Kamloops Amateur Radio Club

I made an evening trip up to the Greenstone repeater (VE7RKA) on December 15, to do some troubleshooting on some UHF interference that was causing problems for the Shuswap Amateur Radio Club repeater on Fly Hills. After slogging in to the repeater shack on snowshoes, I was surprised to see a strange looking "wire" covered in frost, hanging from the tower.

After I dug out the door to the shack, I grabbed my flashlight and walked over to take a look. Much to my surprise it was the top guy wire from the east side of the tower -- it had broken off at the turnbuckle! And it was draped across several antennas on the tower, including two of the UHF link antennas! I wonder if this could have been the cause of the issue with the east UHF link to Salmon Arm!?

I managed to get it moved off the antennas and tied down right against the tower, but it was a little exciting because as I waved the loose guy wire around, clumps of frost and ice were dislodged from the top of the tower and showered down on me. And no, I hadn't thought to bring a helmet!

I plan to stop in Wednesday morning at Shaw's Enterprises and get them to make up a temporary "splice" that I can u-bolt to the broken guy wire and get it re-attached to the turnbuckle. At some point we will need to find someone who can do a proper splice on the guy wire (know anyone who could do this?). Wednesday night after work I will head back up the mountain and install the temporary splice, and inspect the other guy lines for damage. Anyone interested in joining me?

73,
Myles
VE7FSR

The October club meeting will be "Antenna Night", and we will be having an informal Swap & Shop.

Myles, VE7FSR, will be bringing an Anritsu Site Master antenna analyzer if anyone wants to sweep a hand held antenna or mobile whip on your vehicle. The Site Master gives a visual SWR sweep of the antenna which is helpful for tuning/trimming an antenna, or if you want to know the 2:1 bandwidth of an antenna.

Myles and Vern, VE7VGO, will also be talking about some antenna experiments they have been making with OCF (Off-Centre Fed) dipoles and End-Fed HF antennas.

If you have an interesting antenna you want to show off, or have an antenna problem or question that you need some advice with, then please attend the meeting at St. George's Church cottage. https://goo.gl/nEHQ13

Also, if you have something to sell, swap, or give away, we will be holding an informal Swap & Shop at the end of the meeting.

As always, there will be donuts! :-)

Hi all,

An update was posted which shows a more permanent fix for those of us with these affected older-model TI sound chips in our devices.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwFUUMrPazA

Enjoy, and 73!
-Adam

Hi all,

I came across this this afternoon and it's worth spreading the news on - many or most amateurs utilizing remote sound interfaces with numerous models of TI chips are likely having poor receive performance in all versions of Windows from Vista on up.

Please have a look at this video and this story and discussion at Reddit.

As the Reddit post shows, this affects all Signalink USB units, all ICOMs, Kenwoods and Yaesu's with built in USB audio, as well as the SCU-17 interface, and very likely other devices.

The fix is handy to know, and hopefully if there's enough noise on this perhaps we can push Microsoft for a fix. (Perhaps that's wishful thinking)

73 all,
Adam

Hello all,

Please see the attached information on this year's field day site (as well as the previous article) for information on how to get there.

The Field Day schedule will be similar to past Field Days with set up beginning Friday June 26 afternoon and evening. We will finish set up Saturday June 27 morning and start operating at noon until noon Sunday June 28. Then it’s time to take everything apart.

As usual we will take a break from operating for our pot luck dinner around 5:00 PM on Saturday. Then back at it “CQ field day de VE7UT“.

73,
Adam

Hello all,

Please see the below information on the proposed field day site location for this year. In the frame below you will see the google maps driving directions (hit 'more options' to bring it up larger in the browser and get the full driving directions). Also attached are screen shots from google earth as well as a KMZ file that will open up the location in google earth if you have it installed.

Please send us feedback if you have any, and we'll post further updates as they become available.

73,
Adam

Hello all,

It's that time of the month again, our club meeting is coming up this Thursday evening the 4th at the St. George's church at the intersection of Royal Ave. and Knox St. in North Kamloops at 7:30pm. Any and all guests are more than welcome.

Also our local IRLP node 1080 will be off the air for a few days and then may have limited outbound-only operating for a bit after that. We will post more on this as it develops.

73,
Adam

Hello all,

Thanks to Myles, Lolo was brought back on the air last Monday.

Enjoy!

73

Hello all,

Some equipment has been brought down from the repeater site for testing today, so VE7RLO will be offline again until further notice.

73,
Adam

Yay, the repeater is back on the air and linked in to the SIRG!

There may still be a mild 'hum' but Myles (VE7FSR) says it's much less obvious than before. If there are any problems noticed with the repeater please drop us a note.

Thanks all, enjoy, and 73!