Attention BC Southern Interior hams.


A new Google Group email reflector is open and accepting any interested members. The focus of the group is better communication over our region. With city-based clubs, we don’t have a communication option for the entire area.

Asking questions, selling something, discussing regional issues like repeater outages, emergency callouts, wildfires, and storms. So many things that people can share, even just posting club nets and events to a wider than the local group.

Membership is wide open, join or leave as you wish. Receive all emails or just a daily digest summarizing activity.

Thompson Okanagan, Kootenay Rockies, Cariboo, Chilcotin, etc. If you are an operator in this region search Google Groups for “British Columbia Southern Interior Amateur Radio” and join.
 
Another method to join is to send an email from your preferred email account to;
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In a minute or two you'll get a confirmation email that you need to reply to once more, and then your admission is complete.
 
Once a member, send out an email to everyone by adding the mailing list email address to your contacts;
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Any message sent to that address is duplicated out to the entire membership.
 
Looking forward to connecting the region and meeting more amateurs.

Thanks and 73. VA7AEJ

Dale Henry

It is with sadness that we announce the sudden passing of Dr. Dale K Henry. He was taken from us far too soon doing one of the many adventurous outdoor activities that he loved. Dale was born and raised in Vernon BC, and established a dental practice where he took pride in making a visit to the dentist a pleasant experience.

Dale will be remembered by his wife Marilyn, who for 30 years shared their lives together with fun, friendship, and love. His mother Marion Henry of Kamloops; brothers Terry (Marcie) of Ladner, David (Julie) of Calgary, and sister Diane of Kamloops. Nephews Robert and Clayton, and nieces Sandy, Joanna, Laurin, and Thressa. Dale was predeceased by his father Roger Henry in 1990. Dale is further survived by his mother-in-law Vieno Aalto, one sister-in-law Tuula (Ray) Stafford, and one brother-in-law Kari (Gerlinde) Aalto. Dale’s faithful Golden Retriever companions Marshall and Tucker were always at his side, waiting for that ball to be thrown or a gentle rub around the ears.

Dale loved to sit by the campfire and play his guitar, please keep Dale in your thoughts the next time you are sitting by a campfire and have a toast in memory of him.

Dale will be cremated and a celebration of his life will be established at a later date. In lieu of flowers those friends wishing to make a memorial contribution in memory of Dale may do so to the Creekside Animal Clinic 5001 24 Street Vernon, BC V1T 8X7.

Funeral Arrangements have been entrusted to Pleasant Valley Funeral Home,
Phone: 250-542-4333
Condolences may be offered at www.pleasantvalleyfh.com

The annual ARRL Field Day is an event to showcase amateur radio to the public and get folks fired up about the hobby and the service it can provide.

Back in 2019, NORAC did a massive Field Day event in Ralph VA7NU's back field. With over 70 people attending it was a great showcase.

In 2020, the club event was skipped due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, but the ARRL was nice enough to change the rules and allow D-class (home) stations to participate in the event. Club members participated as D-class (home) stations and B-class (rover) stations. Unfortunately there was no public interaction that year.

This year, the club was still cautious about doing a big group event, but public health restrictions for gatherings were relaxing due to vaccine uptake and reduced case counts. While there were many notable D and E-class (QTH) participants this year (VA7ST, VE7KWA, VA7RLX, VA7AEJ et al), there were a lot more B-class stations this year. Some went camping, others roving or even sailing.

Brad VE7WBM drove to his favourite RF-quiet spot just outside of town and used a hamstick antenna setup on the roof of his truck to get in on the event action. He brought his son Byron along and got him on the air.

David VA7SZ worked the event from his sailboat on the Salish Sea. He made 10 contacts over 4 bands at less than 5 watts of RF output power. Perhaps we should petition ARRL to add a maritime mobile class next year?

A group of club members including Jerome VE7JAR (and sons Isaiah and Reuben), Jake VE7WEA, Lorne VE7LWK, Jane VE7WWJ and Mike VE7KPZ went camping to Island Lake up on the Aberdeen Plateau and invited other club members along to assist with an evaluation of Cranky, the club's crank-up antenna tower, for maintenance, repairs and improvements. Several club members, and also friends of the club, took up the offer and visited the site.

