TARA Field Day History

TARA has participated in every ARRL Field Day since the club's inception. For that very first Field Day in 1951, the club did not yet have a call sign. Unfortunately, we have not yet been able to track down what call was used that year (but we have a short list of possibilities). We will post an update when we get more information.

Starting in 1952, the club operated as W9REG (or rather, W9REG/9 in the early days). On two occasions, the club used a different call - either because the trustee was not an Extra or just to get a slightly shorter call. In 1978, we used N9MM/9 and in 1979, we were N9JG/9.

Just as there have been call sign changes, there have been numerous location changes. The first Field Day ('51) we operated from the WASK transmitter site on McCarty Lane.
This is the list of known operating sites:

• WASK (1951, 1952)
• The Hills [now known as Ross Hills Park] (1953)
• Murdock Park (1969, 1971, 1976, 2009, 2010)
• a field near Shadeland (exact location unknown) (mid 50s-late 60s?)
• Bishop's Woods (1984, 1985)
• Tippecanoe County Fairgrounds (1977,1978,1980,1983)
• several private residences/farms (at least two different locations) (1954, early 1990s)
• the American Red Cross chapterhouse (2004, 2005, 2006)
• an open field on the northeast corner of the intersection of US52 and SR25 (2008)
• Indiana Veterans Home (1995-2003, 2011)

There are probably more locations, be we no longer have such records. We would love to hear from anyone that might have more information.