Central Alberta Amateur Radio Club
Club Events
CAARC Participation in 2020 ARRL Field Day
May 21st
Paul VA6MPM has agreed to co-chair distribution of information for CAARC members’ (and any other interested amateur’s) entries in the ARRL Field Day.
We encourage your participation in the 2020 ARRL Field Day on June 27 and 28, and your submission of your individual station score to the ARRL. The 24 hours of on-air operations start at 1800Z June 27. You may operate for any convenient part of that period.
We are going to publish what we hope are bite-sized chunks about participating in Field DayThe official ARRL Classes for one or two participants are (from easiest to hardest), choose one:
- Home station using only one of your own call signs (Class D). Another licenced household member may also use this station equipment with only one of their own call signs for a separate entry. Class D stations may not count contacts made with other Class D stations. Using emergency power for a home station changes your class to Class E and allows you to claim a bonus and also allows contacts with any Field Day Station to be counted.
- Vehicular Mobile (Class C): Stations in vehicles capable of operating while in motion and normally operated in this manner. Normally used by one operator with his own call sign.
- Small group portable (Class B) set up and operated by no more than two persons. This can be your regular equipment set up so as to operate from your back yard, and I believe, your garage if it is not your regular operating position. A variant is Class B – Battery, in which All contacts must be made using an output power of 5 Watts or less and the power source must be something other than commercial mains or motor-driven generator. Set-up must start later than 0000 UTC on the Friday (Thursday afternoon or evening local time) preceding the Field Day period. Set up your station up with an effort of a total of 24 hours or less.
In the QST Field Day results each class is listed in in its own category, so in essence, you will compete with similar stations.
We will make further posts, about:
- Which QSOs can be counted and what you have to record for each QSO,
- Point score for each type of QSO
- Multipliers and bonuses
- Reporting your score
Background, official rules, and many hints can be found at http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Field-Day/2020/2020%20Field%20Day%20Packet(1).pdf .
Comments or questions to Paul VA6MPM (find his email on QRZ.com), or John VA6SJA, va6sja@rac.ca .
John VA6SJA and Paul VA6MPM
Central Alberta Amateur Radio Club Fathers Day June Picnic
Apr 12th
Please be advised, the Central Alberta Amateur Radio Club Fathers Day June Picnic has been cancelled till 2021 due to Covid-19.
Buy A Book Raffle
Apr 11th
“Buy a Book Raffle”
Please be advised, the Central Alberta Amateur Radio Club Fathers Day June Picnic has been cancelled till 2021 due to Covid-19.
In order to proceed with the club raffle, which was already underway, we wish to appeal to Amateurs all over Alberta to help us continue with the raffle, without losing money, since we would normally sell most of the tickets at the picnic.
This is our “Buy a Book” bail us out offer.
The tickets are in books of 10 tickets @ $5.00 each, so a book is $50.00.
First prize is $500 and second prize is $200 for each ticket. Only 400 tickets available.
You can etransfer $50.00 to ve6cia@gmail.com. Be sure to put your email address and the name you want on the tickets, in the message of your etransfer, as it doesn’t always come automatically.
He will fill out your 10 tickets and email back a scan of them, all filled out, and they will, personally guaranteed, go in the draw. In the unlikely event they are sold out, we will immediately advertise the raffle is closed. Should we receive an etransfer after sellout, your money will be refunded. It will be open otherwise, till Sun. June 14, 2020 and the draw will be Sunday June 21, 2020 as advertised on the ticket. AGLC licence #555551.
The videotaped and publicly posted draw, will be held in the presence of 4-5 CAARC executive members that are 6′ apart (if that still applies by then).
The raffle is open ONLY to all Alberta residents over the age of majority. They need not be licenced radio amateurs.
CAARC participation in ARRL Field Day 2020
Mar 17th
On a posting on February 23 I had asked anyone interested int CAARC’s participation in ARRL Field Day 2020 to come to the March meeting of the Central Alberta Radio Club to establish an organization.
Because of all the commotion about the COVID-19 virus and because I am part of the vulnerable population, I will not be going to the club meeting.
If the club wishes to proceed with participation in Field Day, providing that it seems wise at that time, I am willing to provide advice and support to the extent that I have time. I do think however, that it is time for a new set of “doers”, including the chairman, etc.
If you can’t go to the meeting and wish to indicate support, I will collect your comments and advice to send to a member of the club executive. It would be best that I compile these comments before the meeting tomorrow evening.
Please you send me any of your thoughts by noon MDT tomorrow, March 18 AT va6sja@rac.ca ..
John VA6SJA
CAARC Participation in 2020 ARRL Field Day
Feb 23rd
We had a lot of fun on Field Day 2019.
Should CAARC have an entry in the 2020 ARRL Field Day on Saturday-Sunday, June 27-28? If you want it to happen, come to the CAARC general meeting on March 18. We will be deciding if there will be a CAARC entry at that meeting. If so, we will need help; we will start creating a planning and organizing structure and distributing responsibilities.
We decided this at the general meeting on February 19.
Note: : There would probably also be participation on Friday. Up to 24 cumulative hours of set-up for an emergency powered portable station is allowed to start up to 42 hours before the start of the 24 hours of on-air operations at noon (MDT) on Saturday.
