Charlotte Amateur Radio Society, Inc.

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The Charlotte Amateur Radio Society promotes amateur radio technology in Charlotte County

10/31/2026

🎃 Happy Halloween from WX4E! Before the trick-or-treaters arrive, we have a few important reminders for your shack tonight.

⏰ CLOCKS FALL BACK TONIGHT — Sunday, November 1st at 2:00 AM, Daylight Saving Time ends. Florida moves from EDT (UTC-4) to EST (UTC-5). Set your clocks back one hour before bed.

For hams, this matters more than the extra hour of sleep:

📻 Your radio's internal clock may need a manual reset — especially older transceivers that don't auto-sync. Check it first thing Sunday morning.
💻 If your logging software stamps contacts in UTC (it should), verify the UTC offset is updated to UTC-5.
🗓️ Nets and meetings set in local time don't move. Anything scheduled in UTC — contests and many DX nets — now happens one hour earlier on your local clock. Example: 0000Z was 8 PM EDT last week; it's 7 PM EST now.

The checklist before you sleep tonight:
☐ Kitchen clock
☐ Bedroom clock
☐ Shack clock
☐ Radio internal clock
☐ Logging software UTC offset
☐ Smoke detector batteries (a classic for a reason)

Have a safe and spooky Halloween, everyone! 🕷️

73 de WX4E • carsfl.org

Does your rig auto-update the clock, or are you doing it manually Sunday morning? And more importantly — what's your Halloween candy of choice? 🍬 Tell us below!

10/29/2026

🌀 October 29th — and hurricane season doesn't end until November 30th.

Southwest Florida knows this better than most. The final weeks of the Atlantic hurricane season are not the time to pack away your preparedness mindset. Storms have made landfall in the Gulf as late as November.

If you've let your emergency communications plan slide since September, now is the moment to tighten it back up:

📋 Review your family communication plan. Does everyone know the rally point? Do you have an out-of-state contact?
🔋 Check your backup power. Batteries, generators, solar — are they charged and ready?
📻 Know your local information sources. When the grid goes down and internet fails, battery-powered AM/FM and NOAA weather radios are your link to Charlotte County Emergency Management.
🎙️ If you're a licensed ham, now is the time to make sure your gear is ready and you know your role in your community's response.

Amateur radio operators — particularly those trained through ARES — serve as a critical communication layer when commercial infrastructure fails. That training and readiness doesn't happen the day a storm is named. It happens on ordinary days like this one.

November 30th is the official end of the season. We're not there yet.

Sources: CharlotteCountyFL.gov • RedCross.org • FloridaDisaster.org/Guide

WX4E • carsfl.org

Do you have a go-kit or emergency radio setup ready right now? Tell us one thing you always make sure to have charged and ready — your answer could help someone else in our community!

10/27/2026

⚡ Did You Know? Sometimes the weather runs the test for you.

On September 10th, a thunderstorm knocked down the yardarm holding the club's MeshCore repeater — an unplanned "gravitational qualification test." Jeff N2AWS shared the story with the club on Groups.io.

For the technically curious: MeshCore is a mesh messaging system built on small LoRa radios. Each node relays messages for the others, so text can hop across town with no internet and no cell towers — the kind of resilience that matters when the grid is down.

Of course, it works best when the yardarm is pointing up. That part matters. 😄

Good news: it's back up and relaying messages again. Every station builder knows the cycle: you build it, the weather un-builds it, you figure out what happened, and you put it back up stronger. 💪

Have a weather-vs-antenna story of your own? We'd love to hear it.

WX4E • carsfl.org

What's the most memorable thing weather (or gravity) has ever done to your antenna or station? Drop your story in the comments — we could all use a laugh today!

10/24/2026

📻 IT'S ON. The CQ World Wide DX Contest (SSB) is running right now — and the bands are packed.

From Florida, we have a fantastic geographic position for this event. On a fall Saturday, 15 and 20 meters are often wide open to the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. Even a modest 100-watt station and a wire antenna can rack up surprising DX contacts.

If you've been going through CARSFL's SSB Training sessions with Tom NV4H and Dennis K4IN, this is your live proving ground. Everything you've practiced — calling, exchanging, logging in UTC — is happening in real time on the air right now.

