Kamloops Amateur Radio Club

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more information click here

 

 

 

 

 

Simon (perveyor of fine snowmobiles), VE7RIZ and Myles, VE7FSR made a trip to the VE7LGN repeater on South Forge Mountain on the afternoon of March 9 to check on the status of the repeater.  The repeater had been reported as constantly kerchunking and not operating properly.  Simon and Myles discovered that the batteries were discharged so low (and had probably frozen this winter) that the Daniels repeater was unable to operate properly, other than when the solar panels were in full sunshine.  The repeater controller and Daniels radios were disconnected from the batteries and the VE7LGN repeater will remain off the until the club can access the site this summer for the planned repeater replacement and upgrades.

 

 

 

 

 

Photos courtesy of Simon Rizzardo, VE7RIZ.

NOTE: Carl's presentation has been attached (below), and the recording of his presentation is available at: https://bit.ly/3kSRGB3

"Cycle 25 Is On the Way"

We are pleased to announce that Carl Luetzelschwab, K9LA, will be our special guest presenter at the March 4 monthly meeting.

PLEASE NOTE: We will be starting the meeting at 1900 hours with Carl's presentation, and conduct the regular club business portion following his presentation and the Q&A session.

Carl will start his presentation with a review of solar cycles and why they are important. He will follow up with a quick look back at Cycle 24, then review the predictions for Cycle 25 and what to expect now while we're still at solar minimum and what to expect in the next several years.

He will go over space weather data and list what he thinks is important as Cycle 25 rises. Carl will conclude his talk with some simple antennas for 15 meters, 12 meters, 10 meters and 6 meters so you can take advantage of the increased number of sunspots.

The Kamloops Amateur Radio Club is very fortunate to be blessed with two really experienced and generous ISED Examiners: Dwight, VE7BV who has been our examiner for many years, and our newest examiner Mark, VE7ARN.  If you are interested in taking your Basic Amateur Licence, upgrading to Advanced, or taking your Morse Code exam, please contact Dwight or Mark to arrange to sit your exam.  Thank you to Dwight and Mark for volunteering your time and for giving so much back to the amateur radio hobby!

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Dwight Edward Morrow VE7BV

Licensed in July 1970, upgraded to advanced in 1974. (Scored 100 percent on all levels.. in those days, written exam, CW, oral exam, drawing by memory schematic diagrams). Original callsign was VE7BCU.  Became VE7BV in January 1989.  Holds Guatemalan Callsign TG9BBV.

Member of the Kamloops Amateur Radio Club, Orchard City Amateur Radio Club, Radio Amateurs of Canada, American Radio Relay League, Interior Director of ORCA DX Club, member and past president of the BC DX Club, past member of NORAC, Shuswap Amateur Radio club, Surrey Amateur Radio Club, alumni of VE7UBC, and Socio de Club de Radioaficionados de Guatemala.  Interested primarily in HF, chasing DX on all modes, all bands, 160-6 meters, contesting, and likes CW ragchewing.

Passionate about promoting this all encompasing hobby! Frequently did Jamboree on the Air, Guides on the Air, Thinking Day, regularly shared shack with numerous school and church groups, in the past tested scouts for signaler badges.

Fluent in Spanish, handled BC emergency traffic for Mexican Consulate in Vancouver, and Mexican Embassy in Ottawa during Mexico City Earthquake September, 1985.  Participated in Edmonton Tornado Disaster Health and Welfare Traffic July, 1987 and Guatemalan Earthquake emergency traffic in February, 1976.

73 de Dwight, VE7BV

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Mark Perren VE7ARN

I have been interested in radio ever since I was a young child living in Banff AB . I remember sitting on my father's knee and listening closely as he would tune through the a.m. broadcast band night listening on a transistor radio which was new technology at the time. He had set up a long wire antenna in our front yard, and I was very excited to hear stations from so far away.

Several years later I was given a 1950s era tube type radio that had short wave bands, I would be glued to it every evening carefully turning the Vernier tuning dial and listening to the shortwave broadcast stations from all around the world. As a young teenager when I got my first job I saved every penny and purchased a Sony shortwave radio. I would run home after school every day and clamp on the headphones emerging only for supper time or for homework and then back to the radio. I was definitely an avid short wave listener and I collected very many QSI cards from countries all around the world. Around about that time one evening I heard a very powerful signal coming from the 40 m band which turned out to be that of a ham radio operator who lived a few blocks away. I got up my courage and went to his house, knocked on the door and he welcomed me in and was delighted to show off his equipment. He was using Yaesu101 echo and several dipoles for the various bands. He wanted to teach me Morse code right away and to tutor me in ham radio theory. Unfortunately I thought I would never learn Morse code And so did not get licensed right away. I enjoyed the electronics theory and went on to build several receivers, starting with a classic crystal radio and moving on to various kits.

by Ralph Adams, VA7VZA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back in October, I described what weather balloons and radio-sondes were and how it was possible to track them (https://karc.ca/node/569). Since then, I have made some interesting progress and discoveries. Here is a short update about how far I have come towards my goal of retrieving a radio-sonde after it has fallen back to earth. As you would expect, there is good news and bad. The good news is that it is relatively easy to track them using simple equipment, but the bad news is that all the balloons launched from Vernon that I have tracked have headed off to the East or South. The only real question each day has been, which inaccessible mountain range will it fall on: the Monashees, the Selkirks, or the Rockies!

