On June 29 2011, the Lea County Amateur Radio Group was literally born at the last moment. There were a group of hams that wanted to bring together the area operators and re-establish a bond which had been severed years earlier. After a few months the group decided to include a "Get Together on every second Tuesday of the month for an actual gathering. The primary reason for this was to allow others who were not "Hams" to join us and not feel excluded. The group has built an ideal stating that "Everyone IS Welcome." the consecutive Tuesdays we actually held a net on our repeater system.

Since that day in June, the Lea County Amateur Radio Group has literally had a growth spurt with the installation of two repeaters which had been hard-linked together for cross-band operation. A stand alone repeater was found and with permission of its owner was coordinated and is linked to the Hobbs system. This allows something that Lea County has never had, a county wide amateur radio communications system.  Because of the configuration of the stand alone repeater system, LCARG now has the ability to literally connect to the National Weather Service (W5MAF) in Midland, Texas via the West Texas Connection (WTC).

In 2012, K5INW added a VHF repeater to the list.  This repeater was also linked in to the UHF repeater in Hobbs, which tied it into the WTC. That was shortlived though, as component failure and vandalism made short work of the repeater and link. It is now a stand alone repeater in Hobbs.

In 2014, we were able to tie into a repeater located in Eddy county.  This allowed Eddy county access to the WTC and the ability to communicated directly with the National Weather Service during severe weather in Eddy county.  The Eddy county repeater is a hardwired link and is continuously connected to the WTC.

In April 2015, the LCARG added a repeater on the KBIM tower located near Maljamar on the caprock.  The antenna for this repeater is located at 1,600ft AGL, which gives us the ability to cover the majority of Southeastern New Mexico.  Echolink was added to the Hobbs UHF repeater.  The FCC granted the LCARG a club callsign of N5LEA with AG5BB listed as the trustee.

The Lea County Amateur Radio Group is dedicated to the of spirit of communications, fellowship, education, and recruitment. We are a collection of people who enjoy the world of electronics, computers, radios, remote control (RC) objects, directional finding, geocaching, scanner listening, participating in SKYWARN and just passing the time sharing what we have on radios. We are not all "Hams"  although a bunch of us like to clown around, but rather Amateur Radio operators and we encourage those who are not to join us as well. We are currently not affiliated with any club or Association.

LCARG also has the ability to administer the Amateur Radio Examinations required by the Federal Communications Commission. This examination is a written multiple choice test based on a variety of topics dealing with Rules and Regulations, basic electronics, Theory of Operations, and more. There are three classes of licenses beginning with the Technician Class, General Class and Extra Class. In 1994 the FCC decided to eliminate the Morse code requirement opening the doors for more people to join. This site contains example question pools for each license level.

About the Lea County Amateur Radio Group

We would like to thank the following for their contributions and help:

Tom Jenkins KG5IGP at Professional Communications,
Mark Lomax N5SOR for his contributions / expertise,
AG5BB for his contributions in getting the equipment working,
N5HYJ for his contributions,
AJ5DP for his contributions,
K5INW for his contributions.
AH2AZ for his contributions,
And to the people who visit and enjoy the use of the repeaters and coverage.
CURRENT TIME