Hello, I am Ron Greene WA2PCY. I am a member of The Sun City Amateur Radio Society, otherwise known as SCARS. We are a chartered club here in Sun City Texas and as of this writing, boast a membership of 79 Club Members of which 57 are Licensed Amateur Radio Operators.

We are often referred to as Ham Operators. Hams are the people that come out of the woodwork during area emergencies such as Hurricanes, Tornados, as well as other emergency situations and we often help in search and rescue to locate people who are missing or lost.

Hams have the ability to communicate when cell phones don't function, when electricity is out and when commercial communications such as TV and Radio fail. Part of the reasons we are allocated our frequencies is to supply emergency communications when commercial communication systems do fail. During recent emergencies when local communications were lost, it was the Ham Operators who maintained vital communications best evidenced during Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita.

We at SCARS hope we will never have the need to perform under those conditions again. Instead, we would like to offer The Sun City Community our services in a preventative way. Many of us have a weather radio which sets off an audible alarm during local weather advisories. Those of us, who don't have one, should! They usually can be purchased for about $30. These Radios need to be set up with the local identifiers to alert only on local emergency conditions. This required set up can be confusing for some.

To become Radio Amateurs, we each had to pass a test overseen by the Federal Communications Commission and in our own right have reasonable expertise in the field of Electronics and the Communications Art.

We at SCARS will set up your weather radio and would only require you visiting our Web Site and filling out a request on our Contact page. One of our members will contact you and arrange a time and place to set your new weather radio up with the appropriate settings to alert only on Williamson County emergencies. Needless to say this setup service is without charge . To get to the Contact Page on the SCARS Web Site, just type in (or click on) the below address and you will be brought to the contact page on our site.

We hope you will take advantage of this program as we will all sleep better knowing that should an alert come in the middle of the night, all in Sun City will be aware of the ensuing condition and will be able to take appropriate action.

Ron Greene WA2PCY
Weather Radio Committee