Weekly net

20 Checkins ain’t bad at all for a small unorganized club.
Please join us tonight at 7:00PM for the Five County Ham Radio Enthusiasts net on the Carolina 440 network. You will be able to find your closest repeater here  If you are not close to the repeater or are unlicensed or you would like to just listen on line try here.  Tony Hall (WW4TCH) is our regular net control station.

If you have thought you would like to serve the community during an emergency the best way to get ready is to learn to call a net. Let me know if you are interested in becoming a net control operator. This net is checkin driven meaning you can bring up other subjects like, building models or astronomy.

Thanks to the Carolina 440 net for the use of the repeater. If you would like to help out or join the group click on the link.Tell them FCHRE sent you.

AB4OZ Hamfest Meet and greet

It was great to see everyone yesterday.  If I don’t have your call below your picture send me an email and the number in the caption and I will add it. See the article on the Five County Website. Be sure to check the website frequently.  Sometimes I put content in there and don’t announce it until our Sunday newsletter.

Five County First Contact Program

I contacted 8 people in our first month of the first contact program.  This is where you can sign up to be contacted until you make your first contact.  I had four responses and 3 reported their first contact.  One reported being out of town. The other 3 reported their first contact! I will be following up with the others as I promised. Did you pass your amateur radio exam thru another organization or thru us and haven’t made your first contact yet? Sign up for the Five County First Contact here. Be sure to subscribe to our groups.io email too!

Our Next Testing Session

Is May 1 at the unique Banks Road Testing Club Facility.  See the article about our First Year Anniversary. Have your friends register at the website.  We also have our famous weekday test on May 20.

Astronomy Events

First Quarter moon is Tuesday. The peak of the Lyrid meteor shower is on April 22. That means the waxing moon will interfere with the show. But what about listening to meteors on the radio? Take a look at this article. Looks like something I can look into before the 22 is to figure out how to use my 7100 to make contacts on meteor scatter on the various modes.  Including on 70 cm (Technicians can do).  I talked to several people yesterday but I think it was N4IZE and I talked about grid squares.  Meteor scatter would be interesting to see where you could work during a meteor shower.  Meteor showers occur throughout the year. Find the list here.