Welcome to our Special Event Page
“Whiskey Eight Oscar”
The Steel City Amateur Radio Club evolved in concept from 1940 through 1941, but officially became a club with its own property and clubhouse in 1941. By the time the Club applied for a call and station license the FCC had suspended all “Ham” activity due to restrictions that were necessary during World War II. Years later the club finally received a license and call sign in 1946. We were given the call sign W3KWH, which we still use to this day.
In 1941 the property, almost 2 acres, was officially sold to a trustee of the Steel City ARC even though members had been using the site for a year or more. There are some great old pictures appearing on our web site, www.w3kwh.com, check them out sometime.
The old building was purchased for one dollar from PPG, the still famous Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company. That building was on a rotating platform at its original location (approximately five miles east of our current location) and served as a test site for PPG’s paint and glass products. It was dismantled and brought piece-by-piece to our current sight and reassembled without the rotating platform. It served the club well for about 16 years and was replaced by our current structure.
The Steel City Amateur Radio Club became an ARRL affiliate on February 6, 1947. A copy of the ARRL’s letter announcing our chartered affiliation may be viewed here [ PDF ].
Take a look at our “Old Time” Pictures: Click Here
The current building we are in now was constructed in 1957. Every piece of material that could possibly be salvaged from the original building was used in the “new” building. This included some of the glass block for memorabilia and the steel “I” beams for structural reasons. Some of the old meeting minutes told of the struggle to keep up with the taxes and other expenses. Most of the members were off to war or moved out of the city to work in defense industries in other areas.
Over the years things have changed around the club house. There was an oil derrick antenna tower, 6 meter phase array, 9 Ft satellite disk, a bunch of telephone poles holding up antennas. Inside the club house the fireplace was removed to add more chairs for our meetings. The repeater were moved out into their own communication hut building. Which also stores all of our computer servers with an fiber optic link back to the club house. Future plan include a long talk about picnic pavilion so that our meetings could be held outside.
We also went from having just one radio in the club house to now having over 8 radios in the club house ranging from an older Drake 4C transceiver to one of the newest ICOM IC-7610 and Flex 6600 radios. The antenna farm has grow also to now include a Mosley PRO-67C an 7 Band – 7 Element antenna to one of our newest Mosley S-402 Signal Master antenna on 40 meters. Rounding out the farm is two Tri-Banders, and numerus dipoles. VHF/UHF/Microwave are also included to cover the higher frequency bands.
More information about the club house: Click Here
Directions to our club house: Click Here
August 8th – 15th, 2021
Our Most Popular Frequencies:
80 m 3.975 / 40 m 7.250 / 20m 14.280 / 10 m 28.450 / 2m 146.550
To celebrate our 80th year in ham radio the club will be hosting an Special Event station from Aug 8th-15th. Anyone working W80 during that time will receive an special commemorative certificate to show our appreciation of working Steel City during our 80th year.
How To Receive Your Certificate: Just send us one of your QSL card and if we find you in our log we will send out an 8 1/2 x 11 certificate to you. Please mail your QSL cards to the PO Box listed below. Don’t have an QSL card then just send any old post card to us and you will still get a certificate.
Steel City ARC – W8O
PO Box 281
Carnegie, Pa, 15106 U.S.A
Check out our website: Click Here
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