Kamloops Amateur Radio Club

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

Sometime in the last week I noticed that the HF remote station wasn't receiving as well as it should.  On Friday, February 9, I checked the VE7RLO west web camera and wasn't able to see the HF antenna.  I went up to Lolo that afternoon on snowmobile to investigate -- the first challenge was getting through the locked gate!  Normally it is left open in the winter, but not this year!  After a half hour of shoveling the concrete-like snow I was able to get into the repeater site.

Once there I discovered that BOTH of the copperweld antenna elements had snapped off at the centre insulator and were tangled up under the snow.  Because the ladder line is tied off on the pole (yeah, my mistake!), it will require pole climbing to repair.  I'm not sure how feasible this will be this winter, but I will be discussing the idea with a couple club members to see if we can get it repaired.  The main issue is access; we need at least two people for safety, and a fair amount of gear to perform the repair.

I have taken the HF remote station off the air until the antenna can be repaired.  I apologize for any inconvenience.

Myles, VE7FSR

 

 

 

 

 

The 2024 BC QSO Party was held on February 3-4 and members of the Kamloops Amateur Radio Club participated from the Winter Field Day barn on the farm of Peter, VE7DNZ.  We had a smaller turnout for the BC QSO Party, with Jim VE7HS (thanks to Faye for the awesome baked goodies!) and Myles VE7FSR setting up on Friday night and working the contest through to Sunday afternoon.  Jim camped outside in his truck camper, and Myles slept in the barn on one of the cots.  Ralph VA7VZA, Peter VE7DNZ, and Bob VA7BKN also helped in the contest.

We had two IC-7300 HF stations (thank you to Ralph VA7VZA and Jim VE7HS for the use of your radios) and a VHF station (used to talk people into the site).  We ran everything from "alternative power" which was provided by a Honda EU2000i generator and a LiFePO4 100Ah battery.  We had a little excitement on Saturday morning while getting the contest station ready -- when Myles was plugging loads in there was a very loud "pop!" from the Astron power supply and we could smell the magic smoke leaking out of something.  Weirdly enough, the power supply kept working so we weren't sure what had happened!?  After the contest Myles took the Astron apart and determined that the MCR225 IC that is part of the crowbar circuit had exploded, cracking the plastic case and blowing off one leg of the three-terminal TO-220 package!

For HF antennas we used an 80M Carolina Windom (80-10M), a 20-15-10M EFHW vertical, and a 40/80M NVIS.  We also cobbled together a 160M EFHW using poly electric fence wire that we installed as an "inverted L" using the 35-foot mast as the vertical element, and the rest went over to a tall tree.  It was the first time we used a 160M antenna in a contest and we were able to log 9 contacts in the contest between 19:45 and 20:00 hours with stations in BC, Alberta and Oregon.

Similar to when we operated during the Winter Field Day we had a big screen TV running HamClock (thanks, Elwood!) so we could get live MUF information to help us plan which bands would give us the best results.

Internet for the contest stations and HamClock was provided by Myles, VE7FSR using a cellular modem in his Jeep which created a WiFi hotspot for the contest site.  Having internet enabled us to get live cluster information so we could monitor spots and see which bands were most active.

The Kamloops Amateur Radio Club participated in Winter Field Day for our second year on January 27-28, 2024. 

We used the club callsign VE7UT and were active on phone and Winlink.  We had two IC-7300 HF stations (thank you to Ralph VA7VZA and Iain VE7IET for the use of your radios) and a VHF station (used to talk people into the WFD site).  We ran everything from "alternative power" which was provided by a Honda EU2000i generator and a LiFePO4 100Ah battery.  For HF antennas we used an 80M Carolina Windom (80-10M), a 20-15-10M EFHW vertical, and a 40/80M NVIS.

Similar to when we operated during the RAC Winter Contest we had a big screen TV running HamClock (thanks, Elwood!) so we could get live MUF information to help us plan which bands would give us the best results.

Internet for the contest stations and HamClock was provided by Myles, VE7FSR using a cellular modem in his Jeep which created a WiFi hotspot for the contest site.  Having internet enabled us to get live cluster information so we could monitor spots and see which bands were most active.  It also allowed us to make Winlink connections via Telnet (as well as by the more traditional HF gateways).

We had a great turnout, with Jim VE7HS (thanks to Faye for the awesome baked goodies!), Ralph VA7VZA (thanks to Ralph for the fantastic chili!), Iain VE7IET (thanks for the great corn bread!), Dave VE7LTW (thanks for the donuts!), Shane VE7JFF, Bob VA7BKN, and Jason VA7HAB (thanks for BOTH boxes of donuts!).

We made 274 contacts, including sending multiple Winlink messages using several British Columbia HF Winlink gateways as well as via Telnet.  The WFD site was broadcast on APRS, and we were also able to use APRS to pass short messages.  The three HF antennas allowed us to make HF contacts on bands ranging from 10M to 80M, and over distances near to far, which proved out our concept of setting up antennas that had low angle as well as NVIS radiation.  Regardless of the band conditions or time of day, we were able to make contacts and exchange information.

We took a lot of photos, and you can see them here:  https://karc.ca/node/768