Here's a message from John Zantek, a retired Coast Guard officer, and
former trustee of W2AIR. John gave his permission for this message to
be relayed to this mailing list, as well as to any other relevant forum.
John passes along some sad news that W2AIR has been deactivated, and the
station license has been allowed to expire. W2AIR was an amateur radio
station affiliated with the U.S. Coast Guard. It was originally located
at Governor's Island in New York, but was moved to Petaluma, California
along with the Coast Guard's training mission.
Amateur radio at Petaluma seems to be a lost cause, but John would like
to see if another Coast Guard activity, or possibly a group of Coast
Guard veterans, would be interested in recovering the callsign. The
callsign might also be a suitable choice for a New York or New Jersey
area activity or veteran's group in another armed service (as the AIR
suffix could be associated with aviation).
The U.S. Coast Guard can reactivate the station license immediately, and
without a fee, simply by filing an application with the FCC, but must do
so within one year of the original license expiration (December, 2002).
Any other group or individual can recover the station license and
callsign two years after expiration (December, 2003), but for a fee. If
you are interested in recovering W2AIR, please contact John Zantek at
john@zantek.net.
73, Paul W. Schleck, K3FU
secretary@sacmarc.org
----- Forwarded message from John Zantek -----
From: John Zantek <john@zantek.net>
To: 'Paul W. Schleck' <pschleck@novia.net>
Subject: RE: What's become of W2AIR?
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2002 20:00:05 -0700
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Thanks for contacting me, Paul.
I contacted the then-CO at Petaluma more than once in 2000, imploring
him to either renew W2AIR or offer it to another USCG command. Despite
his assurances to have it renewed, he did nothing. In fact, he had his
on-base Fire Dept torch the Ham Shack as firefighting practice. To my
surprise, they mailed the original license, with my name and signature
as Custodian, to me. I've no idea where all the wonderful gear went,
nor the brand new towers I installed 1991-1995. When I transfered in
1995, it was a wonderful, fully equipped station with the latest of
everything.
I haven't given up yet. I'm still trying to find a USCG unit that wants
that classic W2AIR call. Unfortunately, almost every "Coastie" ham I
know is now retired with me. Of all the folks I still know on active
duty and that I've contacted, no one even KNOWS of any amateur radio
activity still occuring anywhere in the service. K4CG, our old "HQ"
station, was closed. W1CGA at the CG Academy was closed.
If you do know of a worthy military ham shack candidate, please let me
know.
73 John/K3JZ
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul W. Schleck [mailto:pschleck@novia.net]
Sent: Friday, September 20, 2002 12:13 PM
To: john@zantek.net
Subject: What's become of W2AIR?
John,
I notice that the W2AIR web page at:
http://www.tcpet.uscg.mil/w2air/w2air.htm
is no longer available. More distressing is the fact that the W2AIR
license seems to have expired in December of 2001. Do you know what has
become of this club and its station? I realize that you are no longer
on active duty in the Coast Guard, but your name and former callsign
(WX3K) are the only ones that I have been able to find associated with
the W2AIR station.
As a USAF veteran, trustee of K0AIR (see http://www.sacmarc.org) and
someone who has been in contact with many military recreational amateur
radio stations over the years, I am disappointed to see many of them go
away. The Naval Academy club survived a recent near-death experience
when the Commandant wanted to shutter the station, asserting that it was
irrelevant and antiquated in this day and age. Fortunately, a
letter-writing campaign:
http://www.qsl.net/w3ado/save.html
saved the club (see my letter, which is attached to this message).
If the Coast Guard made an appropriate, arms-length decision (in the
face of lack of participation and changing mission requirements) to
deactivate this station and reassign its facilities to another activity,
then I guess that was a regrettable, but ultimately necessary, decision.
I am curious, however, if anyone has plans to recover the W2AIR call and
use it for a club station somehow affiliated with the Coast Guard, or a
suitable Coast Guard veterans group. The station license and callsign
can be recovered before December 2003. After that, it would fall into
the reassignment pool and anyone could apply for it. Experiences with
other AIR-suffixed callsigns is that they tend to get snapped up pretty
quickly.
-- 73, Paul W. Schleck, K3FU pschleck@novia.net http://www.novia.net/~pschleck/ Finger pschleck@novia.net for PGP Public Key
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