The April Club meeting is tonight- moved up one week in order to have our meeting – and a special presentation by Thomas Witherspoon, K4SWL, founder and curator of the Radio Spectrum Archive. Tonight, Thomas will describe and demonstrate the RSA’s capability to let you go back-in-time and listen to any date, any time, any frequency back to 1986. This is a fascinating work by a team of people around the world, who are building this archive of recordings of the radio spectrum. That you can access at home. Join the meeting at the Salvation Army, masked, distanced, and yet in person within the guidelines. Join the presentation at the SA or on Zoom. Contact wx1j@arrl.net for additional details.
Studying for your ham license or upgrade at the May 8, VE Exam Session? Join your fellow hams and a few licensed hams for a study-group. It’s not a license class- but it is a great place to get another perspective on subjects that are causing you concern, confusion or just want to know more about.
Two Workshops will be held to help you over the humps. Wednesday April 21 and Wednesday April 28. Come to one or both. Register and send your topic to wx1j@arrl.net, All details will be sent by return email. Then join the workshop and be really ready for the exam.
The Cherryland Amateur Radio Club is sponsoring a VE exam session on May 8, 2021. The Exam session for all license levels, Technician, General and Amateur Extra will be held at 1:00 pm at the New Approaches Center, 5123 N Royal Dr, Traverse City, MI 49684
See VE EXAM page on this website for details about new FCC Requirements.
If you have any questions, or for more information contact: Hope Francisco, AA8SN
This month, we turn our attention upward – with a re-cap of the fascinating live demonstration by Lance Collister, W7GJ making Earth-Moon-Earth radio contacts during our March Club Meeting. Local hams remember Jim Monaghan, W8TVV. We highlight the upcoming MI QSO Party and Field Day 2021 activities. Ken, N8LUL shared his experience with the successful Handhams program. Dave, K8WPE provides some Sound Advice and we have Radios for Sale! There’s much more news you can use. Click the cover or the link to download your issue now. Share the link with your friends.
If you missed the event (in person or live-streamed, or on local cable channel 189) you can catch the replay of the stream (very good quality and audio) at this link:
contact begins at 33:05, so you can either fast forward or use this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OnrVCbWW9E&t=1975Making Contact with NA1ISS as it passes over North America and within range.Special guest and Astronaut who was on board the ISS Col. Greg Johnson gave a presentation prior to and a Q&A after the event which is very awesome to listen to. WZ8C with Col. Greg JohnsonSome of our AWESOME take-down crew! KD8KXJ, W8RAK, NU8A, WX1J, KE8MJA, N8OCXThe rest of our take-down crew and el-presidente! KC8RLU ( Joe took everything we could throw at him – 12 cinder blocks, 2 antennas, lots of steel framing and lots of hardline and coax. Of the entire take-down crew, I think he got the most waterlogged..)Q&A with Col. Johnson. His exact words: “I’ve been doing this a long time, and I will tell you, this is the NUMBER ONE BEST HAM RADIO INTERCHANGE I’ve EVER WITNESS. I kid you not. It’s the best one. No kidding!”Brook N8OCX, and Joe N8CN Brook designed and built the rack-mounted station and provided most of the equipment shown which was used for the contact.
We continue to receive notes of gratitude, thanks, and interest in the CARC and Ham Radio in general in response to this event which was widely covered in the media:
We are still collecting media files (pictures, video and audio) from many sources and will present these to a future Cherryland ARC meeting and have them available online.
The Cherryland ARC is proud and honored to have assisted to provide the youth of the area a unique opportunity to engage in a once-in-a-lifetime experience and be introduced to cutting-edge technology and the intersecting STEM, Robotics, Mechelectronics, Computer, Biology, and other science-related topics intertwined into this experience. We hope this helps to direct, propel, and inspire our area youth to embrace a high-tech career path and to be fluent with the tools, technology, science, and terminology as we look to them to forge our future.
We wish to thank Dale Williams, Director of the Great Lakes Division of the ARRL for attending, our ARISS mentors Gordon Scannell and Larry Koziel, and the entire ARISS team who incidentally watched our content live while at their yearly face-to-face conference in Canada. We wish to thank NASA, CASIS, and the team at Houston watching the interaction. We wish to thank Astronaut Col. Greg Johnson for his involvement with the program. We wish to thank ALL of the support from the Cherryland ARC, namely financial support from Ernest and Jennifer Abel, David Wilcox, and the New Approaches Center in Traverse City. We also wish to thank the Traverse Area District Library for.. EVERYTHING! They invited us to facilitate contact when a Telebridge style contact (not direct ham radio, a contact via phone line) was a possibility being considered. We are happy that we were given the opportunity to participate in this and make it a success. The TADL team is AMAZING without question, and we thank them for their coordination of literally everything, and unending hospitality, and interest in our group and members.
Finally but most of all, we wish to thank our spouses for tolerating our absence and stress through this process. We intend to repay this debt gradually over time with many kind returns.
Stay tuned for a CJ article and club presentation on this marvelous experience. We hope you were able to tune in!
There will be a program leading up to, during, and after the contact.
We suggest arriving to the Library no later than 8am in order to get a good seat, because they’ll go fast!
TADL will be streaming the event on their YouTube Channel and it will also be on local Charter/Spectrum channel 189. More information about media coverage will be relayed later.
Forecast is for Rain and possible Thunderstorms! Scott WX1J is checking the weather-seal and the feedline protector where the cables enter the building.A double thumbs-up from our design engineer!
