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Please remember to check the flea market page from time to time. New items from Steven VE6SCL have been posted to the page.

Please join us for our December meeting, which will be breakfast at The Nest (next to Honker’s Pub). We will be ordering off the bar menu, and everyone will be paying their own. There will be a couple of door prizes, generously provided by Blair VE6AGH. This meeting will be open to everyone and their YL, OM, or partner. We’re looking to see everyone at:

• 10 am, Saturday, December 16,
• The Nest, 2805 – 5 Ave. North.

There are only a few parking stalls along the front of the venue and so, to be considerate of the other businesses in the area, if you are able, please park along the east side of 28th Street North.

If you have not yet RSVP’d, please email me as soon as possible, with answers to the questions below.

1. Will you be attending the breakfast meeting?
2. Number attending?
3. Number wanting breakfast?

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Members Present: Louise VE6YOY, Roy VE6AWT, Wayne VE6WEK, Pam, Penny VA6PJK, Austin VE6QBD, Renze VE6DC, David VA6IRE, Kevin VE6KVV, David VE6DRL, Terry VA6TMA, Barry VE6BGR, Cory VE6CYT, Steve VE6SCL, Gary VE6CV, Peter VA6ARI, Brian VE6LAY

Call To Order: Peter VA6ARI at 10:12am

Motion To Approve October 21 Minutes: Steve VE6SCL, 2nd Cory VE6CYT

Treasurer’s Report: Barry VE6BGR, 4 new members

Repeater Committee: Having issues in windy conditions. Cory VE6CYT and Barry VE6BGR are looking into it. Gary VE6CV is looking into better batteries for the repeater. Cory VE6CYT has been looking into getting a repeater controller:

• Arcom RC210 can control up to 3 repeaters, price is around $500.00 Canadian
• Audio Test Solutions RLC-4 controller is around $1,406.00 Canadian
• Audio Test Solutions RLC-1 controller is around $795.00 Canadian

The repeater committee will look into the best controller for our needs and provide more information.

Field Day Committee: Plan to hold field day June 22-23, 2024 in the same place as last year. Help is welcomed.

Old Business: Still looking for help to

• Teach Basic license class
• Promotion and Communications
• Service Support Group
• Elmer support

Flea market now online.

New Business: Club members are encouraged to join RAC membership which will help with our insurance rates. RAC is the voice of Canadian Amateurs at all levels of government and represents their interests.

Cory VE6CYT is teaching a CW course.

Gary VE6CV suggested we look into YMCA sponsorship.

Motion To Adjourn: Kevin VE6KVV 11:45 am

Presentation: by Martin VE6VH

Welcome To New Dawn In Amateur Radio

AREDN – Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network. To provide the amateur radio community with a quality solution for supporting the needs of high speed data in the amateur radio and emergency communications field.

https://www.arednmesh.org

If anyone is interested in a CW course from Radio Amateurs of Canada:

The instructor’s name is Tony Pattinson and information about upcoming courses is available at https://www.rac.ca/rac-online-beginners-cw-course/. You must be a RAC Maple Leaf Member or contribute to RAC Youth Education Program in order to participate.

We’ve added a new Flea Market section to the website. Items for sale can be submitted to me at peter.pankonin@gmail.com. Please include photos, description, and contact information. Also please remember to let me know when an item has sold so that I can remove it. Thanks.

Members Present: Brian VE6LAY, Peter VE6ARI, Barry VE6BGR, Kevin VE6KVV, Stan VE6SYS, Milt VE6MLD, David VE6IRE, Cory VE6CYT, Gary VE6CV, Blair VE6AGH, David VE6DRL, Ron VE6PAP, Wayne VE6WEK

Call to Order: by Peter VE6ARI (acting president), at 9:09 AM.

Motion to adopt previous minutes: by David VE6IRE, and 2nd by Peter VE6ARI.

Treasurer’s Report was provided.

Repeater Committee Report: power is going to stay at 50 watts for now. Repeater is functioning well and using a cw identification every 30 mins. Looking into improvements on this.

Field Day Committee: big thanks to Gary VE6CV for planning this year’s event and Kevin VE6KVV for making signs and putting up the signs.

Discussion on Contacts, Conditions and Nets: no reports.

Old Business: on going — looking for Club equipment and generators, 2 found, 1 lost. Barry VE6BGR has a list started.

New Business: looking for help promoting our club.

Communications: Peter VE6ARI looking after Facebook and Website.

Education: Ideas on presentations we can have after club meetings. Blair VE6AGH volunteered to do a talk on antennas.

Basic License Course: who would like to help teach?

Fundraising: Milt VE6MLD suggested we get involved with the casino.

Club Support Group: Gary VE6CV has made a suggestion we help others who need help with towers or other things.

Club Ambassadors: Gary VE6CV suggested we can all promote our club and activities.

Tom VE6ARG (SK): Barry VE6BGR has talked to Maggie and she is not worried about removing the antennas till after winter.

Christmas Get together: looking into https://honkerspub.com/contact/

Motion to Adjourn: by Peter VE6ARI at 10:27 AM

The next meeting of the Southern Alberta Amateur Radio Club will be:

9 am, October 21, 2023

YMCA, 74 Mauretania Rd W, Lethbridge, AB  T1J 5L4

Room MPR2 (on the left side opposite Jugo Juice)

Park in the south parking lot and enter at the entrance on the East side of the building. Gary VE6CV will be directing traffic to the meeting room. See you all there.

