Perry County Amateur Radio Society
Join PCARS
You don't have to be an expert. You just have to be interested.
PCARS is being built from the ground up in Perry County, Mississippi. Whether you're an experienced operator, newly licensed, studying for your first license, or simply curious about amateur radio, there's a place for you here.
Want to become part of PCARS?
Good.
We should probably talk.
The Perry County Amateur Radio Society is being built from the ground up, which means joining PCARS right now is a little different from joining a club that’s been around for 50 years.
You aren’t simply joining something that’s already finished.
You have an opportunity to help build it.
Who Can Join?
You don’t need a room full of radios.
You don’t need an Amateur Extra license.
You don’t need decades of experience.
In fact, you don’t necessarily need an amateur radio license yet.
If you’re interested in amateur radio and want to learn, participate, help others, experiment, or contribute to the amateur radio community in Perry County, we’d like to hear from you.
New to Amateur Radio
Newly Licensed
Experienced Operators
Emergency Communications
Experimenters & Makers
Everybody Else
You don’t have to fit neatly into one category. Most of us don’t.
Do I Have to Live in Perry County?
PCARS exists primarily to serve Perry County and help develop amateur radio activity here.
That doesn’t mean we’re putting a county-line checkpoint on the repeater.
Amateur radio doesn’t work that way.
If you live nearby, regularly operate in Perry County, have connections here, participate in local activities, or simply want to become involved with what we’re building, contact us.
We’re much more interested in participation than examining somebody’s ZIP code with a magnifying glass.
Community doesn’t stop at the county line.
What Does Membership Cost?
Right now, PCARS is still being organized.
Membership structure, dues, voting procedures, and the other administrative details that eventually accompany an organization are still being developed.
We’re not going to invent dues simply so we can say we collect them.
As PCARS develops and real organizational expenses become clearer, we’ll establish a structure that makes sense for the club we’re actually building.
We’ll publish that information before asking anyone to agree to it.
What Does a Member Have to Do?
There isn’t going to be any attendance police.
People have jobs. Families. Responsibilities. Other hobbies. Weather happens. Life happens.
Participate when you can.
If PCARS is going to become useful, though, it will happen because people occasionally move beyond being names on a membership list.
That might mean:
- Attending a meeting
- Checking into a net
- Helping a new operator
- Giving a presentation
- Participating in Field Day
- Helping with a repeater project
- Suggesting an activity
- Operating portable
- Helping at a public-service event
- Sharing something you’ve learned
- Teaching somebody a skill
- Bringing a project with you
- Simply showing up and talking radio
You don’t need to do everything.
Do something you enjoy.
What Kind of Club Are We Building?
One built around participation, learning, experimentation, and community.
We’re interested in helping people get licensed.
We’re interested in helping licensed operators actually get on the air.
We’re interested in antennas, repeaters, HF, VHF, UHF, digital modes, portable operating, emergency communications, computers, electronics, networking, and whatever interesting thing somebody drags through the door next.
We’re interested in experienced operators sharing what they know.
We’re equally interested in new operators asking questions that make the experienced operators realize they don’t know everything either.
That’s healthy.
We’re Not Stuffy Old Hams
Well, at least most of us are not trying to be.
Some of us are old.
That’s different.
Experience is useful. Taking ourselves too seriously generally isn’t.
Amateur radio involves enough acronyms, regulations, technical terminology, menus, cables, connectors, and expensive boxes already.
The club doesn’t need to make the hobby harder.
Ask questions.
Make mistakes.
Try things.
Learn something.
Help somebody else.
Have fun.
You Don’t Need to Know Everything
Nobody does.
Amateur radio is too broad for that.
A person who has spent decades working HF may know very little about DMR.
Someone who understands networking may know almost nothing about antennas.
A repeater expert may have never operated POTA.
A new Technician may walk into the room knowing something about computers, electronics, weather, fabrication, software, or another subject that the rest of us could learn from.
That’s one of the things that makes amateur radio interesting.
Everybody knows something. Nobody knows everything.
Bring Your Interests With You
We aren’t looking for members so we can assign everybody the same hobby.
If you want to chase DX, chase DX.
If you like repeaters, let’s talk repeaters.
Interested in digital voice?
Good.
Satellites?
Excellent.
POTA or SOTA?
Grab the radio.
Emergency communications?
There’s plenty to learn and practice.
Want to build antennas?
We’ll probably need more wire.
Interested in something nobody else in PCARS has tried?
Even better.
Show us.
A good radio club shouldn’t narrow amateur radio.
It should expose people to more of it.
Help Shape PCARS
This may be the best reason to become involved now.
PCARS doesn’t have decades of:
“That’s the way we’ve always done it.”
There isn’t much “always” yet.
That means early members have a genuine opportunity to influence things such as:
- Club activities
- Meetings
- Nets
- Technical projects
- Educational programs
- Portable operations
- Public-service activities
- Emergency-communications involvement
- Repeater development
- Presentations and workshops
- How the club welcomes and mentors new operators
- What PCARS becomes
We’re not asking you to fit into a finished organization.
We’re asking whether you’d like to help build a good one.
What If I’m Not Licensed Yet?
Then you’re exactly the kind of person we want to hear from.
Don’t wait until you’ve earned a callsign before contacting us.
Our Learn section walks through amateur radio, licensing, finding an exam, study resources, choosing a first radio, and getting on the air.
But sometimes the easiest way to start is simply talking to someone.
Send us a note.
Tell us you’re interested.
We’ll start there.
What If I’m an Experienced Ham?
We need you too.
The hobby only works when experience gets passed along.
If you’ve been licensed for years, you’ve probably learned things that aren’t in the exam question pool.
Those are often the useful bits.
Maybe you can teach somebody about antennas.
Maybe you understand repeaters.
Maybe you know contesting, satellites, digital modes, propagation, electronics, emergency communications, portable operating, or station building.
Maybe you know six ways not to solve a problem because you’ve already tried five of them.
That’s experience.
Bring it.
Can I Help With a Project?
Absolutely.
PCARS already has projects underway.
We’re building the organization itself, and we’re working toward establishing local VHF and UHF repeater infrastructure in Perry County.
Take a look at the Projects section.
If you have equipment, experience, skills, contacts, a possible repeater site, or simply a willingness to help, let us know.
Projects become considerably easier when more than one person is carrying the toolbox.
How Do I Join?
For now, it’s deliberately simple.
Send an email to:
Tell us:
- Your name
- Your callsign, if you have one
- Where you’re located
- A little about your interest in amateur radio
- Anything you’re particularly interested in learning, doing, or helping with
That’s enough to start the conversation.
No twelve-page application.
No essay.
No need to provide proof that you can identify a PL-259 at twenty paces.
Just say hello.
What Happens Next?
We’ll get back to you.
Since PCARS is still being built, the exact membership process may evolve as the organization becomes more formal.
We’re not going to pretend otherwise.
What won’t change is the important part:
If you’re interested in amateur radio and want to become part of the community we’re building in Perry County, you’re welcome to contact us.
Come Build It With Us
PCARS doesn’t need spectators nearly as much as it needs participants.
You don’t need to arrive knowing what you’re doing.
You don’t need to own impressive equipment.
You don’t need to agree with everybody about everything.
You need curiosity, a willingness to learn, and ideally enough of a sense of humor to survive amateur radio.
We’ll work on the rest together.
And at this stage in PCARS history, joining doesn’t just increase membership.
You may substantially improve our attendance statistics.