John Allen, VA6SJA
CAARC Field Day 2019 has Come and Gone
Sep 12th
By John VA6SJA CAARC Field Day Chairman 2019
We had a field day! It happened because of the participation of interested people. Good job everyone! There are many stories, and I don’t have space to tell them all and there are some that I probably don’t know. Feel free to post your story.
CAARC had sponsored a Class 1F Field Day held at the Red Deer County Emergency Communications Centre in June of 2018.
BOB VE6BLD advocated for a fun Field Day with generators at the October 2018 CAARC general meeting. I had hoped there could be a repeat of last year’s County Class F Field Day as well as to hold this Class A Field Day. But this first independent CAARC Class 3A Field Day took a lot of organizing, and Ryan VA6DSJ, who could allow us access to the County’s Emergency Communications Centre was on emergency assignment dealing with an Alberta wildfire. So, this year’s Class F Field Day was cancelled and this Class 3A Field Day had to do for this year.
I had made a participant and visitor log book allowing for 35 entries and there weren’t enough lines! Hams and former hams came from as far away as Canmore and Edmonton. More hams and family members came for the roast pork supper. At least one couple came because they saw the Field Day signs on the road,
And we got photos that help tell our story! View them on this site.
All the participants worked together to make this event happen. A good example is the set up and troubleshooting needed to get everything working, including improvising on the spot. For one instance, on Friday afternoon Bob VE6BLD and Darcy VE6DDD looked around to find a way to replace the missing centre insulator for the driven element on the Mosley TA-33 Jr. beam that Garry VE6CIA had lent us. They found a discarded snow shovel with a fiberglass handle. Darcy spliced it into place with the help of cable ties and electrical tape and the crew put it in place on top of one of Bob’s masts that could be assembled from the bottom.
Field Day 2019– 99 pictures.
Jun 28th
I finally found a new Gallery widget to add multiple pictures at a time!! Check out the field day pictures by clicking the Field Day 2019 TAB right of the Swap and Shop. Thanks to Bob VE6BLD, John VA6SJA and Ray VA6RSO for the pictures.
Click any picture or click View Slideshow below the pictures.
Bob VE6BLD
Astronaut Owen Garriott, W5LFL, SK
Apr 16th
Amateur Radio in Space Pioneer Astronaut Owen Garriott, W5LFL, SK
04/15/2019
The US astronaut who pioneered the use of Amateur Radio to make contacts from space — Owen K. Garriott, W5LFL — died April 15 at his home in Huntsville, Alabama. He was 88. Garriott’s ham radio activity ushered in the formal establishment of Amateur Radio in space, first as SAREX — the Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment, and later as ARISS — Amateur Radio on the International Space Station.
“Owen Garriott was a good friend and an incredible astronaut,” fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin tweeted. “I have a great sadness as I learn of his passing today. Godspeed Owen.”
An Oklahoma native, Garriott — an electrical engineer — spent 2 months aboard the Skylab space station in 1973 and 10 days aboard Spacelab-1 during a 1983 Space Shuttle Columbia mission. It was during the latter mission that Garriott thrilled radio amateurs around the world by making the first contacts from space. Thousands of hams listened on 2-meter FM, hoping to hear him or to make a contact. Garriott ended up working stations around the globe, among them such notables as the late King Hussein, JY1, of Jordan, and the late US Senator Barry Goldwater, K7UGA. He also made the first CW contact from space. Garriott called hamming from space “a pleasant pastime.”
“I managed to do it in my off-duty hours, and it was a pleasure to get involved in it and to talk with people who are as interested in space as the 100,000 hams on the ground seemed to be,” he said in an interview published in the February 1984 edition of QST. “So, it was just a pleasant experience, the hamming in particular, all the way around.”
Although Garriott had planned to operate on ham radio during his 10 days in space, no special provisions were made on board the spacecraft in terms of equipment — unlike the situation today on the International Space Station. Garriott simply used a hand-held transceiver with its antenna in the window of Spacelab-1. His first pass was down the US West Coast.
“[A]s I approached the US, I began to hear stations that were trying to reach me,” he told QST. “On my very first CQ, there were plenty of stations responding.” His first contact was with Lance Collister, WA1JXN, in Montana.
ARISS ARRL Representative Rosalie White, K1STO, met Garriott when he attended Hamvention, “both times, sitting next to him at Hamvention dinner banquets,” she recounted. “Once when he was a Special Achievement Award winner, and once with him and [his son] Richard when Richard won the 2009 Special Achievement Award. Owen was unassuming, very smart, kind, and up to date on the latest technology.” Garriott shared a Hamvention Special Achievement Award in 2002 with fellow Amateur Radio astronaut Tony England, W0ORE.
Richard Garriott, W5KWQ, was a private space traveler to the ISS, flown there by the Russian Federal Space Agency, and he also carried ham radio into space.
Report on CAARC 2018 Field Day
Jul 18th
Well, ARRL Field Day is over for another year. Some Central Alberta amateurs operated this event from the Red Deer County EOC Amateur Radio Station. I would like to thank CAARC for encouraging me in this venture. I also thank Rod, VE6XY, and Stephen, VA6SGL, for trying to keep me grounded. And a special thank you to Brian for helping me understand the radios and correcting the aim of the HF beam antenna and for serving as Safety Officer. Ric Henderson, now Assistant County Manager of Red Deer County, found a way to let it happen. Ryan Mysko of Red Deer County served as the Red Deer County EOC member of our planning team. And a big Thank You to him for being patient with the preparations and testing and facilitating our access to the county’s radio station.
