Clay Center Amateur Radio Club (CC-ARC)

CC-ARC has closed and restarted elsewhere

All previous posts and archives have been removed.

As of June 2018, the Clay Center Amateur Radio Club was closed by the school administration. As a community-wide educational club with over 360 members, it served current students, alumni/ae, summer campers, and friends in the community and was seen as an amazing entity of outreach and goodwill. The administration set unreasonable and unobtainable terms to restrict the club to an existence only within the school with no chance of ever including the rest of the community again.

As many of the youth leaders of the club, including many newly elected in June, had been community members who would be excluded from the club, the youth leaders with the support of adult mentors, restarted the club under a new name and in a new location, Sci-Tech Amateur Radio Society (STARS) in Natick, MA.

CC-ARC NEWS - Astronaut #12 Joins the Club!

Apr 2015 - Astronaut Donald Thomas joined the Clay Center Amateur Radio club when he met Bob K5TEC at a Space Expo in Connecticut and heard about the club.  An amateur radio operator himself, Dr. Thomas, KC5FVF, was pleased to hear that so many of our youth are getting into amateur radio.  He talked about how he used the radio station on board the International Space Station to talk to students on the earth.

Originally from Ohio, Dr. Thomas became an astronaut in July 1991.  A veteran of four space flights, he has logged over 1,040 hours in space. He was a mission specialist on Columbia STS-65 (July 8-23, 1994), Discovery STS-70 (July 13-22, 1995), Columbia STS-83 (April 4-8, 1997) and Columbia STS-94 (July 1-17, 1997).

Dr. Thomas’ autographed portrait and his book, Orbit of Discovery, are on display at the Clay Center.

CC-ARC

Who We Are
(6/2018 the CC-ARC was closed down) The CC-ARC was made up of over 360 parents, teachers, students, summer campers, and even twelve* NASA astronauts.  There were Active Members who are FCC-licensed HAMs, Provisional Members who are working on their HAM Technician licenses, and Supporting Members who oversee the club activities and lend help or expertise where needed.

Where We Meet
(6/2018 the CC-ARC no longer meets here) The CC-ARC was based on the top floor of the Clay Center Observatory high on a hill.  There was a radio room set up with HF, VHF, and UHF rigs, a conference room with a kitchenette for meetings and classes, a world-class telescopic observatory, and solar- and wind-energy roof decks with 360-degree views of greater Boston.

Other Activities
The Clay Center Observatory hosted educational and outreach programs, public astronomy nights, public lectures, a summer science camp, and it participated in ground-breaking astronomical research.

* Astronauts (as of 01/2018): Dan Burbank, Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, Sunita Williams, Michael Lopez-Alegria, John Grunsfeld, Joe Tanner, Rick Mastracchio, Cady Coleman, Jerry Carr, Michael Barratt, Steve Bowen, Donald Thomas