Meetings time and location: 7 pm Red Cross House, 909 Fairfield Rd, Victoria BC
2010 Meeting Schedule: Mar. 30, Apr. 20, May 18, Jun. 15, Jul. 20, Aug. 17, Sep. 21, Oct. 19

Mar 30 General Meeting Agenda:

• Committee Reports from Directors
• Guest Speaker - Mr. Cor Maas VE7BBG has been active on Moonbounce since the beginning in the 1970s when it needed to be proven that it could actually be done with amateur radio equipment. His presentation will be a brief history of EME to how it evolved and where it is today using modern techniques. It will include the radio path loss,  propagation characteristics, and equipment required to get readable signals back to Earth.

For a list of the Executive and Directors for 2010, go to Departments|Directors-Projects

WARA has just received its new 40th Anniversary Pins in celebration of 40 years since the inception of the WARA Victoria area repeater system. Cash price for pins purchased locally, e.g. at meetings, is $3. If you order you pin for mail delivery, the cost is $5.50 (Paypal or cheque). Contact Brian Mury, Treasurer ve7ngr at rac dot ca. See Using Paypal for non-standard payments.

A re-designed member Name Tag is now available. Contact Membership Director Peter Cross va7ptr to place your order. Name tags with a standard pin fastener are $7 and with a new magnetic fastener which is easy on synthetic fabrics for only $9.  Orders take about a week or two to fulfill. For your convenience, you can pay for your purchases on-line using PayPal (see Using Paypal for non-standard payments).

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Submitted by Al VE7BEU, Director, Repeater Operations Committee email  ve7beu at muircom dot com

February 2010: Contract for land use will be signed shortly and antenna re-construction will begin!

• IPod STREAMING AUDIO - VE7VIC 146.840 MHz, and D-Star 145.080 MHz Repeater live audio feed to your IPOD on app Scanner911 Listed under "Canada, Victoria, Ham VE7VIC.ca"
• Check D-Star links, What is our 145.080 MHz VE7VIC repeater linked to? How many other repeaters are linked to the reflector? Click here ->  http://ref016.dstargateway.org
• D-Star 2 m module 145.080 MHz changed - I changed out the module (January 31) for a new unit to see if a problem with a spurious emmission is cleared up.  Changed out the coax cables inside the repeater box to RG214.
• D-Star Radio Olympics update - The Olympic Ham station (callsigns VG7W or VG7G) has been on D-Star Reflector 16B looking for QSL cards contacts (they will send cards in April 2010). Check in at VE7VIC 145.080 with gateway enabled on your radio.
• Olympics 2010 Winter Games - Special Callsign Prefixes for all Canadian Hams - 2010-02-01 to 2010-03-31 - VG for VA, VX for VE, XJ for VO, XK for VY 

Jan 17, 2010 - VE7RTC UHF Repeater 443.950 MHz power amplifier has failed.  Output is 1 Watt instead of usual 50 W.  Attempted to repair the amplifier but it is not an "in the field" repair and the amplifier will be sent  back to the manufacturer. We have access to a spare amplifier that can be loaned from Muir Communications Ltd, until the club amp returns from being repaired.
I checked the battery charging system and put it into the "equalize charging mode" for eight hours. Checked the 6-metre repeater operation and linking to 443.950 repeater. Our equipment has been bonded to the new ground system of the site owners.  This may cut down on some of the radio noise at the site.

VE7VIC 146.840 MHz, new 9 dB, 4-dipole Comprod VHF antenna antenna installed Sat. Oct. 3, 2009! CHANGED VE7VIC system back to earlier antenna on Oct 12, by instructions from the Landlord.  Standing by for their contracts!

NOTE: Pay Pal and credit card membership payments plus Tower Fund donation now on the Web.

For those of you who have not received this information from your respective emergency agencies or other ham clubs, click here for the "BACKGROUNDER - BAN ON CELLPHONES AND OTHER ELECTRONIC DEVICES WHILE DRIVING"