Hi,

Mike Fleming VE7FI is looking for volunteers for JOTA: Jamboree on the Air 2025, October 17–19. A club email should be coming shortly, with details.

It's a great way to bring up those Community hours that directly helps the club on grant funding, not to mention promoting Amateur Radio in general and helping kids!

Volunteer sign up is under way for the Big White Winter Rally! See their Facebook page for all the details.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BLriQY46x/

Just a quick note to say that the Tuesday Breakfast formerly at Denny's is now to be held at Mr. Mikes.

Steve VA7LBA would like to let the membership know of a new DMR talk group: TG 302020 Okanagan. This talk group will be used for a new local DMR net at 1930 Wenesdays. The intent of this new talk group is to provide a forum for discussion on items that are specific to the region, which may not be relevant to the existing general BC1 Net.

Here is a link for the "last heard" Okanagan Talkgroup monitor list from Brandmeister. It is so that clubmembers can check on the local traffic.

Hope to hear you on the Net!
 

Congratulations to the hikers who made our Canada Day trek to Little White a success.  In the hiking group photo are Chris VE7EQN, Gary VE7OH, Bill VE7VBI, Sandra, Anton VE7NRT, Bob VA7MF, Mike VE7KPZ, Polonia VA7POL and Ivan VA7NOS.  Not pictured is our intrepid trail guide Gary VE7GCP and Bob VA7RGM.

The hike started at the Black Mountain CANCO at 7:00AM.  From there it was an easy 32K drive to McCullough Road where we entered the forest service road network.  We took the sometimes rough and dusty forest service roads to the trail head parking area where Mike had set up his Unimog. Mike made the drive up the evening before and camped out overnight.  After some organization, the hikers started up the 3 km trail with a 1200-foot elevation change to the Little White summit.  In addition to their own supplies, the hikers carried the equipment necessary to complete the installation and repair work at the repeater site.  In that regard, a special thanks to Sandra, who single-handedly carried the two solar panels all the way to the top.

On arrival at the summit, the work party got going on the tasks for the day.  The installation of two new solar panels, the repair of a crack in the fiberglass shell and measurements for the fabrication and replacement of the main solar panels.

Mike (VE7KPZ) activated the Little White summit for both Parks on the Air (POTA) and Summits on the air (SOTA).  Mike made more than enough qualifying contacts to get activations for both programs.  He worked simplex on 146.520, using the clear line of sight at the top to make his VHF contacts. He then used HF to make a number of FT8 contacts on 20 meters.  

While cooler at the summit than the 34C temperature in Kelowna, it was still hot when out of the shade.  Unfortunately, clouds of bugs also sought out the shade at the top. Thankfully, we had enough bug spray to keep most (but not all) of them at bay.   

By late afternoon, the tasks were complete and after taking the group's Canada Day photo, the hiking crew headed back down.  All in all, it was a challenging but successful hike to a much-sought-after destination in the Central Okanagan.  The Com shell got its new solar panels, a fiberglass repair, and measurements were taken and, of course, Mike documented the trip with successful activations on both POTA and SOTA.

Supporting our hikers were the many members of OCARC who took the time to monitor the Little White Repeater for reports on the progress up and down the mountain.  Thank you for your contribution.  

And, of course, a special thanks to the hiking crew who showed us all that it could be done.  

All in all a unique and successful Canada Day event on behalf of OCARC.

Photos are courtesy of Gary VE7OH. Other members have taken photos also.

There were over 150 hours of volunteer work for this project. 

Can you guess who this member is?

The Peachland repeater was updated today. A small team went out in the rain and installed the new Kenwood repeater. Over 40 hours of volunteer work was involved in this repeater repalcement.

The next repeater on the list is the Orchard repeater.

Morse Code Day is celebrated annually on April 27th to commemorate the birthday of Samuel Morse, the inventor of Morse code. This day recognizes the significance of this communication system, which was a precursor to many modern technologies. 

The Nanaimo Amateur Radio Association is seeking your help to advertise our radio propagation tests on Saturday May 31, 2025.

In 2023 NARA carried out some practically based NVIS (Near Vertical Incident Skywave) propagation tests. During daylight the D-Layer forms and on the lower frequency bands the D-Layer attenuates signals thus reducing ranges. A stark example of the D-later attenuation is that Medium Wave broadcast signal from a distance can not be heard during daylight. When the D-layer disappears at night longer distance AM broadcast signals can easily be heard.

NARA wants to carry out daylight NVIS tests on the 80m, 60m and 40m bands using a transmitter power of 100 Watts. This simulates an amateur radio station at an emergency center during daylight hours. The purpose of the tests will be to see, in practice, what ranges might be
available.

While the exact frequencies have not yet been established NARA proposes to use the following frequencies: 3.720 MHz (LSB), 5346.5 MHz (USB) and 7.120 MHz (LSB). Note that these frequencies will be ‘dial’ frequencies. The frequency to which you set your dial (display) on your radio. Note that the convention on the 60m band is USB.

The date for these NVIS tests will be Saturday May 31 between the times of 11am to 3pm Pacific time. NARA will be using the callsign VE7NA and will be looking for as many check-ins an possible during this 4 hour test period. NARA would appreciate it if you could inform your members of these tests.

Please make a note of the date in your diary. NARA will supply further information nearer the test date.

73 de Nanaimo Amateur Radio Association

Nanaimo, Vancouver Island, BC