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.

Per the Calendar of Events, July’s W4CQ Club Meeting will be at the Salvation Army HQ, 501 Archdale Dr., Charlotte, NC, beginning at 9:30 AM, on July 13th, because the Salisbury Hamfest is on July 6th.

We will hopefully have Tim Slay, N4IB, and his “Grounding Your Shack” program.

Come join us for some fun!

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

The annual W4CQ Christmas Party was held at the Salvation Army HQ on December 13, 2018.  A great time was had by all! 

The following photos were taken at the party by Angie Lail.