It is that time of the month again, We will be having are general meeting at 1930 hours on Thursday Mar 24. This meeting will take place IN PERSON at the Main Firehall on Enterprise Way. I apologize for the short notice, I was anticipated approval from the venue soon but we only received it this morning.

As per City of Kelowna policies we MUST verify vaccination status and only admit those who can satisfy this requirement. Visitors should sanitize on the way into and out of the facility. Masks are currently optional.

For those of you who may be new to the club the address for this location is  2255 Enterprise Way, Kelowna, BC V1Y 8B8 we enter through the side door. Usually there will be a few people milling around outside. The meeting starts at 1930 so please try to arrive a few minutes early.

On March 11, the new to us batteries have been moved to a storage location. The next move will be to the assigned repeater locations. Many thanks to Tom Apps VE7ENP, Greg Corbett VE7CD, John Clarke VE7JXC, Dave Conzatti VA7ZAT, and Chris Walter VE7EQN on the move.

Japan’s OMOTENASHI, the world’s smallest moon lander, will have an X-band and UHF communication system, although it will not carry an amateur band transponder. OMOTENASHI is a 6U CubeSat set for launch via a NASA SLS rocket as early as February 2022. It will have a mission period of from 4 to 5 days. The name is an acronym for Outstanding Moon Exploration Technologies demonstrated by Nano Semi-Hard Impactor. Wataru Torii of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Ham Radio Club, JQ1ZVI, said radio amateurs can play a role in gathering data from the spacecraft.

For more info...

The following map shows the coverage of the  repeaters listed on the OCARC repeater lists. The brighter the green, the more repeater choices you have for coverage. This map would be very usefull when house hunting and repeater coverage is important.

Did you know that when you sign into your membership account and click on Member Resources there'e a quick link to the HamWAN portal web cams.

Is it sunny or snowy up in the moutains? Today it was snowy.

As a member of OCARC did you know that you can access a remote radio? Log into your account and look for (Menu) Member Resources, then Remote Radios.  

OCARC provides an HF radio station to club members that can be operated entirely remotely. 

The Orchard City Amateur Radio Club has radio repeater facilities at the top of the Gem Lake Chairlift site. A trip was scheduled to attend to the equipment before the weather turned.

18 minute drive through some ski runs to get to the top of the lift at 7200'.

The Gem Lake drive.

A visit to the top of Gem Lake chairlift was required to fix the poor receiver performance of the 146.860 repeater.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je2_gzWWen4

The Kuipers Peak (AllStar) is now online. The AllStar Node 45382 has a default connection to the Western Canada Hub. The details are: frequency 147.100 MHz, +600 offset, with 88.5 tone. There is also P25 available, local only with the same settings.

A video on AllStar can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPl5bf4BiWE and the AllStar home page is at https://allstarlink.org/

AllStarLink is a network of Amateur Radio repeaters, remote base stations and hot spots accessible to each other via Voice over Internet Protocol. AllStarLink runs on a dedicated computer (including the Rasperry Pi) that you host at your home, radio site or computer center.

Other AllStar links are: http://stats.allstarlink.org/stats/45381 for statistics, http://stats.allstarlink.org/stats/45381/networkMap for the network map.
 

It is every radio operator’s worst nightmare. Millions of volts suddenly leap out of the sky, striking your home, antenna, or other conductive surfaces. Billions of watts race down transmission lines or through the building’s structure, destroying your transmitter, amplifier, receiver, or other elements of your radio apparatus. Your prized station is now just trash.

Be aware with real time lighning reports maps.