From: tstader@aol.COM
Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.misc
Subject: *146.52 WB1GOF signs in Massachusetts (long, but good!)
Date: 4 Sep 1992 19:14:00 -0700
Organization: UCSD Usenet Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: ucsd.edu

Sorry that I missed this post the first time it came by... so I'll reply to
the questions about the signs... what they mean, etc.

WB1GOF is the "club" call of "The Police Amateur Radio Team (PART) of
Westford, Massachusetts - WB1GOF". WB1GOF was established in 1975 as a way of
some of the local hams to work with the local police department. In the dyas
when the State (excuse me, Commonwealth!) of Massachusetts was handing out
money for local PDs to get CB radios, our Chief said no way! He had heard
Channel 19 before! So these hams proposed to the Chief that he listen in on
146.52 and he was impressed with the way the hams conducted "business" on the
air... always using call signs, no vulgarity and no foriegn accents! (Keep in
mind this was the CB heyday)

Westford, by the way is the 3rd largest community (in square miles) in
Massachusetts. Back then there were only 2 cruisers to cover the local roads
as well as a presence on 3 local highways: Interstate 495, the infamous Route
3 and Route 40.

So the group gathered all kinds of pertinent information and went looking for
additional funds to offset the cost of a ham radio vs the cost of a CB. They
found that there was CD money available and so into the forray of bidding and
all sorts of goodies for getting a radio. The radio was purchased (Motorola
lent us the radio in 1976!) and the successfull bidder was GE in 1977.

In the mean time, the club was not idle... we went after a club call with the
FCC. By the time we got our act together the FCC stopped issuing club calls.
So we got Congressmen, Representatives and even the Govenor's office to write
letters in our behalf to get the call W1PD. The FCC was as rigid then as they
are now about issuing "special" call signs... and besides the Westford Police
Dapartment were issued their very own call sign for the public safety
frequencies and we cannot allow a business entity on the amateur bands! Which
is how PART, the ham radio club came into being. No luck with all of the
letters and such... so our application rejected now many different times...
went inot the giant hopper of the FCC and the call sign WB1GOF (Whiskey Brave
One Good Old Friend) came to us in the mail.

With great pomp and circumstances, the GE station with the brand new call
sign was formally dedicated to service as the "additional eyes and ears for
the community"! Their were many big wigs there and real ribbon! WB1GOF is
officially on the air in 1978.

With a "commercial" artist within our ranks (Bud Hill-K1PD, who has taught
Morse Code to probably thousands here in MA and NH) the sign you see on the
highways (sans the asterisk) was designed. Do you know what it takes to get a
sign designed and approved on a federal/state? We even went after funding
from all kinds of businesses and organizations and actually raised the money
the state wanted to hire an artist to paint the signs! TWO YEARS LATER after
many, many letters for help in getting them done, the signs are all of a
sudden in place on Route 3 and I-495! Now we start getting lots of calls
about this sign, what does it mean and you can imagine!

About this time we started getting a little flak from the police about the
amount of racket ALWAYS going on 146.52! So what do we do... got to 55 or 58?
Nope... one of our guys came up with the tone decoder idea. So a tone decoder
"tuned" to the asterisk frequncies was installed... now the radio is quiet!
So how do we get the signs changed> How do we educate the ham radio community
about using the * first? Can we get the signs changed? No way are we going to
go through THAT process again! So one of our guys came up with something
clever.... ever notice the "daisy" non-skid patches for your tub/shower
stalls? You got it! Looks like an asterisk to me!!

Those signs by the way as BIG! They are 5' x 3' and they are planted almost 6
feet high so when people are whizzing (we have Indy pace cars setting the
pace for I-495, Route 3 is ALWAYS slow!) by they can try and read the signs.
The signs try and point out to hams that to reach WB1GOF on 146.52, you must
hit the asterisk key for 2 to 3 seconds. It is REALLY hard to spell out the
instructions to be read at Mach 3! This most likely will cause an accident by
non-hams! This increases the "business" for our club! But somehow, with many
of the PART members on the road to tell the story to all of the clubs that
wish us to stop by, we get an average of over 300 calls per year! That is
about a call per day!

So if you are in the area and need help (please don't call asking for
directions to someplace) for an EMERGENCY situation.... please use the
service. Keep in mind... this IS NOT a repeater, this is a SIMPLEX frequency,
in fact it is the "National Simplex Frequency"! I might also point out that
this is also the "national rag-chew frequency" and the "national touch tone
test frequency". When you are located in one of the tallest locations in your
county, you hear lots from the hill! Don't get me wrong, I not trying to say
to anyone to get off the frequency. We took care of the problem locally by
putting the tone decoder on the radio.... but what I want to mention is....
you just might have to call twice to get the WB1GOF station to answer. If
another station has the receiver captured, we might not hear you! So PLEASE
try again or go to one of the local repeaters and ask there for help.

I also would like to point out, we have expanded our operation to 440 this
year. To get EMERGENCY help on 440, dial up 442.450 MHz (+5 input) and use
your keypad to dial "*911" (there is that daisy again!). That is the
autopatch code to the State Police. After your call is complete, use the #
(pound) key to hangup. The repeater is NOT PL'd at this time, but 88.5 is
online just in case we need it. There are 9 other EMERGENCY autodialer codes
that I would be happy to pass on to those that are interested.

We have received some very good publicity from the media, we were in QST last
year. And the club now gets calls from many organizations about helping them
with communications from bike races to road races to orieteering camps (only
the hams get lost!). PART is an ARRL Special Service Club with just about 40
members. We "specialize" in emergency communications and most of our club
members ARE the RACES Radio Operators for MEMA Area 1. Infact our "other"
club station is the MEMA Area 1 EOC! Our organization also organizes the
SkyWarn program here in EMASS also.

If I remember the thread before this PARTicular (bad, huh?) spinoff was about
the value of the ARES/RACES organizations... just getting through a graded
FEMA exam... the only answer to providing a service to the community and not
having it overwelm you.... practice, practice, practice and then drill,
drill, drill. We are not perfect here in Area 1... we have lots of room for
improvement and we are working on it all of the time.

Thanks all for taking the time to read this.... hope I have not discouraged
you from working with your local community officials. It takes some moxy to
get to be on the "other side" of the counter in a police station, we are
there and we respect the operation of these public servants who have a job to
do. Our's do very well and we interact with our Police Department. I guess
the highest compliment we can have now.... our Chief of Police is a ham!

If you are in the area for the New England ARRL Convention of October 3rd and
4th.... we'll be giving a talk about WB1GOF and PART on Sunday the 4th. Stop
by and say hi.

73 for now....
Terry-KA8SCP, America Online Ham Radio Club Host
President, The Police Amateur Radio Team of Westford, MA-WB1GOF
Internet: tstader@aol.com or tstader@attmail.com
Packet: KA8SCP@WA1PHY.#EMA.MA.USA.NOAM or
ka8scp@ka8scp.ampr.org [44.56.4.82]
Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.misc