The Gwinnett Amateur Radio Society  (GARS) is an amateur radio club serving Gwinnett County, Georgia, which his located  about 20 miles Northeast of downtown Atlanta. During the 1990s, the club was the fastest growing club in the area, and has over 150 active members.  We are a Special Service club affiliated with the ARRL. GARS members actively participate in a number of community service events and many of our members are also active participants in local ARES and Skywarn organizations.  GARS members have diverse interests spanning the entire gamut of amateur radio from QRP to DX, from PSK to D-STAR, from home made antennas to emergency communications, and that barely scratches the surface.

Hardly a week goes by that GARS isn't involved in some activity - whether it be sponsoring one of the finest Field Days in the Southeast, working with the Boy Scouts in JOTA, teaching classes for new and progressive licensees, and other community services in both normal and emergency situations - GARS is there. Our members take pride in our club, our service, and our hobby.

GARS runs an expansive repeater system spanning 6m, 2m, and 70cm.  We have an extensive web site with news, resources, and free ham classified ads at http://www.gars.org which is free for your use.  We also have a Facebook page (“Gwinnett Amateur Radio Society”), and we have our own Yahoo group for e-mail discussions/help/information.  We encourage you to join and use these resources to help you know what is going on in the local ham community.

You are invited to attend the two nets on our repeaters.  On Monday nights, we have the “Want, Sell, Swap and Information Net” where we discuss club related topics and allow folks to buy and sell their equipment.  On Wednesday nights, we have the “GARS Round Table Net” where we discuss topics which are of interest to radio amateurs both new and seasoned.

GARS supports Skywarn and Gwinnett ARES with the use of our repeater system and in other ways.  On Saturday mornings, we have a club breakfast at the Golden Corral on Riverside Drive in Lawrenceville.  In January, we run an event we created called TechFest .  Briefly, TechFest is an event where people come from far and wide to see demonstrations from every aspect of amateur radio (FLDigi, Packet, D-STAR, DX, QRP, Satellite, Strange Antenna Challenge, just to name a few).

Probably our most rewarding events are our monthly club meetings (see our website for time and location).  We normally have a presenter from outside the club and a program about something of interest to amateur radio enthusiasts.  Some notable programs we have recently hosted are:

• Personal and Emergency Preparedness by Will Perkins W1ZRV

• K5D – Activating Desecheo Island, One of the Rarest DX Entities in the World by the famous Bob Allphin K4UEE

• Station Grounding and Lightning Protection by Greg Abernathy AI4UD

• Portable Hand-held Amateur Television by Tim Blitch N4EEE

• Amateur Radio Towers by the renowned David Johnson K4SSU

• Going Green With A Twist by ARRL and CQ Magazine author Rich Arland K7SZ

To learn more about GARS, please visit our web site at www.gars.org.