On April 3, 1974, an F-5 Tornado swept through Xenia, OH, as part of the 1974 Super Outbreak. This tornado caused significant damage throughout Xenia and the immediately surrounding areas and killed thirty-two (32) people.
After the community rebuilt, several amateur radio operators noticed a lack of trained weather spotters, an organized approach to reporting severe weather in the community, and a technical means to report severe weather in a timely manner to local authorities as well as the National Weather Service (NWS).
Shortly thereafter, Xenia Weather Amateur Radio Net (XWARN) was formed as a club primarily consisting of amateur radio operators who were cross trained by the National Weather Service as weather spotters. XWARN’s main purpose was, and still is, to provide information to the public and appropriate authorities in emergencies, including severe weather, using amateur radio as a tool. Secondarily, XWARN is an amateur radio club (now Ohio non-profit domestic corporation).
To better prepare ourselves to support real emergencies, XWARN, like many other amateur radio clubs, provides communications support to public events – marathons, 5K, etc – as resources permit. For both public events and actual emergency operations, XWARN maintains a communications trailer with a small work space.
XWARN maintains a Hall of Honor to recognize members who have gone above and beyond the call in supporting our these organizational goals.
Finally, we recognize Truman Boerkoel, K8JUG (SK). Truman was a founding member of XWARN and the man who first put XWARN on the internet back in 1998.
501(c)(3) Tax-Exempt Status
As part of the process of becoming an Ohio domestic non-profit corporation, XWARN embarked on a process to update our Bylaws, which are now separated into a Code of Regulations and an administrative Operations Manual. IRS application materials for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status are available upon request.
For reference, here is the original About Us informaiton:
Xenia Weather Amateur Radio Net
Xenia, Ohio U.S.A
XWARN was established for the primary purpose of supporting the citizens and the Public Service Agencies of Xenia with manpower and resources to provide Backup Communications Support. XWARN still serves this purpose 35 years later, and has grown to be able to do the same for additional areas of Greene County Ohio. Working in coordination with the Greene County Amateur Radio service (GCARES) and when needed other Amateur Radio Clubs in the area. XWARN, In cooperation with Skywarn, also acts as the eyes and ears of the National Weather Service during times of severe weather. Additionally, XWARN currently has the ability to go mobile and provide communications support in the more remote and hilly areas of the county…..
In addition to this, club members also support a wide variety of civic functions by providing communications support for parades, cycling events, horseback riding events, marathons and other running events, fall festival traffic flow, and hot air balloon events. We do it all using our own equipment, vehicles and transportation costs.. XWARN also participates regularly in the annual ARRL Field Day event that is held every year on the 3rd weekend in June. Volunteerism is alive and well in THE GREENE COUNTY AREA!
We have members who have special interests in amateur television, satellite communications, VHF weak signal DX, VHF & HF Packet, HF Amtor & Pactor, APRS, and HF DX operations. Other interests of some of our members include amateur meteorology, computer technology, geo-caching, musical performance, bicycling, and on and on.
Twice a year, spring and winter, we co-sponsor, with GCARES and other Greene County amatuer clubs, an amateur radio education program. We teachi classes to help individual get their first Technician Class License, or upgrade to a General or Extra class license. Many of our present club members became licensed Hams because of these classes.
The club owns and maintains an open 2-meter repeater system on 147.165 (pl 123hz) which is located on a tower just south of Xenia. The repeater has approximately 160 watt output and is located on the highest point in Greene County. There are three remote receive sites throughout the county which are linked back to the main transmit site, making hand held communications quite possible over most of Greene County, as well as in parts of surrounding counties. Most of the system is a no-tone required system. The 100hz tone is only required to be able to be received byour highest profile receive site.
XWARN also owns and operates a 440 machine on 443.100+ (pl 123hz) near the southern Greene County / Montgomery County line.
XWARN is also fortunate to have a special relationship with the Dayton Amateur Radio Association (DARA), the club that hosts the Dayton Hamvention every year. This agreement allows XWARN to be the Exclusive Source for the Official Dayton Hamvention T-Shirt and sweatshirts. We always have our T-Shirt Concession at Hamvention outside in the in spots 101, 102, 103, Right near the entrance to the Flea Market and the Hara Arena main doors.
