Richfield Amateur Radio Club Members:

I just wanted to reach out to you regarding club membership and the upcoming elections for RARC Officers. I am also a member and received the recent RARC message regarding this.

First, I want to thank all RARC members for their initiative in becoming club members and attending meetings and participating in nets.

I also want to thank those who have stepped forward to serve as RARC Officers and give that much more of their time and effort to fill those roles.

I can remember when the RARC was a larger and long standing organization that was mostly comprised of Richfield Police Reserve Members who served the city and the amateur radio discipline well, they built and maintained the city’s mobile operations centers and set up our first repeater networks. My thanks to them also, and a shout out to Paul Dietzler who kept the repeater paperwork up and was the club President and Trustee pretty much on his own for several years.

A couple of years ago I was asked to try to update the repeaters, our Mobile Operations Center and reinvigorate RARC as the city realized that all those wonderful volunteers who had served for so long had finally retired from service.

I and Chief Henthorne felt this was a great fit for CERT and we Formed the CERT Commo Team and began rebuilding the repeaters, MOC, and reaching out to the community to stimulate RARC.

We have completed installation of two new Yaesu digital repeaters, updated the MOC, and made a great start at having a vibrant RARC which is very important to the city as a resource in many situations.

I know that many of you really love amateur radio but we all have busy lives and stepping forward for leadership roles is intimidating. Tom York, Grand Gartland, Mark Rowe and Don Clay have done fine work as Officers since the beginning of this process, but the job is not done. I hope that several of you will consider stepping up for leadership roles and that as many of you as possible will attend the March 15th 2016 RARC meeting at city hall to participate, we need you! I will continue to serve as Repeater Trustee into 2017.

Respectfully/73: COB

Charlie O’Brien KDØILF

RARC Member/Repeater Trustee
CERT/CitizenCorp Coordinator
Richfield Public Safety