Per the Calendar of Events, September’s W4CQ Club Meeting will be on Saturday September 7th, at 9:30 AM.

We will have a short business meeting, then the program will be given by Tim Slay, N4IB, on “Grounding Your Station“. Tim had been Duke Energy’s Communications Manager, and was in charge of overseeing the installation of their 800 MHz trunking radio system and radio houses. He has an extensive background in grounding radio systems, from the antenna, to the tower, to the radio, and any other equipment involved. So come on down, bring your questions, and enjoy a very entertaining program!

Come join us for some fun!

You can now listen to the 444.4500 repeater on Broadcastify or via the Scanner Radio app on iPhone or Android devices.

Click here to listen on Broadcastify, or click on the play button below.

The Club now has a group on Facebook for anyone interested in amateur radio in the Charlotte area. It’s not just for Club members – if you are interested in amateur radio and need help with anything, such as how to get your license, how to set up an antenna or radio, or want to share something with the group, please join the W4CQ Facebook group.

We’ll try to respond to your join request ASAP, but it could be delayed a day or two.

To get to the Facebook group, click here.

We had a pretty good turnout at our March 2, 2019 Club meeting.  Bill Turner W4WNT came by and did a presentation on FT8, which was very well received.

FT8 is an amateur radio QSO communication protocol developed by Joe Taylor (K1JT) and Steve Franke (K9AN). FT8 uses 8-FSK modulation, transmission takes less than 15 seconds.

While sometimes criticized as being only a “paper chasing” mode because of its very structured format (no free-form text) and not being a conversational mode (like PSK), it’s great as a weak signal mode (and sometimes low-power).

It’s very good for evaluating propagation, since it’s easy to tell where you are being heard via the PSKreporter web site.

The software (WSJT, WSJT-X) is available for Windows, MacOS, and Linux.

Bill’s presentation is available in both Microsoft Powerpoint and OpenOffice formats.

For the Powerpoint version, click here.

For the OpenOffice version, click here.

For a printable PDF version, click here.

To download the software for your computer, go to https://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/k1jt/

Shawn, K4RSG

Hey Club members!

This is a friendly reminder that the Club mailing list is moving to Groups.io. If you have not accepted the invitation from W4CQ at Groups.io, please do so as soon as possible,

We are moving the list from w4cc.net to Groups.io because sometime later this year, w4cc.net may be shutting down.

Groups.io has no ads (unlike Yahoo), is simple to use, and data from there is not used for marketing purposes (like Google sometimes does). It is safe, and many other user groups have already moved there.

If you have any questions, send an email to k4rsg at w4cq.org.

Thanks, and 73,
Shawn K4RSG