Cherokee Amateur Radio Society Website

Welcome to Cherokee Amateur Radio Society
Club Website for WX4CAR
Serving Cherokee County, GA and the surrounding communities

Announcements

Next Meeting

February 8, 2020
Learning subject for the February meeting will be "Topics on Operating CW (Morse)".
Wonder if you can learn CW? Wonder what the different types of keys are and why people like them? Maybe get inspired to build a code oscillator of your own? There will be a demonstration of various keys, guidance on learning CW, and lessons learned by the experts. This is a primer for future training on CW. We will have radios and paddles set up for you to try.

Presented by - Bruce German -KK4GEE

Needs: We still need a person to be the focal point for ARRL testing each month. Consider if you can serve the club in this way? Testing is a very important activity for the club and we want to be sure it continues.

Finally, we want to start the 2020 Elmering (Mentoring) program. Posting on this topic was made on groups.io distribution. Watch your email for more details.

Looking Ahead

Move to groups.io for our email list
As was announced at the Christmas Party, we are planning a move of the club email reflector to a service called groups.io.
Why?
Yahoo has announced a change in direction that impacts group email services. We want to be sure we allow club members to communicate with each other, share ideas, send announcements, and have a medium that does not involve social media, like Facebook.

You can create an account on the groups.io page or use your existing Google login.
To Join search for the Cherokee-Hams group and click on the Join.

Once your registration is confirmed, you will be able to receive and post to the group.
This is a closed group, so you must be a group member to post.
Rob (W1JKU) will cover this in the January meeting and answer all questions.

Winter Field Day January 25th, 2020
Winter Field Day Association (WFDA) is a dedicated group of Amateur Radio Operators who believe that emergency communications in a winter environment is just as important as the preparations and practice that is done each summer but with some additional unique operational concerns. We see this as about a 4-6 hour event, not the full 24 hours.

We will coordinate this activity by email and the next scheduled meeting. If you are interested in this event, please post on the groups.io email reflector. We want to get a list of names. Location for this event is TBD. Here is a link to the event page:
winterfieldday.com

Tech Fest 2020 January 18,2020
Hosted by the Gwinnett Amateur Radio Society. Free Admission
Gwinnett Medical Resource Center
665 Duluth Highway (GA-120)
Lawrenceville, GA 30046

For 2020, they will be raffling off an ICOM IC-7300 and also a Yaesu FTM-400XDR/DE. You will have two chances to win the raffle prize.

2020 Forums
9:00 AM Lightning Protection and Grounding – Greg Abernathy, AI4UD

10:00 AM Digital Mode Hotspots – Ed Woodrick, WA4YIH

11:00 AM Getting Started with Raspberry Pi for Ham Radio – Dave Slotter, W3DJS If conditions permit, a LIVE demo of remote station operation will be performed!

1:00 PM VHF/UHF “DXing” Fun – Kevin Scott, K4GTR
Propagation Types, How to Find Out When the Bands are Open and Methods to Push Your Signal to the Max!

What has happened?
If you miss a meeting, you miss a lot!

Here are things we did so far in 2020:

Topic for the January meeting was the Parks on the Air (POTA). This is a growing activity that anyone can participate in! Find out how to get started to become an activator or a chaser. Slides are posted - by Rob Bruderer -W1JKU

Information about us

Cherokee Amateur Radio Society is an organization of FCC licensed amateur radio operators (also called Hams) that meet and share the hobby, educate people about amateur radio, as well as support our local community in times of disaster. We are located in Cherokee County Georgia and have club call sign WX4CAR.

The club also participates with ARES, and the Cherokee County EOC when severe weather gets close to the area, and we help with local public service projects.

The members of the club also dedicate some of their time to promote and help new hams to develop their skills and knowledge on Amateur communications modes and to be better operators. We are a very active club and participate in ARRL Field Day every year. If you are in the Woodstock, Georgia area and would like to participate, drop us a note and let us know. This website will provide details about the Field Day site.

The menu tabs on the far left will help you navigate to the area of interest.

If you have a question and would like to contact us, use the button at the top to go to the Contact Us page.

Nets

Our weekly Net can be found on 145.270 MHz every Thursday evening starting at 8PM Eastern Time. (- offset, PL=100Hz) KG4VUB Repeater - located in Waleska,GA

Testing - Need to test for your license or upgrade? An ARRL Testing session will be held at 2PM the same day. Testing is done at the William G Long Senior Center. Walk-ins are welcome, but we like reservations. Click on the Contact Us button if you want more information or reservation to take an exam.

Participate
What would you like see in 2020? The club officers will be looking for your suggestions, ideas, and your participation.

If you have a topic you would like to present to the club, please provide a summary or abstract in writing to any officer. It needs to related in some way to amateur radio.

Elmering Program (ie Mentoring of new or even experienced hams)

We now have a list of Elmers willing to help people in various parts of the hobby. Do you have questions or need some help on a certain topic or topics? We will provide a link to a page where you can see the available people and how to contact them. Ask any officer for the link.

In 2020, Elmers will be available to help people after the regular scheduled meetings each month. Bring a brown bag lunch and we will use the time from noon to 2PM.

ARRL
News and Information Feed

Club Presence on the ARRL
Click the ARRL Logo:

Current Space Weather and propagation

Other Happenings

Want to present to the group?
We NEED members willing to present on a topic in an upcoming meeting. Per our survey, topics include DIY projects, various aspects of soldering, batteries and solar power, working ham radio satellites, and using microcontrollers in your project. Please contact Marty, Rob, or Joseph about your topic.

What do you want to see presented? Let the leadership team know.

Look for new sessions and all new topics in 2019. Submit your ideas to any club officer.

Slides are still posted for the 2017 and 2018 sessions and from early in the year.

Build It Project
We hope to do the club "build it" project. The Ham Radio Workbench website has a number of DIY projects you may want to try. We are here to help.

We have a list of who is seriously interested in doing projects.

The picture at the left is the Benchduino project from the Ham Radio Workbench crew. Boards should be available for sale on their website in November 2019.