Welcome to the Kamloops Amateur Radio Club Website!

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Follow up to "Taking the Moon's Temperature" by Ken Tapping

As promised at the January meeting, Ken Tapping has followed up with a plethora of information for those of us interested in "backyard" radio astronomy.

Ken tells me that he has sent a highly-eclectic selection of stuff (see attachments by clicking "Read more") that might be of interest to backyard radio astronomers. He has also attached a copy of that solar radio programme paper he spoke about during his presentation, because there might be odds and ends of useful stuff in there.

There are no books on "backyard" radio astronomy that Ken would recommend. However, there are two main-stream radio astronomy books that are loaded with useful information:

  1. Radio Astronomy, by J.D. Kraus. McGraw Hill. The edition Ken has was printed in the 1960's, so the background discussions are not so buried in "clever stuff" that one cannot understand the important information. The one Ken has is the old, regular-sized hardback with a blue cover. Ken looked on the web and learned that the book is still out there for sale.
  2. Solar Radio Astronomy, by MR Kundu - John Wiley - again, 1960's. Lots of stuff here for the solar radio oriented.

Ken noticed an RSGB book titled "Amateur Radio Astronomy", by John Fielding, but he said he knows nothing of its contents, so he cannot recommend it.

Ken also included the website for the Canadian Centre for Experimental Radio Astronomy. There is a lot of backyard radio astronomy information - and more - so please check this out.

If anyone wants to have their email address added to the backyard radio astronomy email list that Ken mentioned, please let Myles know and he will forward your email address to Ken.

 

Congratulations to Dwight VE7BV!

 

Congratulations to Dwight Morrow, VE7BV, on receiving his DX Century Club Award under his TG9BBV callsign! 

He tells us that there was some kind of "glitch" in his TG9BBV file with the ARRL and it delayed his receipt of the award.  He has 119 countries worked, and 112 countried confirmed.

Way to go Dwight!

Reminder: KARC Monthly Meeting this Thursday, January 6 at 7:30 PM

Happy New Year to all!

The next monthly meeting of the Kamloops Amateur Radio Club will be held on Thursday, January 6, 2022 at 7:30 PM PST.

We are pleased to announce that Ken Tapping from the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory (DRAO) will be our special guest presenter, and he will be telling us how he takes the temperature of the moon!  He has a really awesome presentation, and I'm sure (like me) you will be amazed at his creativity and astounded at his willingness to stand outside in the cold to get these accurate measurements with home-brew equipment.

This will be an online meeting so please use this link to join: https://bbb.isurf.ca/b/ada-jnt-mkf

Non-members are welcome to attend, so please feel free to share this information and the meeting link above with anyone you think might be interested.

Thank you to Nutech Phoenix!

Thank you to local company Nutech Phoenix and President Bob Dieno for their very kind donation of reconditioned CO2 fire extinguishers for our KARC repeater sites. 

Nutech has been in business for 26 years and they have supported many local non-profit organizations by donating fire fighting equipment, service, or parts to keep those organizations and their volunteers safe and to help keep their costs down.

Nutech Phoenix also carries First Aid supplies, traffic equipment, PPE (hard hats, glasses, gloves, high-vis apparel), and gas detection equipment.

Welcome to our newest club member! VE7CFY

Welcome to the Kamloops Amateur Radio Club!

Ron Stolp, VE7CFY, is our newest member having joined the club in December.  Ron recently wrote his exam with Mark, VE7ARN, and passed with flying colours!  He received his Basic with Honours qualification and chose the callsign VE7CFY.

Ron tells us that many years ago in high school he was studying for his license, but back then it required morse code as well as a lot of electronic circuits, and although a few of his friends stuck with it and still have their licence, Ron wasn't so fortunate.

Currently he is very involved with horses in various disciplines, and he likes to travel to Arizona with the horses in winter (with the exception of the last few years). Ron thought that having an extra form of communication would be a good idea because cell phones don't always work where they ride so ham radio was a good choice.

Ron isn't on the air yet (he is waiting delivery on a couple of Baofeng portable radios that are stuck in Richmond) and hopes to be making his first QSO with one of us soon.

Here are a couple photos of Ron on his horses (I suspect you can tell which photo was taken in Arizona -Ed.), including his newest horse which is in Mission where the two of them are taking more training.

Welcome to the KARC, Ron, and thank you for becoming a member!

