Kamloops Amateur Radio Club

 

 

 

 

 

The next monthly meeting will be held on Thursday June 6 at 7PM.  Please see the attached draft agenda.

This will be our last meeting before the usual summer break.  Will be holding a special election in order to fill positions which were not filled at the AGM last month.  We will also be learning about the club autopatch, so if you've never used an autopatch before now is the time to learn how!

We have lost access to Big Blue Button, but Brock has found an interim option with Google Meet.  Because we are limited to one hour with Google, we will start the online meeting just before 7pm.

To join the online meeting, please click this link: https://meet.google.com/eoi-szsa-bas

To join the meeting in person please meet outside the lobby of the Victoria Building at 210 Victoria Street.  The KARC meeting will be held in the offices of the Province of BC on the 5th Floor. This is a controlled access building so please try to be there by 6:50pm so we can start the meeting promptly on time at 7pm.  Please wait outside until someone comes to open the door.  You may also call (250) 318-5150 to let us know you are downstairs waiting.

Myles VE7FSR received a panicked call from Vern VE7VGO on Saturday, May 18.  The big storm that blew through on the Thursday evening broke one of the guy wires on Vern's HF beam antenna and the antenna and mast were severely bent over and at risk of falling on his neighbours house.  Myles went over on Saturday afternoon and helped Vern to install a temporary guy which was tied off to his fruit tree, with the hope it would keep the mast from falling over until we could get a crew out to perform a permanent fix.

A call went out on Saturday night, and Jordan VE7OSX, Ralph VA7VZA, and Myles agreed to meet at 11am on Sunday to help Vern get things fixed.  Jordan was quick to get up on the roof and untangled the two guy wires that were twisted together, and he removed them from where they had become stuck under a roof vent.  Myles used his 30ft telescopic mast to connect a temporary rope guy that was used to get the mast back to vertical, and the temporary rope guy supported the mast/antenna while Vern and Ralph worked on splicing the broken aircraft cable guy wire.

The repair crew started at 11am, and we had things finished and cleaned up by 11:50am.  Not bad for a bunch of amateurs!

Thank you very much to Jordan for your quick work on the roof, for Ralph for bringing all the high quality tools, and for Vern to being so calm when we were all worried the thing was going to blow over!

We are blessed to have such a great club and such awesome members who will drop everything to help a fellow ham.

The KARC held our first official POTA activation and spring picnic at McConnell Lake Provincial Park on May 5, 2024.

We had an amazing turnout which included: Bob VA7BKN, Doug VA7GPX, Dave VE7LTW, Solomon VA7NIN, Iain VE7IET, Dwight VE7BV, Brock VA7AV, Tom VA7TWL and his XYL Gabriele, Jim VE7HS, Kyle (no call sign), Shane VE7JFF, Simon VE7RIZ and his son Bryson, Ian VE7HHS, and Mike VE7KPZ and his XYL Jane VE7WWJ came all the way from Vernon.  Shane VE7JFF helped organize, and he, Simon and Mike all brought radios and antenna setups ideal for a POTA activation.

Things got off to a brisk start once VE7UT was spotted, and the operators made a total of 37 contacts before we were rained out.  Operators VE7JFF, VE7RIZ and VE7KPZ made 4 contacts on 2M, 28 contacts on 20M, and 5 contacts on 40M.

We were very fortunate that Ian VE7HHS came up from Abbotsford, because he shot video and livestreamed the event.  See: https://youtube.com/live/zD5Nhmd8zRg?feature=share  Please check out all the photos in the album here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 2024 Kamloops Amateur Radio Club Annual General Meeting and Election of Club Officers will be held on Thursday, May 9 at 7PM.

This will be hybrid meeting, but you are encouraged to join us in person.  For those who can only join online, please use this link: https://bbb.isurf.ca/b/ada-jnt-mkf

To join the meeting in person please meet outside the lobby of the Victoria Building at 210 Victoria Street.  The KARC meeting will be held in the offices of the Province of BC on the 5th Floor. This is a controlled access building so please try to be there by 6:50pm so we can start the meeting promptly on time at 7pm.  Please wait outside until someone comes to open the door.  You may also call (250) 318-5150 to let us know you are downstairs waiting.

The draft agenda is attached below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The KARC will be hosting the spring picnic at McConnell Lake Provincial Park on May 5, and we will also be doing the first POTA activation under the club callsign, VE7UT.  Bring your own lawn chair and refreshments, and we will have a 2-burner Coleman stove for cooking in the event there is a campfire ban in place.  We plan to have two HF stations in operation so everyone should have a chance at the mic!

The Park is a 20 minute drive from Aberdeen on the Lac Le Jeune highway (see map below) and there is plenty of parking once you get to the Park entrance.  There are a couple of picnic tables, an outhouse, and some nice trees close by for HF antenna supports.  Bring your kayak or canoe if you feel like paddling around or doing some fishing.  We will be monitoring VE7RLO 147.320 MHz in case you need directions or have any problems finding the park.

Google Map directions for your phone are here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Sket5GfqNKkYZQpy6

If you have any questions please contact Shane VE7JFF.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next monthly meeting will be held on Thursday April 11 at 7PM. 

