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Old 09-01-2016, 10:39 PM   #2
electricflyer
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Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: Douglasville, GA
Posts: 417
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I volunteer for several organizations here in Atlanta. I am a Volunteer Examiner for ARRL, W5YI and CAVEC. My ARRL session count is 9th from the top of 759 VE's in Georgia. According to ARRL we are one of the busiest VE teams on the east coast. We test locally 11 times a year with testing whenever someone can't make it to a regular session. I am a volunteer ham radio operator for a local hospital for emergency radio service affiliated with ARES. I assist Elden, N1MN with FCC license classes, we usually do 4-5 classes a year which are 3 class sessions each.

This afternoon we just conducted a test session for 18 4-5th grade students at Russell Elementary School in Smyrna. One of their teachers who is a ham has been training them for this exam. It was a little disappointing that only 2 pass the exam although there were at least 6 others that just missed passing so they are going to study more and probably retake the exam at our regular test session in October. We did a test session a year ago at this school and had 7 students take the exam with 2 passing that time also. Chris said the pretesting he did had good results but test fright my have taken it's toll.

I have attached some photos of our test session at the school (9/1/16). VE's in the photo are (back row left to right) Larry K4LDC, Homer ND8F (of OMISS fame), Steve K4ELI, John W4TXA and Chris KM4KPJ, the teacher. Front row is Cheri K4TXA (John's wife), Elden N1MN the team leader and certified ARRL license instructor, and myself, Marvin KT4W
Also there is a photo of the school radio station. The local local Lincoln Mercury dealer, Pugmire Lincoln Mercury donated a new Kenwood radio of which I just learned used to have a ham radio store at the dealership, this was before HRO, Radio may remember it. They have a dipole on the roof of the school which is at a high elevation in the area. They will soon be getting an antenna system so they can track satellites and ISS that is being donated by IBM. Chris said they usually get on the radio on Friday afternoons around 2:30 local time, and usually on 20M. If I can get some sort of schedule from Chris I will let everyone know and maybe you can make contact with them. They have made a number of DX contacts.
And last a group photo of all the participants for todays session. What a fine group of youngsters, after the testing was complete each student came by to each of the VE's to shake our hands and thanked us for coming and giving them the test, how wonderful. Days like this make you feel there is hope for the next generation.
Marv
KT4W
Attached Images
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