The Jamboree on the Air, or JOTA, is an annual Scouting event that uses amateur radio to link Scouts around the world, around Canada, and in our own community.

On the weekend, a few of our members were working on the amateur radio session for the Scouts. There were many contacts, with the farthest being southern California. Watching the kids' eyes light up while talking with someone on the radio is always exciting.

Thank you to Paul Meise VE7TKC, Mike Fleming VE7FI, Tom Apps VE7ENP, John Clarke VE7JXC, and Doug Wirsz VE7VZ.

JOTA on the NEWS

A tour of the KF Aerospace (Kelowna Flightcraft Ltd.) has been arranged for OCARC members, watch your email for details or attend the next general meeting.

https://www.kfaero.ca/who-we-are/about-kf-aerospace/

There are two major new additions to our spectrum:

• 472 to 479 kHz, also known as 630 metres: on this new band, we are allowed to run a maximum of five watts EIRP, using emissions with a maximum bandwidth of 1 kHz.
• 5351.5 to 5366.5 kHz in the 60 metre band: this is a new worldwide allocation. Canadian Amateurs are allowed to run a maximum of 100 watts ERP, using emissions with a maximum bandwidth of 2.8 kHz.

For more information

So far approximately half of the membership have renewed.  A BIG THANK YOU  for your continued support of OCARC and its ongoing work to develop and maintain our repeater and digital network in the Okanagan.

For those who have not yet renewed it is not too late.  

Membership dues at OCARC have not increased.

Dues Categories are as follows:

Regular membership  $51.00

Regular membership with the RAC insurance discount  $40.00

Family member/Student membership  $21.00

Family membership with the RAC insurance discount  $10.00

Your options for renewing your membership are as follows:

You can renew online.  

Just follow this link http://www.ocarc.ca/form/registration  and you will be taken to our registration form where you can update your membership information and at the end you will be directed to our Paypal account. In order to get the RAC membership discount make certain that you put your RAC number into the form.

You can renew by mail. Just send your cheque/money order to:

OCARC

PO Box 21126  Orchard Park

Kelowna BC  V1Y 9N8

You can also renew in person.  During the summer, we are not holding regular club meetings but the breakfast meetings are still going on.  In Kelowna we meet on Tuesday at Smittys at 9:00am and on the Westside we meet at the Cherry Pit on Thursday at 8:00am. 

In person renewals can be paid by cash or cheque and can be given to  Bob Meldrum (VA7RGM), Chris Walter (VE7EQN) or John Clarke (VE7JXC)

Club member Tom (VE7ENP) needed a ramp built, so after morning breakfast on Thursday members John (VE7JXC), Chris (VE7EQN), and Doug (VE7VZ) visited Tom and built two ramps, one leading to the living room and another from the back deck to the back yard.

Greetings;

For those of you that were out with me yesterday driving up to the OCARC repeater site at the top of Okanagan Mountain, I have made a YouTube video of the drive. It starts at the locked gate at the bottom and goes right to the summit.

If you've ever wondered what it would feel like being strapped to the hood of my Jeep as we made the drive to the repeater site, then this video is for you. Your eyeballs would be right about where the camera was mounted. Feel the wind in your hair (if you have any), listen to the crunch of the gravel, hear the engine knock as I lug the motor. I even stalled the engine once. Listen to us bottom out, twice. No tiresome narration. All in HD. There's even a SD version for those of you still on dial-up.

So grab a beverage, or light that hookah and sit back in front of your big screen smart TV for 37 minutes of bumpy road.

Or not;

Okanagan Mountain Park Jeep Ride long version

Okanagan Mountain Park Jeep Ride short version

Cheers

Thank you for the videos John VE7JWS

OCARC Field Day event  that  is happening today (June 25) at the Cedar Creek Club Station, 5160 Chute Lake Road,  from 10 - 2 PM.

We will be setting up the club shelters on the lawn and will be serving free coffee and donuts.

Please bring a lawn chair if you want to sit outside. 

The club station will be active for Field Day and those who wish to operate are welcome to do so.

Also, through the efforts of Gord Hawkey VE7GFH and John Clarke VE7JXC we have acquired a large number of rechargeable UPS batteries that were recently taken out of service but are still functional.  These are free to any club member who attends Field Day.

So when you add it all up, we have Great Weather, Free Coffee, Good Friends, Free Batteries and an opportunity to participate in North America's premiere amateur radio event. What could be better. 

Hope to see you there.

P.S.  Bob Meldrum VA7RGM (our treasurer) will be there if you want to renew you membership in person (cash or cheque).

Gary Cooper VE7GCP, Mike Dillon VE7ABJ, and Brian Porter VE7BWP work party at Cedar Creek, antenna maintenance.

It is that time of the month again, We will be having a tech meeting at 1900 hours on Tuesday June 7. This meeting will take place IN PERSON at the Main Firehall on Enterprise Way.

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.

If you cannot or do not wish to comply with the above requirements please stay home, Nobody in the club wants to be faced with the task of turning you away.

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 (East side). Usually there will be a few people milling around outside. 

The meeting starts at 7:00 PM so please try to arrive a few minutes early.

Some members are meeting at the White Spot 5:00-5:30 PM for dinner before the meeting.

Notice to holders of the ICOM IC-F30 Handheld. There is a update to the programmed memory banks, see https://www.ocarc.ca/tech-Icom-IC-F30-Program for more details.

We are looking into updating the radios at the next Tech meeting, so bring you radio and get it updated and attend a Tech meeting at the same time.

John VE7JXC