Meetings

CARA's regular meetings are scheduled on the second Friday of each month except for the summer months of July and August. The meetings are held at the Stony Hill Fire Station in Bethel, CT. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. These meetings are, of course, open to the public.

See the highlights to the left to find the date for the next meeting and the program.

CARA also holds regular "work" meetings - planning sessions, meetings where the details of club activities are hammered out. These meetings are open to all interested parties. The date of each meeting is announced at the preceding regular club meeting; currently they are being held on the Friday two weeks after the regular club meeting.

License Exam Sessions

CARA hosts license exam sessions 4 times a year (March, June, September and December), at the Stony Hill Fire Station in Bethel. See "Amateur Radio License Tests" on our Calendar page. These test sessions are open to the public.

Other ham radio clubs in the state also host sessions. See the American Radio Relay League's Exam list for a current list.

HamFests

HamFests are events where hams get together to buy, sell and swap ham equipment, books, software, etc. CARA hosts a HamFest every fall in the Danbury area, at Newtown's Edmond Town Hall. The HamFest next year will be September 14, 2008. See the HamFest page for more details.

Emergency Communications

One of the reasons amateur radio is still allowed to exist - taking up slices of the radio frequency spectrum, which is coming to be viewed more and more as a valuable commodity - is the service that hams provide in times of disaster. When disaster strikes, be it hurricane, earthquake, explosion, fire or anything else, amateur radio is often the only means of communication available to the outside world - or within the area affected.

Many CARA hams participate in emergency communications in the Candlewood Lake area, taking part in ARES/RACES training sessions, nets, and meetings, and occasionally serving in an emergency situation in the area.

Field Day

CARA also sets up a "Field Day" site on the fourth weekend of June each year. Field Day is a nation-wide emergency-preparedness exercise sponsored by the American Radio Relay League in which individuals, groups and clubs set up an emergency station (often in a field, giving the exercise its name) and try to communicate with as many other such stations as possible.