The Nutley Amateur Radio Society, is one of the older Amateur Radio clubs, having celebrated its' 50th Anniversary in 1999. The group, affiliated with the local Red Cross and the ARRL, maintains an active radio station at that site on the Red Cross premises.
The Society is devoted to the advancement of radio communications and public service. Its' members have been active in RACES, ARES, and SKYWARN, and have furnished communications for police and fire departments during emergencies and civil strife. At the height of the "Cold War", many members qualified as radiological monitors under the Office of Civilian Defense.
The group, housed in a chapter of the American Red Cross, has furnished communications on behalf of servicemen through out the world during the Korean and Viet Nam wars. Many of the Society members are also affiliated with the Office of Emergency Management and are qualified radio operators in the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES) or the Amateur Radio
Emergency Service (ARES)].
The Society has often responded to health and welfare concerns during earthquakes, hurricanes and floods. They have participated in searches, and as communicators, for situations as varied as a lost hunter, a drowned child, a critical bone marrow donor, to permitting a homesick foreign exchange student to speak to her family via Ham Radio. Phone patches were furnished for anxious families to crew memberscrewmembers, on a search destroyer erroneously reported missing while searching for the sunken submarine, Scorpion, when the search vessel had been erroneously reported missing. Charitable walks, marathons, golf tournaments and most recently, the tragic occurance occurence of the World Trade Center have all benefitted benefited byfrom the communications services offered by the Society.
For years, NARS had conducted free courses in electronics and Morse Code for students to obtain an Amateur Radio license. Today, the Society offers prospective Hams a place to obtain their licenses via the Society's frequent VE sessions.
NARS HISTORY