Parks on the Air Presentation

We will have a guest speaker, Michael Van Kuyk VE7KPZ, from Vernon presenting on Parks On The Air.  For more information on Parks On The Air see the attachments below.  We are working on hosting a spring picnic and POTA activation, so this will be a great primer for everyone in the club.

Mike has agreed to share his POTA presentation in PDF, and it may be downloaded at this link.

 

 

 

 

 

The next monthly meeting will be held on Thursday March 7 at 7PM.  We will be discussing the club repeater network and how it works, reviewing the recent HF remote station antenna repair, planning for the club AGM and elections in May, and pre-planning for the ARRL VHF contest in June.

This will be hybrid meeting, but you are encouraged to join us in person (we will have donuts and apple fritters!).

For those who can only join online, please use this link: https://bbb.isurf.ca/b/ada-jnt-mkf

To join the meeting in person please meet outside the lobby of the Victoria Building at 210 Victoria Street.  The KARC meeting will be held in the offices of the Province of BC on the 5th Floor. This is a controlled access building so please try to be there by 6:50pm so we can start the meeting promptly on time at 7pm.  Please wait outside until someone comes to open the door.  You may also call (250) 318-5150 to let us know you are downstairs waiting.

February 19 -- the microwave link between Promontory Mountain and Iron Mountain has been restored.  The VE7IRN repeater, kiwiSDR receivers, web cams, and APRS iGate are back online and connected to the KARC IP network.

Several weeks ago after a prolonged power outage the PTY-IRN microwave link from Promontory Mtn (PTY) and Iron Mountain (IRN) failed to come back when the power was restored.  Myles VE7FSR and Lee VE7FET were able to gain IP access to the microwave radio (PTY-TPK) that connects to Greenstone Mtn (TPK), so they knew that things were powered on in the building at Promontory, but they were unable to ping or login to the (PTY-IRN) Ubiquiti Bullet AC radio.

On Sunday, February 18 Myles VE7FSR went up to Promontory Mountain on snowmobile and after some troubleshooting he suspected that the PoE injector for the Bullet AC radio had failed.  Unfortunately the spare PoE injectors that he brought with him were not compatible with the Bullet AC so he couldn't be sure.   Myles brought the radio and PoE injector home and did some testing on Sunday night and confirmed that the Bullet AC radio was fine, but the PoE injector was dead.

This necessitated a follow up trip on Monday, February 19 when Myles went back to Promontory Mtn with a new PoE injector (and a spare!).  Once onsite the Bullet AC radio was powered up and the microwave link to Iron Mountain was soon back in operation.

Photos from the weekend may be viewed here: https://karc.ca/node/776

 

 

 

 

On February 16-17 Myles, VE7FSR made trips by snowmobile up to Mt. Lolo to attempt to get the club's HF remote station back on the air.  This required the "removal" of the PVC supports (aka stand-offs) that Ralph VA7VZA and Myles had installed late last fall to keep the ladderline from getting tangled in the steel foot pegs on the wood pole.  Unfortunately when Myles came up with the "bright" idea of using the PVC supports he didn't think about how to lower the dipole without having to climb the pole again!  Doh!  Climbing the pole in winter was determined to be a non-starter -- getting the safety gear, ladder, and support crew up to Lolo in winter was nearly impossible.  So this lead to a rather creative solution that involved using a slingshot to hurl a lead weight over the top-most PVC support, and then progressively larger lines and finally a rope was looped over the highest stand-off.  The rope was hauled down until the PVC snapped off the pole, and the process was repeated until all the stand-offs were gone.

Then the dipole could be lowered in preparation for the installation of the new, improved centre insulator.  The new centre insulator was made from a waterproof Carlon 4x4x2 inch electrical box, 1/4-inch stainless eye bolts, and brass machine screws. 

To help reduce the strain on the copperweld wire at the insulator, a set of doubled-up copperweld wires was looped around the eye bolts, and these were electrically connected to the ladderline with 10g silicon jacketed, tinned copper wire.  Hopefully the new centre insulator will be much more resistant to flexing in the wind, and will last a lot longer!

To support the ladderline dacron rope was weaved through the "windows" of the ladderline, and thie was tied off to the Carlon electrical box at the top, and to the eye bolt in the building at the bottom.  This seems like it will help support the ladderline in the wind (and boy was it windy on the Saturday!) and keep it from getting tangled on the steps on the wood pole.  Unfortunately, when Myles hauled the broken antenna elements out from under the ice crust and snow, one of the dipole elements snapped.  Not having any new copperweld with him (doh!) Myles decided to call it a day and come back the following day with some new copperweld dipole elements.

Day two was sunny, but the wind was crazy!  This made finishing the dipole repair challenging, and the wind required careful effort to avoid having the dipole legs getting tangled in the various guy wires and trees.  After several hours of (painful and slow) work, the HF dipole was back in the air, and ready for an SWR test.

Myles then fired up the remote HF station computer and the IC-7300 radio, and proceeded to test the antenna SWR from 160M to 10M.  The Icom remote tuner was able to find a match on all bands, which was great!  Myles then made some contacts on several bands and asked for signal reports to confirm that the repaired antenna was working well.  Once he was sure that the antenna was working, he restarted the Icom RS-BA1 software and tested the operation of the remote HF station (it verks!).  Success!

To see all the photos from the two-day repair expedition, please see: https://karc.ca/node/774