Central Alberta Amateur Radio Club
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
Cochrane Winter Rally 2020
Feb 1st
There is an opportunities for public service at the upcoming Cochrane Winter Rally. This event is sponsored by the Calgary Sports Car Club and is one of the best radio service events of the winter season. Some of you have already helped us to advertise this event, so please accept my thanks for the efforts that you have made to date.
I am helping to organize the rally and one of my responsibilities is to recruit radio operators for the event. The rallies are some of the best field radio operations opportunities available to the Amateur Radio community in our region. They are challenging, fun, and a great way to test your equipment and skills in “real world” conditions. I hope that members of your club will consider joining us.
This year’s event takes place on Sunday 08 March in the Waiparous region northwest of Cochrane. Radio operators are needed to provide communication services and safety observation at various locations throughout the course. Training is provided, so no prior experience is required.
Additional information is available at the URLs noted below. Please consider circulating this invitation among your club’s members.
General event information is posted on the Rallywest website, at:
https://www.rallywest.com/events
Information that is specific to radio operators is posted in the following forum:
Registration instructions have been posted in this forum. Anyone interested in helping at the rally should check this forum regularly for updates.
Thank you for your assistance and please contact me with any questions you may have.
73,
Garry, VE6GDS
VE6GDS@gmail.com
Basic Amateur Course 2020
Jan 20th
Due to lack of registrations (one) this course will be visited again next year.
Please see http://www.clares.ca/self/index.html to take the free online version and contact any accredited examiner when you are ready to write.
http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/025.nsf/eng/h_00004.html
Thanks…Garry VE6CIA
‘I thought it was a dying art’: Why this Hamilton veteran wants to revive ham radio
Dec 31st
‘I thought it was a dying art’: Why this Hamilton veteran wants to revive ham radio
Click this link for the whole story
The Annual CAARC Christmas Pot Luck Supper
Dec 4th
The Annual CAARC Christmas Pot Luck Supper
was held on Sunday December 1st in east Red Deer at the
Eastview Estates Community Association Center.
About 43 people enjoyed a tremendous pot luck supper with ham turkey and tons of other dishes. Marvin VE6CJY was the lucky winner of the new and old GIZMO.
New CAARC Executive 2019 – 2020
Nov 27th
The new CAARC executive was voted in at the November Annual general meeting. The dual band mobile antenna was won by Mike VE6MIM. The minutes will be uploaded soon. Go to Members D/L tab and click new executive for names.
New web site encryption coming soon.
Oct 31st
Within the next week or so dreamhost will be adding secure hosting (https) to all customer subdomains hosted on either dreamhosters.com or dream.press, Traffic to and from this site will soon be encrypted by default, ensuring that its contents can’t be intercepted en route by any unauthorized third parties on the web.
That’s right – visitors to this site will start to see the little green lock icon next to your web address in their browser.
You will see no downtime as a result of this change. You’ll simply start receiving the benefit of encrypted transmissions within the next few weeks.
Thankyou
VE6BLD
Web Site Administrator
VE6XY silent key
Sep 19th
A funeral service for VE6XY Rod Lins President of CAARC was held on Friday the 27th of Sept. 2019 at Wilson’s Funeral Home Lacombe, AB.
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.