     THE SETUP TO TRACK WEATHER BALLOONS

Myles, VE7FSR was first in to assist by giving me a Sinclair 7-element Yagi for 406 to 433 MHz. A check with the Rigmaster showed that it worked well at 403 MHz where the radio-sondes transmit. I mounted it on a short PVC mast attached to a camera tripod, the antenna is at about 1.8m and is oriented for vertical polarization. Feedline is a two metre length of LMR-195 from the junk-box that happened to have a good UHF connector at one end and an SMA at the other. The receiver is an SDRPlay RSP1a (links are included at the end of this article) connected to an old Lenovo ThinkPad. I use the SDRUno software supplied by SDRPlay. One advantage of an SDR (Software Defined Radio) is that you can record the IQ spectrum which can be replayed and reprocessed later.  I am using an old Western Digital USB drive to store the recordings, which are large, about half a GB per minute of spectrum recording. The whole system is powered by the internal laptop battery.

SDRUno was setup to use a bandwidth of 15kHz and FM mode, and the demodulated audio was piped into the decoding software using Virtual Audio Cable.  For the first attempts I was not sure which radio-sondes were being used by Environment Canada (EC), so I decided not to purchase decoding software yet. After I had some radio-sonde recordings from the Vernon launches I was able to confirm that the radio-sonde being used is the Graw DFM09 manufactured in Germany. I then purchased the SondeMonitor software (24 Euros) which can decode the DFM09 telemetry.

 

 

 

 

by Ken Hoshowski VE7FP

CQ Field Day, CQ Field Day de VE7………

My interest in radio began when I was about 12 years old and I acquired a tube-type AM radio and installed a long wire antenna which was great for listening to American radio stations at bedtime.  When I should have been asleep, I remember my Dad hollering from his bedroom to turn off that radio and go to sleep.  I was determined to get a Ham license and when I was 16, I thought I was ready to write the exams and went to Kelowna for the test.  Unfortunately, the radio inspector had been called away unexpectedly and I was unable take the test.  I came home very disappointed and I instead pursued getting a driver’s license and probably girls!?

Moving ahead 9 years, now married and living in Powell River I saw a car in the parking lot where I worked with the call plate “VE7DO”.  I approached the owner and struck up a conversation which led to a long friendship.  Art Muskett, VE7DO was instrumental in helping me get my license, and I was finally licensed in November 1966 and soon after became a member of the Powell River Amateur Radio Club.  There was much talk about the upcoming Amateur Radio Field Day and although I had no idea what they were talking about, I was put on the planning committee.  Because I was the manager of the local Super Valu grocery store, I was put in charge of feeding the crew, purchasing the groceries (big discount), and managing the kitchen.

The Kamloops Amateur Radio Club has been featured in the local and international media recently, following the Club's offer to the TNRD to discuss using our microwave network to assist TNRD communities during disaster events where normal telephone and internet services are disrupted. 

Local reporter Kristen Holliday from Castanet Kamloops was the first to express interest in our offer to the TNRD, and here is the link to her story:

 

https://www.castanet.net/news/Kamloops/322556/Local-radio-club-offering-use-of-network-to-TNRD-for-emergency-scenarios

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Producer and Host of the NL Noon Report, Brett Mineer,
interviewed KARC President Myles, VE7FSR on January 26, 2021. 
The interview may be listened to below.

 

 

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We have printed another run of KARC decals.  Please help us promote the club and amateur radio by placing the decal on your car, truck, RV or any place you'd like.

Decals are 12" x 3" and are cut from high quality white self-adhesive vinyl material.  Cost is $15 (which covers the cost of the decal plus a $5 donation to the club).

On the weekend of December 12-13 there was a power line issue that impacted the VE7RLO repeater.  The power issues started at about 21:00 PST on Saturday, with the power returning to normal around 15:30 PST on Sunday afternoon.  We aren't sure what it was, but our best guess is that during the big wind storm a tree came down on one of the lines going up to Lolo.  From reviewing the logs on the UPS, Lee VE7FET, was able to determine that both the voltage and frequency of the power going to the Lolo site was low, dropping as low as 35VAC at one point!  The unusual part is that whatever it was it didn't blow the fuses on the line and cut the power completely, so we speculate that it may have been a branch or small tree across one of the phases?

Regardless, the UPS did its job and when the power quality got too low it switched over to battery, running for almost 10 hours before shutting down to conserve the battery bank.  Some of you may have noticed that on Sunday morning the repeater was working, albeit sounding very weak and only identifying in CW.  Dave VE7LTW and Myles VE7FSR were able to hold a brief QSO on the repeater so something was working up there, even though neither Lee nor Myles could remotely access any of the IP equipment on Lolo that morning.