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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. Sometime in 2004 Larry Fussell, N4CBS, went to the home of Scott Hillman and
asked him about Ham Radio and the posibility of starting the Brewton Ham Club back. Scott was in the original club and
Larry was not. Scott and Larry agreed to start the club back. The first informal meeting of the new club was at the home of
Scott Hillman, KT4CW. Scott agreed to become trustee of the new club and send all the paperwork to the FCC. The new
club started out with just 2 people and has grown. Now the repeater is back on, it's original frequency of 146.970, neg offset
and no tone. The club has no dues and no by laws ,and all are welcome to join the fun.
For more information
email me at KI4GGH@yahoo.com
73's
Chris
KI4GGH.
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