Club meetings will be resuming in September after summer break. We meet the second Thursday of each month at the Scout Hut on Lansdown Ave. This year, meetings will be less formal, with an emphasis on fun projects instead of business.
Membership dues for 2011-2012 are now due. Make sure your membership is up to date to help support the great repeaters the club offers. You can now renew online and pay with a credit card using PayPal. Don't worry - it is safe and guaranteed. There is also an option to add a voluntary donation to help keep our great machines on the air.
This site is now on a new server, hosted by VE3NCQ. It's dual core is 4 times faster than the old server, which has been running continuously since 2002 with a yearly reboot whether it needed it or not. Pages should load faster since PHP and MySql won't be so slow, and the output is now compressed even higher to minimize bandwidth. It took significant work to move the whole site from Windows 2000 to Apache on Debian Linux. Please notify the webmaster if anything appears broken. The entire site is designed and hosted by Austin VE3NCQ at no charge to the club.
A new IRLP system is now available for use. It has been moved to the VE3COZ UHF repeater on 444.325+ MHz. Operation is the same as the old simplex node, except you must use a 250.3 Hz PL to use IRLP, and all DTMF codes must be prefixed with "*" to be passed through the repeater. The IRLP page shows more information, and a live status indicator from the node itself.
The CANWARN severe weather season still has a couple months to go. We've been lucky in Chatham-Kent this year, despite tornado warnings. As always, we thank all the participants who volunteer when Environment Canada calls us into action.
Don't forget to check out and contribute to our forum. You don't have to be a club member to join, and we'd welcome some more members from Windsor, Sarnia, Leamington, and elsewhere. This is where the most recent news and information will be posted.
| Board | Topics | Posts |
|---|---|---|
News & RAC Bulletins  |
193 | 210 |
| General Discussion |
60 | 114 |
| CANWARN |
17 | 34 |
| VHF & Repeater Activity |
19 | 24 |
| Buy, Sell & Trade |
18 | 21 |
| ARES |
12 | 15 |
| 1.8 to 30 MHz HF Activities |
10 | 11 |
| Silent Keys |
4 | 7 |
| Linux |
3 | 7 |
| Mics |
3 | 5 |
VA3KCR Repeater - The machine is fully repaired and reinstalled. We had planned to add IRLP and Echolink, but this would require an impossible modification to the controller. IRLP is now on the VE3COZ UHF machine.
VE3COZ Repeater - The machine is down and awaiting site access for repairs.
VE3KCR Repeater - We discovered that the 570 feet of feedline on the tower is in very poor condition and must be replaced. This problem took out the main amplifier before it was discovered, so it's been sent away for repairs. Instead of running at the usual 2.2 KW ERP, the transmitter is only putting out 25 watts. Despite this, the signal is still good into Ohio, Michigan and up to London. The receive sites are working well. See the forum for more details.
RAC Memberships - Don't forget to renew RAC memberships. RAC is our collective voice and advocate to defend our hobby against commercial interests and undue government regulations. In addition, each RAC member in our club reduces our club liability insurance, and RAC includes liability insurance for every member to cover amateur-related activities. Membership is a small price to pay, considering the efforts of RAC eliminated our annual licence fees!
As of December 2010, RAC insurance no longer covers amateurs who do not belong to a club, due to changes in their insurance provider. This is one more reason to join RAC and the Chatham-Kent Amateur Radio Club!
The Webmaster is VE3NCQ
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