The Columbia Amateur Radio Club is now a Weather-Ready Nation (WRN) Ambassador.
The Columbia Amateur Radio Club is excited to collaborate with NOAA/NWS to help strengthen our nation’s readiness against extreme weather, water, and climate events. If you would like more information, please visit the Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador Frequently Asked Questions. And if you need any additional information, email WRN anytime at wrn.feedback@noaa.gov. You can also find WRN on X (previously Twitter) @WRNAmbassadors.
Amateur radio operators, enthusiasts, and tech lovers, it’s time to mark your calendars for the ARRL Digital Contest, an exciting event hosted by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL). Whether you’re a seasoned digital mode operator or a newcomer eager to dive into digital communications, this contest offers a unique opportunity to showcase your skills, connect with operators worldwide, and earn recognition in the ham radio community.
What Is the ARRL Digital Contest?
The ARRL Digital Contest is an annual competition designed to encourage the use of digital modes in amateur radio. Digital communication methods, including popular modes like FT8, PSK31, RTTY, and more, have become vital in ham radio. They allow operators to make contacts with minimal power, even under challenging propagation conditions, and the contest provides a platform for enthusiasts to challenge themselves and improve their digital mode proficiency.
Participants in the contest are tasked with making as many valid contacts as possible with other operators using digital modes, which can include short-range local exchanges and long-distance contacts across continents. The event is a great way to engage with a global community, exchange QSO information, and compete for awards and recognition.
Whether you’re reporting severe weather in real time or keeping your community safe, the WeatherWise app is built to support SKYWARN members and weather-savvy users who need fast, reliable, hyper-local weather data anytime, anywhere.
Field Day is ham radio’s open house. Every June, more than 31,000 hams throughout North America set up temporary transmitting stations in public places to demonstrate ham radio’s science, skill, and service to our communities and our nation. It combines public service, emergency preparedness, community outreach, and technical skills all in a single event. Field Day has been an annual event since 1933 and remains the most popular event in ham radio.
Greetings all! April meeting will feature Richard KQ4AMK presenting alternative power solutions highlighting Off-Grid Power and Communications for hams, this should be a very informative presentation. Do you have something you like to share/demonstrate, bring it! Let’s see what you are working on.
Topics are but are not limited to:
Types of emergencies.- Examples
Preparedness – List to pass out. ON-GRID / OFF-GRID
Food, water, power, meds, heat, communications, cooking, first aid …etc.
Emergency Solar Generators
Water Purification
Emergency Radio- Weather / News
Security
Emergency Communications: The Internet is out and cell phones do not work. THEN WHAT?
Meeting ID: 827 2154 3512 Passcode: 326310 One tap mobile +13092053325,,82721543512#,,,,*326310# US +13126266799,,82721543512#,,,,*326310# US (Chicago)
Want a program to display tons of Amateur Radio-related information? Many believe the only way to have a Geochron-like display is to install Linux on a dedicated system such as a Raspberry PI or a compatible PC or Laptop. Well, you can do that and have a reliable system displaying this beautiful screen on a large TV monitor. But, what if you don’t have a Raspberry Pi or spare PC? You can run the application in a little-known Linux sub-system environment in Windows.
March Ham and Eggs will feature Parks on the Air (POTA). So, what is POTA? POTA (Parks on The Air) is a part of Ham Radio that is growing in popularity. It starts when a Ham Radio operator travels to a National, State, or County Park listed on the POTA website. The Ham Radio Operator sets up their equipment and tries to make radio contact with other Ham Radio operators. There are many ways to communicate but the most common modes are SSB (talking on the radio), digital modes, i.e. FT8, and CW (like morse code). During this presentation we will cover:
Getting Started with POTA
Getting Started for Hunters
Getting Started for Activators
and Awards
At the conclusion of Ham and Eggs join Micheal KF4W, Tedd K4TLC, and Jim W4JLP at Sesquicentennial State Park for a demonstration of POTA activation using SSB and Digital modes. Did I mention, lunch? We will be grilling hamburgers with baked beans and mac ‘n cheese.
IMPORTANT NOTE: When you arrive at the gate, inform the gate personnel you are visiting the POTA event. Please make sure you give them your name and call sign if you have one. The POTA event is at Picnic table 3 which is near the boat house.
Open picnic table 3 with plenty of parking for those who want to set up their go-box/mobile for POTA.
Permanent link to this article: https://w4cae.com/march-ham-and-eggs-parks-on-the-air/
Greetings all, this month our main presentation will be Bill, W4FSV, taking us through the history and theories of Tubes in Amateur Radio. This will be a fantastic presentation, join us if you can.
Greetings everyone! We will meet in person at the ETV building and encourage all to join us there. In case you can’t make the meeting below is the Zoom meeting information for Monday.
Line-of-Sight provides radio path information for mapping long-distance SCADA radio communications by using antenna height and topography. Though this tool is designed for cellular service, it has great potential in the ham community. For example, I live in Lugoff and have sporadic issues reaching the club repeater 147.330. I feel certain that my antenna is the problem, either the coax feeding the antenna or its placement.
After checking the coax and antenna, I found using the Rf Line-of-Sight tool there is possibly an elevation increase in my line-of-sight to the repeater of 5 meters; which could cause issues with reaching the repeater.
Using this finding, my next step is to increase my antenna height to obtain a clear line of sight.
