W8USR - Special Events
Michigan ROBO-CON Festival – W8A Special Activation
About the Special Event
On July 20, 2019, station W8USR tracked and logged an exciting high-tech milestone by contacting special event station W8A. This unique 8-hour broadcast (13:00Z to 21:00Z) was sponsored by the Lapeer County Amateur Radio Association (LCARA) and run in direct conjunction with the annual Michigan ROBO-CON festival. Held at the Lapeer Center for Innovation (the former Lapeer West High School campus), LCARA set up live ham radio demonstrations right alongside advanced high school robotics arenas to engage the public and demonstrate how amateur radio uniquely intersects with modern emergency services, computer networking, and technology.
Field Infrastructure & Technical Layouts
The LCARA team maintained an active multi-mode presence across multiple bands to broadcast the festival's STEM message to the global radio community:
- Frequency Operations: The station actively monitored and transmitted on targeted voice and Morse code frequencies, including 14.250 MHz and 14.045 MHz on 20 meters, alongside 7.225 MHz and 7.045 MHz on 40 meters.
- Digital and Repeaters: Operations utilized highly efficient FT8 digital modes. Additionally, because the club maintains a local 442.750 MHz D-STAR Module B repeater complex, digital voice links were actively integrated into the field demonstration.
- Data Source Note: Because limited official logs exist online, the technical parameters are anchored by a single-line paper log entry. Additional festival context was meticulously reconstructed via web research for historical purposes.
History of the Michigan ROBO-CON Festival
The Annual Michigan ROBO-CON Festival is a free, family-friendly celebration dedicated entirely to robotics and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education. The gathering was originally founded in 2014 by a local high school FIRST Robotics team: Team 1684 ("The Chimeras"). As the festival rapidly grew, they were joined by Team 5460 ("Strike Zone"). The student builders created the event because they wanted to pull robotics out of closed workshops and share the immense excitement of hands-on mechanical building with the general public.
Based at the Lapeer Center for Innovation in Lapeer, Michigan, the festival features more than 10 distinct interactive STEM stations where children and adults can engage in basic computer coding, build small engineering projects, and design custom safety glasses. A major crowd highlight is the "ROBO Driver's Academy," where attendees are permitted to physically drive full-scale industrial robots around a complex obstacle field to earn an official, commemorative "ROBO License."
Coinciding with the public exhibition is a highly competitive off-season FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) tournament. Around 32 high school teams from all across the state of Michigan bring their massive, custom-built industrial robots to go head-to-head on a full-sized, official arena field. By combining this intensive tournament with public outreach shacks like the W8A special event station, ROBO-CON has successfully inspired generations of future engineers, software developers, and amateur radio operators.
Station Log: Contact History
| Special Event Call | Station Logged | Date Logged | Time Logged | Frequency | Frequency Band | Operation Mode | Signal Report | On-Board Operator |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| W8A | W8USR | July 20, 2019 | 15:09 UTC | 7.225 MHz | 40 Meters | SSB Phone | 59 | LCARA Operator |