WB4ARU is now the club call of the Brewton Amateur Radio Union. BARU was the original call
of Jimmy Godwin who was the real founder of the BARU. Jimmy was a police officer on the Brewton, Alabama Police Department
and was the main driving force behind forming a club and building a repeater.
Tragically, Jimmy died of an accident
while he and his wife were erecting his tower in 1976. Though he was the main charcter in securing permission for the tower
sites, securing a telephone link between the transmitter and receiver site with the Escambia County Comission paying the cost
of the telephone line, and acquiring the equipment from which the repeater was constructed, he was killed before the repeater
became operational.
The original repeater callsign was WR4BAE, with Johnny Miller, K4VMT as trustee, followed by Scott
Hillman, KT4CW, then Leroy Weaver, WD4SBV. The original repeater was a 100 watt tube type transmitter. The recieve antenna
was on a tower 200 feet up. The transmit antenna was across the road on a tower 160 feet up. Both antennas were conected by
a telephone link.
The repeater went silent for about 10 years when the trustee Leroy Weaver moved overseas. The club
members lost intrest and the club disbanded.
Club President Larry Fussell N4CBS is the driving force behind the revival of the club
after years of neglect. If not for Larry, the local ham club would likely have remained dormant, and there would be no amateur
radio activity in the Brewton
area. When Larry persuaded Leon N4RTT to re-enter the hobby in 2003, They began to search for former
club members. They found Scott Hillman lived just a block away. (Larry and Leon live across the street from each
other.) Leon sent Scott an e-mail, and he responded with an interesting message about growing up in the house where Leon
now lives. Larry then went by to visit Scott at his home. The first informal meeting of the re-organized Brewton club was
held in the ham shack of Leon, N4RTT the following Saturday morning. Present were Larry N4CBS; Scott, then WA4TYH; Johnny Miller K4VMT;
and Leon, N4RTT.
Scott agreed to become trustee of the new club and send all the paperwork to the
FCC. The new club started out with just 4 people and has grown. Now the repeater is back on, it's original frequency
of 146.970, neg offset and no tone.
The 146.970 frequency has been used by the Brewton Club since the mid 1970's.
73's
Chris
KI4GGH
Webmaster and Net Conrol Operator