How amateur radio fanatics launched the world's first private communications satellite

How amateur radio fanatics launched the world's first private communications satellite

Check out this awesome story by Jon Kelvey at INVERSE!

https://www.inverse.com/science/60-oscar-1-presaged-the-cubesat-era

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSCAR_1

North American QSO Party 2022

The North American QSO Parties are favorites of beginners and seasoned operators alike. The NAQPs are low-power only (no amplifiers allowed) which makes for a lot more breathing room on the bands. Small stations can generate very effective “runs” in the NAQP  contests. Multipliers count once per-band, which makes for an exciting format, as multipliers can be “moved” from band to band.

The NAQPs allow stations from all parts of North America to be in the running for the top spots. The 12 hour format allows participants to do some great contesting, yet still have time for other activities during the weekend. Participants can enter in the single op or multi-op categories and also have the opportunity to combine up to five separate single op scores into a team score.

North American QSO Party, CW    1800Z, Jan 15 to 0559Z, Jan 16

North American QSO Party, SSB    1800Z, Jan 22 to 0559Z, Jan 23

North American QSO Party, RTTY    1800Z, Feb 26 to 0559Z, Feb 27

KARC Repeater Update: Rainbow Country Net now daily on VE7RLO

 

 

If you were listening to VE7RLO this morning you may have noticed that the Rainbow Country Net (hosted on the VE7RPT repeater in the lower mainland) was active on our VHF and UHF repeaters.

VE7RLO will now automatically connect every day to the Rainbow Country Net, which starts at 09:00 AM PST (with early check-ins at 8:45 AM).  This is one of the most popular nets in BC with hundreds of people checking in.   VE7RLO will automatically disconnect from the net at 10:30AM, so hopefully you can check in by that time!  If not, we can tweak the script timing.

If you need to use the repeater during the net to call someone, or if there is an emergency, etc you can disconnect the VE7RPT Allstar Node by sending DTMF code *1435450 (which will disconnect VE7RPT), or *10 (code to disconnect the last active node, which should be RPT).

Don't worry about reconnecting to the net, it will start up automatically the next morning.

If you find this annoying and driving you crazy, please let me know.  This is a bit of an experiment to see if it might be enjoyable for club members.  If it is not working for people, it is easy to scrub the script and go back to how things were.

73 de Myles, VE7FSR

2021 Ham of the Year

 

 

 

At the December club meeting Lee Woldanski, VE7FET, was recognized as the recipient of the 2021 Ham of the Year Award for his outstanding volunteer efforts and commitment to amateur radio. Lee was presented (virtually) with a handsome wood and brass plaque to recognize his outstanding devotion to amateur radio and to the countless hours of volunteer time, donated equipment, education, and the remote support he has provided to make amateur radio better and more enjoyable for all of us in the KARC and amateur radio fraternity.

Lee lives in South Surrey, and is an active member and Director of the BCFMCA.  Lee met Myles (VE7FSR) several years ago and over time Myles somehow managed to coerce Lee into lending a hand to our Club (which was easy to do because Lee is an amazing person, willing to give his time and expertise to help others).  Lee became a member of the KARC, and he has been very involved in the design, build, installation, maintenance, and operation of the KARC repeater systems.  Lee has also offered advice and assistance to the KARC Board based on his extensive experience serving with the BCFMCA.  If it wasn't for Lee the KARC wouldn't have the fantastic repeater system we are very fortunate to have.  Thank you Lee, we sincerely appreciate all you have done for the KARC.

The "Ham of the Year Award" for the Kamloops club was instituted in 1971 by George Stephens (VE7YF, SK).  Please see this link for past recipients.

Silent Key W1ZR

W1ZR Joel Hallas

Retired QST Technical Editor Joel R. Hallas, W1ZR, of Westport, Connecticut, died on November 25. An ARRL member, he was 79. Hallas retired in 2013 but remained active as a contributing editor, handling the popular “The Doctor is In” column in QST and the podcast of the same name. He had been a radio amateur since 1955.

“Joel was not only brilliant, he shared that brilliance with the ham radio community in a way that taught innumerable hams things they needed to know in order to experience success and enjoyment,” said ARRL Publications and Editorial Department Manager Becky Schoenfeld, W1BXY. “He was a fine mind, a generous mentor and colleague, and a consummate gentleman. He will be missed.”

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