Never done a contest before? You can still jump in. Here's the bare minimum to participate:
🎙️ A microphone and an HF transceiver
📋 Something to log on — paper works fine
⏰ UTC time (your phone will show it)

Tune the 20-meter phone band, 14.150–14.350 MHz (General class starts at 14.225), and you'll hear it immediately. Technicians: 10 meters, 28.300–28.500 MHz, is yours. The easy way in is "search and pounce" — find a station calling CQ, give your call, and exchange a signal report and your CQ zone (Florida is zone 5).

The contest runs through Sunday at 7:59 PM EDT (2359Z). Every contact counts.

Go make some DX! 🌍

WX4E • carsfl.org

What's the most interesting DX you've worked today — or what's the farthest contact you've ever made from SW Florida? Share it below!

10/22/2026

🏆 How-To: Making Your First Contest Contacts — It's Easier Than You Think!

This weekend, one of the biggest events on the amateur radio calendar arrives: the CQ World Wide DX Contest (SSB). It starts Friday night at 8:00 PM EDT (0000Z Saturday) and runs through Sunday at 7:59 PM EDT. Thousands of stations worldwide will be calling "CQ Contest" on HF — which means even as a newcomer, you can jump in.

Here's the simple way to make your first contest contacts:

1️⃣ Listen first. Tune the phone portion of 20 meters (14.150–14.350 MHz; check your license class privileges) and you'll hear stations calling "CQ Contest" over and over. Those are the stations you want.

2️⃣ When they pause, say your callsign once, clearly, using phonetics. That's it — no need for their call.

3️⃣ They'll come back with your call and their exchange: a signal report and their CQ zone, like "59 14." You reply with yours — Florida is CQ zone 5, so "59 05." Done — that's a contest contact!

4️⃣ Log it right away: time in UTC, their callsign, band, and their exchange.

Not sure about logging software? N1MM+ is free and the most widely used contest logger out there — CARSFL's SSB Training Class 3 covered it on October 15th.

You don't have to stay on all weekend. Even an hour on Saturday afternoon counts. 📻

WX4E • carsfl.org

Are you planning to jump into CQWW this weekend — even for just an hour? Tell us your plan or your goal contact count in the comments!

10/20/2026

📻 Got 5 minutes and something cool to share?

Our November 12 club meeting is a member show-and-tell, and you're the program.

Pick anything ham radio: a homebrew project, an antenna you swear by, a great QSO or contest story, a tour of your shack, a piece of gear you love (or regret buying). Talks run 4–5 minutes, slides are optional, and every experience level is welcome. It's a friendly room, and the best way to find out what the rest of the club is up to.

We have a few speakers lined up and room for 2–3 more. Comment below or message us to grab a slot.

🗓️ Thursday, November 12 · 7:00 PM
📍 Meeting Room #9, New Life Church, 507 W. Marion Ave, Punta Gorda. Not our usual Lenox Hall this month, so look for Room 9.

Charlotte Amateur Radio Society, Inc. (WX4E) · Punta Gorda, FL · carsfl.org

What would you show off if you had five minutes? Tell us in the comments.

10/17/2026

📻 This weekend is Jamboree On The Air — JOTA — the world's largest Scout event, and amateur radio is at the heart of it! 🏕️

Every year on the third weekend of October, more than a million Scouts in countries around the world make contact with each other via amateur radio. A licensed ham sets up a station at a Scout gathering, and Scouts of all ages get to experience the thrill of speaking into a microphone and hearing a voice come back from another state — or another country. For many Scouts, it's their first moment of genuine two-way radio communication.

JOTA is a wonderful example of what ham radio does best: it connects people. No internet required. No cell towers. Just radio waves, an antenna, and the voice of a kid in Florida talking to a kid in Canada.

Thinking about introducing the Scouts in your life to amateur radio? JOTA weekend is the perfect moment. Point a troop leader toward the ARRL's JOTA resources at arrl.org/jamboree-on-the-air-jota — and if you're a licensed ham willing to set up a station for a Scout group, you can make a memory that lasts a lifetime.

