The Charleston Amateur Radio Society is affiliated with the
American Radio Relay League (ARRL),
has about 170 members and is very active. The communication needs of numerous events
are supported by the club. An example of this is the
Cooper River Bridge Run & Walk.
Of course, the club also participates in major ham radio events like
Field Day.
The club maintains several area voice repeaters which are linked
on a 24/7 basis and several digis for the support of APRS in the area.
Our main club station, WA4USN, is located on the aircraft carrier
USS Yorktown at
Patriots Point. Also located at
Patriots Point is the submarine, USS Clamagore, which has club station NJ4DU and the destroyer,
USS Laffey, which has club station NT4HI.
As an ARRL afiliated club, we also sponsor the DuBose Middle School Amateur Radio Club (K4DMS)
as an ARRL “Big Project” school. This initiative began in 2004, building upon the momentum
gained subsequent to a successful ARISS contact from the school that was facilitated by club
volunteers in March of 2004.
The club meets the second Monday of each month at a local restaurant. These meetings allow
members to discuss club matters and to conduct club business while enjoying fellowship over
a good meal. Our December meeting is the annual Christmas Party.
See the CARS Meeting page for details.
The minutes of the monthly meetings are printed in our monthly newsletter,
CARS Carrier. You can obtain a copy of the latest newsletter
here, or if you are a member of CARS, through email or a hard
copy through regular mail.
Once a year CARS hosts a very successful hamfest. There are
several forums you can enjoy and there are great prizes to win. Of course, it's a good
opportunity to buy and sell equipment or to have an eyeball QSO with fellow hams you met
on the air. Out of towners come and stay
for the weekend and enjoy the hamfest along with the sights of Charleston.
The club organizes licensing classes quite frequently. These classes help you pass the
necessary exams to become an amateur radio operator, or to
upgrade to a higher license class. If you are interested in attending one of these classes,
E-mail CARS
and you will be contacted the next time there are enough potential students to have a class.
If you are interested in becoming a member of the Charleston Amateur Radio Society,
click on the link below to download the membership application form. Please use your
computer keyboard to fill in the top half of the form before printing out the form,
using the tab key to move from field to field and clicking on the round circles to
indicate your ARRL Membership and the type of membership being applied for. Please
note that after you print out a copy (or two if you want to retain a copy for yourself)
of the filled out form and close the page containing the form or exit the web site,
all of the information that you entered is lost, none of it is saved in any manner.