Tom VE7ENP joined the group at Island Lake on Thursday evening and stayed the duration to operate multiple wire antennas for all band coverage via his trusty IC-7000.

Kevin VE7XY came out to assist with the Cranky setup and evaluation on Friday and Saturday.

Michal VE7TMZ and his son Alex came out for the day on Saturday. They setup their own B-class station with hot tips from some of the other folks in attendance. A highlight was seeing Alex figure out the voice keyer and get a nice run of QSOs going on 80m.

Saturday afternoon day visitors included John VE7JWS with Deborah VE7SHE, Doug VE7VZ and Ritchie VA7RLX.

Bob VE7RKN came up from Penticton to camp out for the weekend with his dog Diesel. She was real pleasure to have in camp.

Garry VE7EIY was up there in spirit as he checked in with the group constantly on VE7RSS, the primary repeater used for Island Lake camping-related communications. Island Lake does not have cell service, so Garry's check-ins were appreciated.

The group had a lot of interest in what was going on from other campers. Every visitor was greeted and given an orientation of the 5 x 1B stations spread out over 4 and a half campsites.

Notably, all stations were solar battery powered. In fact, there may have been a little too much sun. It was toasty even up at 1400 meters/4600 feet ASL.

On Sunday, as it always seems to work out on Field Day weekends, the NORAC Sunday Morning Net control operator (Jerome) ran the net from the site. Isaiah was put in charge of logging the check-ins.

 

Big thanks to Jerome for bringing the deep frier and oil... and Jake for bringing some extra chicken for those of us (Mike and Jane) who forgot and had BBQed their chicken on the fire the night before.

Big thanks to Jane our official event photographer for documenting the event in pictures. It's great to look back and see all that went on during this busy weekend.

Also a very big thanks to all that assisted with the setup/takedown and evaluation of Cranky. There is still a LOT of work to go to get Cranky super-skookum and reliable again. Showstopper tasks (like replacing the tilt-up wire cable) were completed during the weekend, but restoration tasks (like getting the feed point of the beam antenna waterproof again (VE7KPZ was foiled from using it on Sunday morning due to dew entering the connection and pushing the tune off)) and other upgrades will need to go into a list for budgeting, club review and implementation later this year.

We hope that 2022 will ring as the year we overcome COVID-19 and things go back to normal. In the spring of 2022 the club will make a call on if we do a big group event for FD2022. Now, having had so much fun as a rag-tag group of 1B stations in close proximity, perhaps working as a xA club station next year might be fun. It was neat to see everyone's setups and trade notes.

For this year,
Mike VE7KPZ

Ps: check out the gallery of Field Day 2021 pictures (from Island Lake and other club members' 1B station sites).

 

June 24, 2021

Jake VE7WEA put in some sweat equity this week to remove the wheels from Cranky, NORAC's affectionately-named towable crank-up tower trailer, and take them to the tire shop for some new rubber. The existing tires were loooong overdue for replacement. With the new tires installed and the wheels re-attached, this makes Cranky towable again.

Outstanding is the replacement of the spare tire. The spare tire's wheel was extremely rusted to the mount... so several applications of Deep Creep penetrating lubricant will be applied and hopefully we can remove the spare and replace it's rubber soon.

Cranky will be towed up to Island Lake for a review of it's operation. We will further assess what maintenance, tweaks and repairs will need to be made to get Cranky all skookum again.

Cranky has been sitting for many years, only being used in situ once a year for Field Day, and the last couple of those have been skipped due to covid. At minimum, we'll need to lubricate the cabling, etc... and maybe a wheel bearing grease repack. We will get Cranky ready for emergency radio support again.

Thanks Jake for your hours of effort to get Cranky towable again. It will great be to see Cranky utilized at future events, wherever they may be... and available again for portable emergency service.

Also thanks to Jerome VE7JAR who will has been doing a further assessment of Cranky (lightbulbs, brakes, hubs) in prep for a tow up to the lake this weekend.

If you are intetested in helping setup/check/repair/maintain Cranky, please join us on Friday evening up at Island Lake.

FYI and 73,
Mike VE7KPZ
NORAC Vice President and Technical Coordinator