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Vision/Goal: Not all of us can have antennas and towers at home, and not all of us live on a big hill, so let’s get together and build a contest station on the hill where we can go together and share our skills. Skyview and Steel City are great places and very friendly to us, but they are too far away. It would be great to have a place to go for the evening or weekend to operate radio in a radio quiet place on a good hill/location and set up a telescope at night too. The weather station and tower cams will be viewable live on the internet (and we may be able to participate with skywarn and the weather service). The radios will be remote controllable over the internet for contest station members when no one is at the station.

Phase 1 (2026): Buy 0.5-1 Acre of land on a hill in Butler County, put a storage container on it and weld 2 hinge-over towers to it. Power will be solar/battery and quiet generators, internet will be WISP or 4G/5G. HVAC will be window AC and elec radiant heat. Portajohn and handwashing sink. We will have battery cams and alarms, live IP cams and a weather station connected to the internet for storm watching and live viewing.

Phase 2 (2028): Install electric service and wired broadband internet

Phase 3 (2030-): Build a building with central heat/AC, well and septic and put up some big permanent towers.

Members: To join, members must be majority voted approved by current members and donate at least $1000 or comparable donation, approved by majority vote by members. Monthly costs (gasoline, elec, internet, taxes, propane, water, sewage & maint. costs will be split among members). Members have unlimited 24 hour access. Members can bring guests 1 time only per guest. All decisions are majority vote. Whoever donates the most is president and counts for 5 votes. Individual members count for 1 vote. Any member can leave or get thrown out of the group at any time without any refund or equipment returned.

Proposed Budget for 2026

Land $5000-10,000
Storage Container $2000
Generator/Batteries/Solar $2000
Frame walls/inside door, insulate container and wire basic elec $2000
Triaxle of gravel $700

Pledges so far:

Callsign                            Donation                   Primary Radio Interests

W3MLJ                               $1000 & Flex                 HF Contesting
W3WC                                AL80B                        HF Contesting
AC3DB                               $2000 & HVAC                 VHF SSB & FT8
N3DL                                $1000                        HF Contesting

These are our initial ideas, not a final plan. If you have any input or ideas, please talk to us on the 147.240 repeater and come to our next dinner meeting and let us know.