About Us

The Ak-Sar-Ben Amateur Radio Club, Inc. of Omaha, Nebraska as we know it today has been around since 1945 and has been affiliated with the ARRL since that time, but there is evidence of the existence of the club dating back to the 1920s. The ARRL has the AARC as an affiliated club since 1945 so in 2020 the AARC celebrated our 75th anniversary as a ARRL affiliated club. We have a rich history of activities, innovations and a whole lot of fun during this time.

Today, the Ak-Sar-Ben Amateur Radio Club, is a general interest club that makes a special effort to provide communications support to many public service events such as the Nebraska State Track Meet, the Market-to-Market Relay Race, Omaha's Corporate Cup and the Omaha Marathon.

The club operates the KØUSA repeater on 146.940 MHz which is the primary repeater for the public service events and emergency communications groups. The repeater is located on the KETV broadcast tower. After several years of having good locations for local communications, the move to KETV's tower in 2005, returned KØUSA to being a central SKYWARN reporting frequency for a large number of the counties served by the National Weather Service Office in Valley. The repeater has two remote access points to enhance low power coverage in the community. One remote receiver is located in east Council Bluffs, Iowa - while the other is on a tower near Ashland, Nebraska.

The AARC encourages its members to be active in ARES, SATERN (Salvation Army Disaster Services) and the Red Cross Disaster Services. In 2017 AARC members worked with OPPD to reduce powerline noise that was disrupting HF communications at the Salvation Army location and also restored communications to the Red Cross by rehanging the dipole for the station.

The club has been working with the volunteer force at Omaha's Freedom Park and in 2011 donated the necessary funds to obtain an original TBS-6 (a VHF communications radio) as part of the restoration of the radio room of Museum Ship the USS Hazard. ( The Hazard is a WWII Minesweeper and is permanently berthed at Omaha's Freedom Park. This was quite a find as the unit was still packed and unused in its original 1940s crate and had never been installed.) The club has participated in Museum Ships Weekend from the USS Hazard setting up on the deck and in the radio room to make contacts with hams and other ships around the world. The club also participates in Field Day every year and members often participate in other contests through out the year using the KØUSA callsign. Field Day has been a part of the AARC annual activities since its beginning. As part of its mission, the club also teaches classes for those wishing to obtain their amateur radio license and sponsors regularly scheduled Volunteer Examiners as part of the ARRL VEC program. Recently members of the club have taken the message about amateur radio to area science fiction conventions with a presentation of Communications in a Post-Apocolyptic World. Members also have participated in the local Maker Faires and the Nebraska Science Festival.

Every fall the club hosts "Flea-Esta" - a ham radio centric Flea Market that is also a gathering point for many hams. The pancake breakfast that was popular has taken a hiatus for the last several years.

During 2016, members of the club became active with the ARRL's National Parks on the Air by activating many of the sites around the Omaha Metro. The group also makes trips to operating from other sites in the event, multiple events Homestead National Monument of America, the Missouri National Recreation River, Niobrara River, and the Oregon and Pony Express Trails. The event was extremely popular and spawned the Parks on the Air activities. The club member sometimes will go to an eligible park and "activate it" for the ongoing event.

During 2017, the club participated Winter Field Day for the first time. Then in March the club took part in the NE150 QSO party, returning to Homestead National Monument to help celebrate on State Hood Day. The club activated the USS Hazard for Museum Ships Weekend then returned there for Field Day. 2017 Field Day was the best attended in at leat 10 years. And being setup on and around the WWII Minesweeper ham radio was also on display for the 200+ visitors to the ship that day. The club operated, cooked and slept aboard the USS Hazard.

During 2018, the club continued it support of the State Track meet and the Market-to-Market Relay the club members participated in the Parks on the Air event, once again activated the USS Hazard for Museum Ships on the Air, and returned to the Hazard for Field Day, and the club also took First Place as a club operation in the Nebraska QSO Party.

During 2019, the club continued its regular community service support events, activated a local park for the Parks on the Air. Field Day was shifted to the Red Cross building where the radio room was utilized as well as the grounds and parking lot around the location.

During 2020, the club met the challenge of remaining active during the Covid-19 Pandemic. The AARC was an early adopter of Zoom, moving the meetings to the online platform. The VE Teams managed to still conduct in person test sessions. The club participated in Field Day putting the new ARRL rules to encourage participation in the event. The Flea-Esta was force to cancel, and there was extremely limited celebration of our 75th year as an ARRL Affiliate Club.

The Ak-Sar-Ben Amateur Radio Club has a long history of community service and promotion of ham radio in the city, county and state that continues today and hopefully long into the future.