The next generation of amateur radio operators might be putting on their first headset this weekend. 🎧

WX4E • carsfl.org

Did a JOTA experience spark your love of ham radio when you were young — or do you have a Scout in your life you'd love to introduce to the hobby? Share your story below!

10/15/2026

📡 Did You Know? The same 100 feet of coax that works fine on HF can swallow most of your signal on UHF.

Every feed line loses some power between your radio and your antenna, and that loss climbs steeply as frequency goes up. Loss is measured in decibels (dB) per 100 feet — and every 3 dB is half your power gone.

Here's what that looks like with 50 watts and 100 feet of thin RG-58, using typical manufacturer loss figures:
📻 HF (10 MHz): about 1.4 dB — roughly 36 watts reach the antenna
📻 2 meters: about 6 dB — roughly 12 watts
📻 70 cm (440 MHz): about 10.6 dB — only about 4 watts

Swap in a low-loss cable like LMR-400 and the same 100-foot run delivers roughly 35 watts on 2 meters and 27 watts on 70 cm.

And it cuts both ways: loss on transmit is loss on receive, too. Weak repeaters and simplex stations get weaker on the way down the cable.

✅ Key takeaway: On VHF and UHF, keep runs short and use the best coax you can. A better cable often buys more than a bigger radio.

🔗 Learn more: arrl.org/feed-lines

WX4E • carsfl.org

What coax is feeding your VHF/UHF antenna right now — and how long is the run? Tell us in the comments!

10/13/2026

📓 How-To: Logging Your Radio Contacts — Why It Matters and How to Start

If you've just made your first contacts on the air, congratulations! 🎉 Now — did you write anything down? Logging your contacts is one of the oldest traditions in amateur radio, and it's more useful than you might think.

Here's what a basic log entry captures:
📅 Date and time in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time — the global clock all hams share)
📻 The frequency or band you were on
🔊 The mode — voice (SSB, FM), digital (FT8), or CW
📍 The other station's callsign
📶 Signal reports exchanged (what you gave them, what they gave you)

Why UTC? Because ham radio crosses time zones constantly. A contact at 11 PM Monday in Florida is logged as 0300 UTC Tuesday — the same moment a ham in Germany logs as 5 AM Tuesday local. UTC keeps everyone on the same page in every log.

For paper logging, a simple notebook works fine. Write the UTC time first — it builds the habit. For digital logging, a free program like Log4OM stores your contacts electronically. The ARRL's free Logbook of The World (LoTW) does something different — it isn't a logbook you keep, it's where your log and the other station's are matched up to confirm a contact for awards.

Logging becomes especially important in contests and for awards — you can't claim a contact you didn't record!

Just getting started? Keep it simple: date, time (UTC), band, mode, callsign, signal report. That's a real log.

WX4E • carsfl.org 🌐 Questions? Bring them to the next club meeting!

Paper log or software — which do you prefer for keeping your shack records? Share your setup in the comments and help a new ham find their system!

10/10/2026

📬 Did You Know? You don't have to be a CARSFL member to stay connected with the club — our main Groups.io list is open to everyone!

The CARSFL community is more than what happens at monthly meetings. Between those Thursday evenings, our Groups.io main list is where the conversation keeps going: club news, ham radio discussions, event announcements, local on-the-air activity, and the kind of informal knowledge-sharing that makes amateur radio great.

Anyone — licensed ham or curious newcomer — is welcome to subscribe. It's free, it's friendly, and it's a great way to stay in the loop with our local amateur radio community.

📧 To subscribe, simply send an email to:
main+[email protected]

That's it. No forms, no fees. A moderator approves new subscribers, and then the posts start arriving.

Already get the CARSFL newsletter? October's issue has a full guide to getting the most out of Groups.io.

Already on the list? Tag a ham friend in the comments and invite them to join in. The more voices, the better the conversation.

CARSFL has been serving Charlotte County since 1974 — over 50 years of community, communication, and camaraderie. Come be part of it. 🌐 carsfl.org

Already on the Groups.io list? Tag a fellow ham below and invite them to join the conversation — the more the merrier!

Address

CARS Club Meeting Location 507 West Marion Avenue
Punta Gorda, FL
33950

Website

https://carsfl.org/

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