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.

As per the Calendar of Events, May’s Club meeting will be at the Mint Hill Historical Society, 7601 Matthews-Mint Hill Rd, Charlotte, NC 28227, beginning at 8:00 AM.

We will set up a Club station and then have a very short business meeting. Following the meeting, we will be putting on amateur radio demonstrations.

Come join us for some fun!

John Covington, W4CC, became a Silent Key on, April 17th, 2019, per Obituary.

John was a long-time member of both W4CQ and W4BFB, as well as many other amateur radio organizations throughout North Carolina, and the ARRL.

W4BFB recently celebrated their 70th anniversary, and this video of John discussing the Mecklenburg Amateur Radio Society’s history in 1998 – 1999 was part of that program.

To view the video, click here.

John’s obituary and memorials may be viewed at harryandbryantfuneralhome.com.

Our original April program by Tim Slay, N4IB on Station Grounding has been POSTPONED due to a family emergency.

We will re-schedule Tim’s presentation for a later date.

We are working on an alternative program – a couple of short videos will be shown for sure.

One video will be on the Enigma Encryption Machine used by the Germans in WWII.

Join us at 9:30 AM on Saturday April 6th at the Salvation Army Headquarters, 501 Archdale Drive in Charlotte.  Note:  This is a secured facility, so please arrive before 9:30 AM so we can get you in!

The Events Calendar entry for the Club meeting includes a clickable link to a map for directions.

See you there!

Shawn, K4RSG

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