Feel free to cruise our website, our Town, and our County, and even if you are not a Ham Radio Operator, we invite you to join us for any of our monthly meetings held on the 2nd Monday of the month. Check out the rest of this website for details. To contact us go to our Contact Us page, or just email the group of us at info@xwarn.net
Thanks for stopping by and reading our pages.
73!
de W8XRN
Our History
XWARN did not exist at the time of the April 3 1974 Xenia Tornado,
The club was formed because of it. Well, that and a scheduling conflict.
Jim Simpson WB8QZZ was looking to get involved with a radio club. Back then the Bellbrook Amateur Radio Club (BARC) was the only Radio club in Greene County, and their meetings were held on Thursday evenings once a month. This presented a problem. At that time Jim was teaching school on Thursday evenings
Being a driven soul, Jim asked the BARC club if they would consider changing their meeting night. Understandably, this request was denied. And so Jim made the decision to see if there was enough interest in the Xenia area to start another club. He chose to start a Xenia radio club and sent out a distribution requesting every ham in Greene County to attend.
In 1974 the internet was pretty much just an experiment for colleges and the military, and so It Jim had to compile the list of addresses of local Hams the hard way, so it took him considerable time to gather this information. After several weeks of chasing names, Jim sent out a request to meet and discuss starting a radio club in Xenia to every ham in Greene County. “To my surprise I had over 30 people show up. I was quite astounded at the turnout but at the same time very pleased. During this start-up, Noel McKeown WB8QQC and I became friends and he assisted greatly in the beginnings and formation of XWARN’s existence” recalls Jim.
One meeting after another, the founding members to be put it all together, including electing officers, and after several months decided to investigate getting a repeater. At that time there were no 2 meter frequencies available but had an ace in my pocket, But Jim was able to persuade a ham from one of the Dayton clubs to part with the 147.165/765 Pair that he had been holding but was not using.
Now all they needed was- Money for a REPEATER!
Funding for such a project was yet another threshold that had to be overcome. At one of the early meetings a proposal was presented and asked for input on how we could acquire enough money to build the start of our system.. As it turned out, 16 of the 25 original members of XWARN each donated or loaned the club enough money to purchase XWARN’s first RCA TAC200 repeater that put out a whopping 160 watts. . In less than one year they had the system up and running and covering most of Greene County using portable radios. It was truly an amazing repeater at the time and got great reviews on its coverage from the Dayton radio clubs.
UPGRADES AND IMPROVEMENTS
In and around 1986 we solicited the Greene County Administrator to allow us to co-locate several receive sites at current Public Safety locations. With the assistance of Mike Wolf of W S Electronics, who was also active with the club as a supporting non-ham, we were able to build and install three remote receivers all around Greene County. Due to a host of reasons this project was not completed until the late 90’s. But once they were ‘online’ they made a tremendous improvement to the repeater system, and gave hams the ability to work the repeater from almost anywhere in Greene County with a 5 watt HT radio.
Those same sites are still in place XWARN shares the microwave backbone with Greene Counties current Public Safety network. At the time we put this in place, no other amateur radio organization in the state had accomplished the same feat. It improved the incoming coverage to a huge degree and we had then and still get compliments regarding our stellar coverage of the county.
2001 the club bought and built our Emergency Communications trailer.
2003 Echolink was added to the repeater system we are on node 210097.
2004 the club register a club call sign W8XRN.
In or about the year 2005 purchased the 440 repeater and frequency pair 443.100/448.100 from Jeff N8JFA.
Over many years, since our beginning in late 1974, we have continued to grow and share a great relationship with all the Public Safety organizations we serve. Our membership has gone up and down as times change. We are a well-respected amateur radio organization that has served the people of Greene County tirelessly since 1975.
The Founding Members of this organization are Jim Simpson WB8QZZ, Truman Boerkoel K8JUG SK*, Henry Garcia W8GYC SK, Wendall Boggs K8DPK,SK George Potor W8NTY, Brett Boggs NV8I, (Formerly WB8WKC), Roy Lee K8AXQ SK, Betty Lee (Harris) WD8BBP^
* indicates Silent Key, Ham Radio talk for a deceased person.
^ License has lapsed
