KARC Fall Picnic

fall_picnic_headline.png

This year's fall picnic will be held on Sunday 6th October from 13:00 to 16:30 at the Kamloops Longboard Park (Highland Park) in Upper Aberdeen.  The address is 2350 Pacific Way, just behind the Pacific Way Elementary School. Parking is on Pacific Way and access is either through the school parking lot, or through the yellow gate on Pacific just East of the school boundary. There is an outhouse on the site. We will be monitoring VE7RLO (147.320+ and 442.525+ PL100) for anyone that needs directions or help finding the picnic site.

Longboard Park Map.png

As well as our usual get-together and HF setup, through Sol VA7NIN, we have invited members of the local 4WD community to attend. The objective is to give them a demonstration of the different types of  radio communication that are available to Amateurs that would be useful to people operating in the backcountry out of cell and 2m repeater range .  We will be demonstrating line-of-sight and repeater communications on VHF and UHF, and regional and DX on HF. If things go according to plan, we will have a 40m NVIS dipole to demonstrate regional communications  (out to a few hundred kilometres) and a 20m vertical or beam to demonstrate long distance HF communications.

We will also bring some Meshtastic nodes to demonstrate. For those of you who are not up on the latest radio fads, Meshtastic is a  new method of sending text messages through a mesh network of small and inexpensive ($50) radios that can be used over short distances to communicate. It does not require a licence from ISED. It is being used already by some 4WD enthusiasts to communicate between vehicles.

Guests are welcome, and we are looking forward to seeing you at the picnic!

If you have any questions, please contact Ralph VA7VZA at rsadams@telus.net

Ralph VA7VZA