Wagoner STARS Academy

In November Fox 23 News came to our school to award us with the "One Class at a Time" $1000 grant. Weatherman James Aydelott presented the award on behalf of the grant donors, attorney Jeff Martin and Associates. The grant was intended to support use of technology in the classroom, in particular the school's amateur radio club activities. Officer Harding from the Wagoner Police Department also attended the presentation ceremony to show WPD's interest and commitment to what STARS academy is doing with it's radio club. Students from the STARS academy, along with students from Wagoner High School and Wagoner Middle school govern and operate the club called Wagoner Windtalkers (licensed by the FCC and carries the callsign "WI5ND"). Students promote international goodwill by communicating with other radio operators globally (using HF radio waves bent back to earth via the ionosphere), they augment their classroom lessons with hands-on application of earth science, physics, fundamentals of electricity and electronics, geography, communications, etc... and they compete with other schools nationwide in contests. Furthermore, students train to augment community response to emergencies, setting up a network of radio operators that can fan out and report information directly to our local first responders (essentially a radio neighborhood watch) through an emergency control net.

The STARS academy used the grant to purchase eight handheld transceivers for student use along with enough copper wire and coaxial cable to construct ground plane antennas (which increase the range of these portable VHF radios to over 20 miles without need of an external tower or repeater). Students are allowed to keep the antennas they have made and use them from home as part of their own station on the emergency net. Students who earn their own FCC license (which enables them to operate independently from anywhere in the USA) also qualify for scholarship opportunities.