Annetta and Renze are both looking forward to having everyone over for the corn roast on Saturday, August 19, 2023. Everyone is welcome, licensed or not.

To get to our QTH from Lethbridge: It is 22 km east of the last traffic lights in Coaldale on highway 3. Range Road 18-1 is where you turn south, but right away keep going east on the service road. Then it is the first, and only, house on the south side of the service road. There are a couple of towers above the trees, if you see those, you’re good. Coordinates: 49.7543 N, 112.3195 W.

From the east, it is about 3 km past Barnwell driving west on highway 3. Turn south on Range Road 18-0 but turn west again right away on the service road. You’ll see our house 800 meters away on the south side of the service road.

Talk on frequency: 146.520 Mhz.

My phone number: 403-593-8522

People usually get here around 16:00 to socialize for about an hour as we get the food ready. Dinner will be around 17:00 (5 pm).

On the menu.

• Corn of course.
• Chi and her famous spring rolls.
• We’ll have hamburgers, sausages, buns, salads, etc.

If you want to bring anything, feel free, but please do not feel like you must. May I suggest a dessert.

Please bring your own lawn chair and your own alcoholic beverages.

Hope to see everyone on Saturday the 19th.

Renze VE6DC and Annetta

– by Peter VA6ARI

At final count, 32 operators either camped or visited during Field Day 2023 at the Fort Macleod Lion’s Club campground in southern Alberta. Thanks to Gary VE6CV who put great effort into the successful event, hams attended from as far away as Calgary and Medicine Hat. Except for one storm that soaked everything Friday evening, the weekend weather was perfect on Saturday and Sunday, completely lacking the west wind southern Alberta is so famous for.

Some have commented that this year’s event was more like a mini ham-fest, with workshops, a flea market, pizza supper, and a pancake breakfast. Kevin VE6KVV made a bunch of very unique and creative signs that were placed around the campground and on every camper’s site. It was difficult to choose a sign because they were all so good. The signs made for a very festive atmosphere. (Vince, I left the CW sign for you…I figured you would grab that one). Brian VE6LAY helped Kevin get the signs up around the campground. Brian was also the registration, guestbook, raffle ticket coordinator, and pizza controller man for the event.

Upon arriving at the campground, no one could miss Renze’s VE6DC 260 ft. half-wave antenna stretched out across the entire hill from a tall tower. We knew we were in the right place!

Before noon on Saturday, the group gathered to honor Tom Buchanan (SK) with kind words and memories by various hams who knew him best, followed by a minute of silence. Tom’s daughter’s arrived later in the day and were given a tour of everyone’s campsite and mobile “shack.”

On Saturday Barry VE6BGR and Cory VE6CYT presented on the NanoVNA, talking about how to calibrate the NanoVNA, as well as how to run NanoVNA Saver software. To demonstrate, they tested an antenna Cory made for the other Cory VE6COR, showing how slight adjustments affecting the resonance of the antenna, are displayed on the NanoVNA Saver software.

Later in the day, Martin VE6FH presented on AREDN networks and an ADRCS server running on his portable PC, along with a copy of asterisk. Martin demonstrated how IP phones can be used on a AREDN network to contact other hams on a radio mesh network.

Another highlight of the day was Vince VE6LK attempting to contact other CW operators using a piece of string soaked in salt water as an antenna. Unfortunately, though we could hear their transmissions, Vince was unable to contact them. We blamed the failure on the heat of the day drying out the string too quickly.

Sunday started out with a huge pancake and sausage breakfast, prepared by Dave VA6IRE (with the flipper operated by Peter VA6ARI). There was a generous supply of both pancakes and sausages and anyone who left hungry has only themselves to blame.

After 12:00 pm on Sunday, the draws began. There were two free Fort Macleod campground weekend passes and a draw for a new Yaesu HT. As the luck of the Irish would have it, a new ham Dave VA6IRE was the lucky winner. Congratulations Dave! The raffles and donations raised over $200 for the campground to plant new trees. Special thanks to George at GPS Central for the donation of the handheld! Everyone also left with a new Yaesu cap.

As a relatively new ham, this was only my second field day. I decided to go QRP this year with my Xiegu G90 and an EFHW antenna pointed roughly North East. This was powered with a little homemade battery box using my DeWalt 18v drill battery. With all the activities going on throughout the two days, I only managed about 20 contacts, but the biggest thrill was that I seemed to have a direct conduit to BC, OR, and WA. Many operators were reporting a 10 to 20 over 9 signal, as I broke through the pileups with my 15 watts. I also attempted some FT8 but was not aware that wsjt-x has a “Field Day” mode and so rather than use that, I ended up just fumbling around trying to change the standard messages to FD messages, which didn’t work all that well. I’ll know for next year.

Speaking of next year, the general consensus is that we will once again plan for another Field Day at the Fort Macleod Lion’s Campground in 2024, but hopefully even bigger and better than this past one. Again, a special huge thanks to everyone who helped put on this awesome event and to all of you who attended! Also, a great big thanks to the Lion’s Club Campground for hosting us again this year.

In case you haven’t seen it, we made the front cover of the Fort Macleod Gazette. Thanks to Frank McTighe for the great article and for stopping in to talk to us.

We do not have our final total score yet, as we are still awaiting everyone to send Gary their logs. Please do so as soon as you can so Gary can get that submitted. Thanks.