” so that espionage agents could not “make use of them”, in whatever devious manner the spies might envision.

Come the end of hostilities the GIs came home and gradually the HAMS regained some operating privileges. Initially, at the end of hostilities in 1945 we got our VHF frequencies back. Then, in 1946 we regained our HF privileges.

Schoharie County HAMS found it somewhat difficult to communicate on HF due to the vagaries of propagation and RF physics. Guys in Cobleskill could not work Richmondville or Esperance or Middleburgh or Schoharie, and the reverse applied. Sometimes the Cobleskill ops could get a signal down to Gilboa or Jefferson but even that could be difficult. Never mind some of the “hollows” like West Fulton or Breakabeen.

AH! Remember that we did have some limited VHF frequencies – 2 meters. AND, in a renewed effort to “be prepared” our federal government, along with the Federal Communication Commission established something call “The Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service” abbreviated RACES. RACES came under the jurisdiction of something called “Civil Defense”, commonly called “CD” the ancestor of what we now call the Office of Emergency Management.

OH! How can CD be assured that RACES members would be “available when needed” and have the necessary equipment to maintain communication? Enter onto the seen a gentleman named Faust Gonset. He formed a radio manufacturing company called “GONSET”. Under government contract he mass produced a “portable VHF Transceiver” called the “GONSET Communicator II”. It was AM voice only and ran about 10 watts, on a good day, with “fresh” tubes. The receiver was “as broad as a barn door”. You could hear aircraft overhead as they were communicating with the tower. The transmit frequency was crystal controlled. The rig was issued with the crystal for your counties assigned CD frequency. Each rig contained 3 “modules”, a receiver, a transmitter and a power supply. The rig was easy to “tune-up” using the green “MAGIC EYE” tuning indicator – “peak each stage” for maximum closure of the “eye”. The rig contained a manual T/R switch, an SO-239 RF connector and came with a microphone that seemed to weigh about a pound. The rig was designed to be “super easy to use”, even a non-technical person could operate it. It was VERY forgiving. I remember experimenting with some fellow hams “to see what we could do in an emergency”. We actually “loaded up” and conducted 2-way ops with a 25 watt incandescent lamp AND, get this, a metal ball point pen refill! The rigs came in either 6 or 2 meter versions and most were “CD Yellow” with the CD symbol on the side. That was so we were easily identified as “official” if we had to set up ops at some location other than our shack. Gonset later developed a “Communicator III” which was not widely distributed. His “Communicator IV” – what an improvement, 6 crystal slots, front panel selectable and nearly 20 watts if I recall. It had a MUCH better receiver and a meter, not a magic eye. Gonset also made an amplifier in the 100 watt range, if I recall, for use at CD headquarters. His last product, introduced in the late 1960s was a “Sidewinder”. It was another 20 watt wonder but could run Single Side-band (hence the name), CW or AM.

 With that bit of background, that is how our club became associated with CD and RACES. Everybody in the club was also a member of RACES.

BTW:

RACES is an official Federal Function and can only be activated during a “declared” by a governmental official situation.

ARES – the Amateur Radio Emergency Service is an ARRL Service and can operate for nearly ANY reason such as, canoe races, marathons, search ops, Red Cross functions. It does NOT have to be an “official governmental operation”. We began our ARRL affiliation in 1953, per ARRL records.

Well, to continue, yes, having 2 meters available, we now had much more reliable “in County” communications available. Not perfect mind you, but much better. Yes, most of the ops, unless they had a really good location on a hill or an area where the horizon “drops away in all directions” did need a beam, perhaps 6 to 11 elements depending on location and a TV type rotator.

 BUT WE WANTED SOMETHING BETTER!

In the mid 1960’s some “commercial” transceivers, taken out of service as new equipment became available, often from taxis or two-way shops, hit the ham-fests.

Interesting stuff, 25 or 30 watts, vacuum tube of course, and using a “strange form of modulation” – FM. Names like Motorola, GE and such. WOW, this stuff worked and could easily be “re tuned” to the 2 meter band, restricted at that time to the 145.5 to 147 segment. The 145 – 147 segment was the “Novice and technician” segment but Generals could also use it and 144 to 145 was General only. 144 – 144.10 was CW only. 147 to 148 was also Generals only.

Guess what we soon discovered was for inter County communications FM was better than AM. Not perfect but better. Well, well, if that FM stuff worked, maybe, just maybe, we should “go a step further” and adopt another commercial idea. Locate the antenna up as high as possible – good for some, but not all of us, OR, those commercial guys developed a way to have their communications go to a receiver on a tall building or mountain-top, feed the receiver output into a transmitter in the same allowed frequency range and “repeat” the communication over a much larger area.

So, here enters a Union College Electronics Grad, Bob Kling, W2KQW, from Lawyersville, NY. He owned a TV repair shop. He also began “tinkering with” and converting commercial rigs to amateur use. Bob and a couple of others said “lets’ find a place” where we can locate a repeater.

“Hey guys”, the DEC fire-tower on Petersburgh Mountain has been declared surplus. The club contacted the DEC and negotiated a 99 year lease for use of the tower, FOR A BUCK! At the time, County communications was at a site on Greenbush Road, a pretty good location but due to geography there were MANY “dead zones”. The sheriff patrols often found themselves without communications. At a couple of events, and listening to our activities, the LAW, ie: Sheriff John Goldswer, asked “how the heck” do you guys do it. Us, wearing the white hats and community minded explained “it is our location”. Over a couple of weekends we performed tests for County, operating mobile from every town, village and hollow. Signal strengths and quality were measured and recorded. Some deputies “rode along” with the HAMS into locations where they said they could not communicate with dispatch and we had communications. They were impressed. The club negotiated with the Sheriff to have his department relocate to Petersburgh provided out antenna would, in perpetuity always have the high spot, NEVER lower. That is why our antenna is at the height it is. The County would “take over the lease”.

 Don’t you know – the company servicing the Sheriffs radios could not believe our test results and said they would not relocate the equipment off Greenbush (their site) unless Petersburgh really was far better than the Greenbush site. They actually had the nerve to charge the County about $25,000.00 to do the “site survey”.