Who Is Funding WRA and the Development of ARCS?

I have been asked this question many times: Who is funding the Wisconsin Repeater Alliance and the development of ARCS?

 

No secret outside group or hidden agenda; at least so far, the answer is largely me, Corey Becker, KD9HCW.

 

I joined WAR in 2023 with what sounded like a straightforward assignment: help find a replacement for CTK and lead an effort to modernize the organization’s coordination systems. It didn’t take long to realize that the challenge was much larger than replacing a piece of software.

 

WAR was in serious financial decline, and very little technical documentation for CTK was available. With more than a decade of nonprofit board experience, I recognized quickly that the organization had reached a point where simply maintaining the status quo was no longer a viable option.

 

From my first days on the Board of Directors, I began personally contributing funds to help sustain operations. As time went on, I assumed an increasing share of WAR’s infrastructure and financial obligations.

 

The easy decision would have been to resign and walk away. But I also believed that doing so could mean the end of organized amateur radio frequency coordination in Wisconsin as we knew it. Instead, I decided to determine whether the organization and its coordination mission could be rebuilt on a sustainable foundation.

 

Before committing substantial time and money, I hired an attorney, an accountant, and a business consultant to help me understand the situation and determine what options were realistically available. The conclusion became clear very quickly: continuing down the same path was not a viable long-term strategy.

 

So, I started over.

 

I began documenting the entire coordination process and designing a completely new coordination platform from the ground up. That became ARCS, the Amateur Radio Coordination System.

 

Over approximately 11 months, that effort produced more than 700 pages of requirements, processes, workflows, technical specifications, and system documentation. Once the blueprint was mature enough, I began searching for a developer capable of turning it into a real production application.

 

After hiring an application developer, my attention shifted to building the organization that would ultimately support it.

 

Attorneys helped establish the new organization, develop its governance structure, address the legal requirements of forming the Wisconsin Repeater Alliance, and guide the organization through the federal nonprofit process. At the same time, professional resources were brought in for branding, website development, application development, and infrastructure.

 

None of that has been free.

 

As of today, I have personally invested more than $23,000 in legal services, professional consulting, web development, application development, infrastructure, and other costs associated with creating WRA and ARCS.

 

I consider that investment a donation to Wisconsin’s amateur radio community.

 

Just as importantly, I wanted the technology behind the new organization to be built correctly. WRA’s digital assets are hosted within Microsoft’s Office and Azure ecosystem. Our collaboration systems, email, website, and ARCS infrastructure have been designed around modern, professional technology rather than relying on a single aging server, undocumented software, or one individual to keep everything running.

 

I don’t share these numbers because I am looking for recognition or reimbursement. I share them because people have reasonably asked where the money is coming from, and I believe they deserve an honest answer.

 

For many years, people volunteered their time and resources to keep amateur radio coordination operating in Wisconsin. This has been my contribution to ensuring that work has a future.

 

My hope is that more than a decade of nonprofit experience, combined with approximately 35 years working in information technology, can help give WRA a strong foundation that will serve Wisconsin’s amateur radio community for another 50 years.

 

But WRA cannot ultimately depend on one person.

 

Membership, participation, volunteerism, and financial support are what will make WRA sustainable. My investment helped get the organization and ARCS to this point. The next chapter depends on the amateur radio community taking ownership of what we are building together.

 

This isn’t intended to be my organization or my coordination system.

 

It’s meant to belong to the community it serves.

73’s

Corey Becker (KD9HCW)