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

Announcements

SPECIAL NOTICE TO ALL MEMBERS

Because of concerns about the spread of the COVID-19 virus, City of Woodstock the William G Long Senior Center remains closed until further notice. As a result, we are hosting a virtual event for the CARS Monthly meetings until we can freely gather again in person. Stay tuned for changes in this.
We are hopeful that the center will re-open sometime in Winter 2020, but we have to wait for more details.

We have plans to have ARRL TESTING for September at a remote location. Information will be posted.

The risk for Cherokee County remains to be LOW. Here is a link to the county info: https://www.cherokeega.com/_focus/corona-virus-plan.php

Future announcements will be posted to the groups.io  distribution and on our Facebook page. Be safe and stay well.    73 from the leadership team

Next Meeting

November  14, 2020
Meeting location will be an on-air and virtual meeting, based on the unavailability of the Long Senior Center. Watch here for further announcements regarding onsite meetings.

Until we are able to meet live at the normal location, the WG Long Senior Center, so we will hold a virtual on-air meeting on the KG4VUB repeater at 10AM EDT.
[145.270MHz, - offset ,PL100]

General Announcements

Election of Officers for 2021
The club leadership is now accepting nominations for officers for calendar year 2021. More information about virtual voting will be sent to the membership in the coming weeks.
If you would like to nominate someone for an office, please contact the leadership. As sent out on the groups. io, we will have voting the week of December 5, 2020. 

ARRL sponsored FCC Testing
Watch here for details on testing.
No testing for October. Stay tuned for November 2020.

Under normal conditions we have changed the regular Testing session time to be 1PM Eastern after each month's meeting. NOTE: Due to COVID-19 restrictions, these testings sessions are on hold until we are cleared to hold them again. If you want to test for a new license or upgrade, it is requested that you use the Contact Us button and let us know.


Need help?
Watch this website for more details on additional opportunities for helping new Hams.
Look for Elmering in 2021 as well as new Ham Crams for license upgrades.

General Interest
Topics of general interest to the ham community

The Uncertain Future of Ham Radio
Interesting article and point of view that we should all take to heart. I does depend a lot on the next generation to keep it going strong. Education will play a very important role in drawing in the younger people. We have be talking about what they are interested in.
IEEE Spectrum Article

The Power Grid and EMP
SolarStorms.org

Looking Ahead

Special Event Meeting at a future date (TBD)

April 1, 2020 was the 60th anniversary of TIROS, the world's first meteorological (weather) satellite.  At the future CARS meeting, Rick Maxwell, W8KHK, will be presenting a program illustrating these very early days in the US space program.  As son of Walter Maxwell (W2DU, SK), antenna systems engineer at the Astro Electronics Division of RCA, he was fortunate to experience much of this history.  This program  was previously presented at the QCWA National Convention in 2010.  Slides will be shown, as well as actual spacecraft hardware!  Beacon, telemetry, and TV transmitters identical to those that flew on satellites such as SCORE, TIROS, RELAY, ECHO, and many other artifacts, will be on display for all to examine.
This is an exciting opportunity you will not want to miss!
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

For the February meeting we heard "Topics on Operating CW (Morse)" as well as "An Introduction to ARES" presented by Steven Price.

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 were demonstrations of various keys, guidance on learning CW, and lessons learned by the experts. Many Hams there tried out the various keys and wanted to sign up for the upcoming class. Slides will be posted when available.
Thanks to - Bruce German -KK4GEE and Steve Price KK4YQV

For April meeting we did our very first "on air" meeting, led by Rob W1JKU. It seemed to go very well, but we would like feedback from the members on area we could improve on. We also had an optional technical discussion on Go To Meeting that was an introduction to Digital Communications. Slides are posted in the Technical Programs area of this website.

In June, we held an outdoor ARRL testing session. The turnout was very good with 16 people attending and 14 passing their exams.
Thanks again to VE's that provide this service and congratulations to all the new hams!

In July, we had Bob Cheek N4RFC, present on the Packet Message Manager software called OutPost, which provides a very nice Email style interface to send packet messages across RF. Slides are posted.

The technical session for August was about Batteries. What are the right batteries to use for the right applications? Does it matter? What do Ham's need to know?
"Batteries for Ham Radio Applications" by Marty Buehring KB4MG - slides are posted in the Technical Programs Tab

In September we had a club event to build a 2 meter slim-Jim antenna. This was really well received and attended by club members. Many learned some new skills, including soldering, shrink wrap tubing, and testing and antenna with an analyzer.
Thanks to Rob, W1JKU, for organizing such a great event!

Soldering Station
In October we had a fantastic presentation and live demonstration on the FT-8 digital mode by Jeff, W2UA. The slides are posted on the Technical Programs page.

Current Space Weather and Propagation

Space Weather Forecasts

Propagation Predictions using VOACAP

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 Johnathon about your topic.  

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

Look for new sessions and all new topics in 2020. Submit your ideas to any club officer.

Slides are posted for the 2017, 2018 , 2019 and 2020 sessions.


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 still.

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.

Weekly Nets

CARS Weekly Net
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

Georgia DMR Talk Group Net
Wednesday evenings at 8PM Eastern Time
Talk Group 3113 Brandmeister Network
Website Link
Testing - Need to test for your license or upgrade? An ARRL Testing session will be held at 1 PM 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.

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. [on hold due to COVID-19]

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.

Club Presence on the ARRL
Click the ARRL Logo:

ARRL
News and Information Feed

Our Affiliations

WX4CAR YouTube Channel
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National Weather Service Radar