About SMRC
The San Mateo Radio Club (FCC station W6UQ) has served the Amateur Radio community in San Mateo and the surrounding San Francisco peninsula since 1946. The club provides members a forum to share common interests in our expansive and varied hobby. We support emergency preparedness, help newcomers to get on the air, and build the skills of our experienced operators. The club also has a significant social aspect with regular meetings and events. As an all volunteer organization, the quality of your experience is based on the contributions of the membership: teaching, socializing, presenting, organizing, and more.
New to "Ham" Radio?
We've all been there. It is common to see anxiety by people newly interested in amateur radio: there aren't many things in our life that require a government license (driving a car, flying a plane, practicing medicine, etc.). Amatuer radio does, but unlike those other activities it is pretty hard for a beginner mistake to cause harm. Learning new things is why many of us started in the hobby.
The SMRC is a very welcoming club that encourages beginners to join. Many existing members are happy to help beginners (though we may not always have personal time available at any particular moment since the club is a hobby for most of us, not a job). If you are interested, attend a meeting or two for free and see if this is the club for you before paying your dues.
What activities might you learn about? Here is just a sample: emergency communications, making radio contacts when parachuting from airplanes, how to construct antennas, bouncing radio signals off of micro-meteroites, bouncing radio signals off the moon, bouncing messages off of satelites, long distance (worldwide) communications without infrastructure, battery technology, competitions, radio and national parks (POTA), radio and mountian climbing (SOTA), direction-finding ("radio-fox-hunting"), internet interlinking, radio mapping and telemetry, radio theory, product reviews, and more...
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Membership Dues
Membership is open to anyone with an interest in amateur radio. Dues are $25 for the year, half price for each additional member in the same family.
For new members, dues paid after September 1 apply to the remainder of the current year and cover the following year. For renewing members, we expect dues to be paid by the end of January for the current year, or you can renew early (after September 1 of the prior year). Of course, if you miss the January deadline or are a new member, there is never a bad time to pay your dues!