James, WA2EWE/T6AF, was one of several killed in Afghanistan

James McLaughlin, WA2EWE/T6AF, was one of several killed in Kabul, Afghanistan on Wednesday, April 27. News sources say that eight American troops and a US contractor died Wednesday after an Afghan military pilot opened fire during a meeting in an operations room of the Afghan Air Corps at the Kabul airport -- the deadliest episode to date of an Afghan turning against his coalition partners, officials with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISF) in Afghanistan said.


Licensed since 1972, McLaughlin was a career US military officer. Bob Magnani, K6QXY, tiold the ARRL that McLaughlin was just in the US a week ago, visiting his family. His son Adam, KD6POE, works for me. He told me that his dad had been in Afghanistan and Iraq many times over the past few years, most currently serving as a flight instructor.” McLaughlin posted on his qrz.com page that “almost every day, I operate at around 1230 - 1430 UTC. Sometimes I am QRV until around 1500 UTC.” As of March 26, 2011, he had logged 4359 QSOs, most of them on RTTY and PSK. -- Thanks to Russ Bentson, K6KLY, CNN and Fox News for the information.



Click here for the ARRL Story

WATER TOWER!!! UPDATE

Hey, have you heard? We are back.
Yes back on the water tower. It has been a long time coming.


There was water in the connector on the hardline side. It was cleaned, resealed and placed back in service.

Now, get on the air!

FREE Exams- Update

We are now listed as an official Laurel VE Team.
This will benefit both the Amateur Radio community as well as the LWRA.

Check it out!!!

Laurel Teams - http://larcmd.org/vec/index.php?pg=teams

Exam Schedule - http://larcmd.org/vec/index.php?pg=Exams11

FREE EXAMS!!!

I received word tonight that our certifications with the Laurel VEC are on the way.


Looks like we will be able to begin offering them on June 4th, which should give us time to go over the rules and procedures, etc.

For those that are unaware, the Laurel Amateur Radio clubs is an Official VEC with the FCC and are the only one to offer FREE exams, yes 100% free.

America’s Most Wanted Pirate Broadcaster

It’s not every day that a radio station operator makes it on to “America’s Most Wanted,” a television show profiling criminal fugitives. But Steve Anderson of Somerset, Ky., managed to do just that a decade ago.

I wrote about the story for Monitoring Times and for the Cumbre DX newsletter. With the 10th anniversary of the case approaching, Radio World asked me to recount it.

More

The New Repeater

As many of you may already know, we are working with the Lake Wales Hospital and getting a new UHF Repeater for Lake Wales area. We are moving ever closer to getting this Repeater online. The purchase order has been filed and all the equipment has all been ordered and Thomas (K4KH) is getting our frequency pair set up for us with the FRC. Judson (KJ4IDH) is working on getting everything set up with our Tech to get us online ASAP.

More information will be posted as it becomes available.

Thanks for all your hard work go out to everyone involved in getting this done.