Reino Keski-Salmi Loppet: January 14, 2017

Once again several volunteers from SARC gathered at the Larch Hills ski chalet in preparation to assist with radio communications for the Reino Keski-Salmi Loppet.  The temperature at 0800 hours was a crisp -20 and not a cloud in the sky, promising a great day for a Loppet.  After a short briefing, transport out to the various stations around the course began.  Celia/NIA and Wayne/VT were going to South Hub as First Responders where they would provide medical help if required, Tim/TMK took up Ron’s/RLE old station at Baby Moonwalk, Al/AN was stationed at the bottom of Stig’s Loop and Rob/ALY was at the bottom of Hot Shot.  Each station had a supply of firewood and the makings to start a fire to help keep warm.  While the outdoor crews were getting their fires going Daryl/DBC and Dave/HDY got the base station set up in the loft of the chalet.  Peter/RZZ provided a radio in a “lunch box” for this year’s operation that was much more compact than the regular Club radio used previously.  Communications were good this year, even out of the South Hub.  Our portable radios performed well when the base radio stopped transmitting late in the morning.  We suspect a power supply issue was the problem here but we worked around it.  At 1100 net control got a request from Rob for food as he was burning so much energy he was now “starving”.  Ten minutes later a beef on a bun was delivered by skidoo.  This could be the start of a new trend on the course.  Could it be drones delivering food??

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For the second time, the Shuswap Amateur Radio Club has worked Field Day at the Salmon Arm Airport in conjunction with the annual Shuswap Emergency Program Exposition and the Airport Appreciation Day which is held every second year.

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Operators in rural Salmon Arm with the Shuswap Amateur Radio Club hone their skills in determining the transmission source of drones in unauthorized areas.
Present were Robin VE7HMN, Mike VE7LOG, Tim VA7TMK, Dave VA7HDY, and Simon VE7SHG with photos by Ron VE7RLE.
Further postings to this blog by members of the Technical Committee will comment upon the materials and procedures which will be required to further the club’s progress towards making the “hunt” more effective.

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The club has been providing communication for this event for about 25 years.
This year on January 16 [2016] the roster of operators consisted of the following:

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RNH Service August 23, 2015
The West parking lot at Piccadilly Mall was the meeting point for a small army of SARC members at 1000 hours on Sunday, August 23rd. Nine of us – Robin/HMN, Phil/BPU, Mike/LOG, Ron/RLE, Simon/SLG, Dave/HDY, Darrell/IU, Patrick/FAT, Bill/WTT – two Ford 350 crew cabs and a small Jeep assembled in preparation to mounting an expeditionary force to the RNH site on Granite Peak to re-install the radio equipment that had been damaged in the break in last fall and repair the recent round of vandalism. The drive to the site took about an hour, over some rough gravel sections of road going up the face of the Fly Hills. Once we were at the site we set up two Honda generators to provide power for lights and electric hand tools. A plywood panel had to be removed from the porch wall so that we could move the radio equipment in as the stairs were unsafe. Robin took charge of getting the radio equipment back in place while Phil and Patrick got on with putting up the new UHF antenna and running of the co-axial cable. While the technical aspects were being taken care of the remaining crew got on with putting up a steel plate over the new hole in the wall and tearing out the wreckage of the old stairs. Using scrap lumber, that Ron was only too anxious to get rid of, we rebuilt the outside stairs and repaired the interior stairs. Repairs to the framing around the door and the door frame itself were also necessary in order for the door to be closed. As an added touch we crafted a new locking mechanism to keep the door closed. (See attached pictures) It is important to note that none of this carpentry work would be featured in a Homes and Garden magazine, nor would it meet the building code.
Normally aligning the UHF antenna with the AHR site would be a simple visual effort but due to the heavy smoke haze I understand that Phil had to do some guessing and used marks from the previous antenna on the mast to make the alignment. Other technical work involved re-installing the Daniels radios, duplexer, a new SRMT 2430 charge controller, a new UHF antenna and new co-axial cable from the antennas to the radio equipment. The equipment was then calibrated, battery voltages checked and batteries topped up with water. RNH is once again operational and went through an inaugural test for the Sunday night net. Unfortunately there is some variable background “noise” that seems to be linked to the UHF antenna. This is causing some head scratching and discussion as to the reason for the noise which, hopefully, will lead to a quick solution.

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Kids, Parents, Grandparents and Critters enjoyed their visit to the Sicamous Safety Fair in the Recreation Complex on Saturday, May 30, 2015 in 28 degree sunshine.

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