Website of the Westcoast Amateur Radio Association, Victoria BC
The Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) is asking Canadian hams to help them by completing a survey about call signs. The survey is comprehensive and takes about 20 minutes. Your opinion will help shape future call sign policy here in Canada.
It should be noted that you do NOT need to be a RAC member to complete the survey.
The survey can quickly be reached using this link. Survey : https://forms.office.com/r/
More information from Phil A. McBride VA3QR RAC President and Chair can be found here.
If the prognosticators for increasing numbers of sunspots and the ramp up of the new sunspot cycle are correct, then those radio amateurs who enjoy HF will be dusting off their rigs, keys and microphones in anticipation of good DX. 
Here’s a link to the Sunspot Index and Long-term Solar Observations which gives us a taste of what’s to come for sunspot numbers. Today’s numbers can be found at Space Weather Live.
There’s always a possible fly in the sunspot ointment and they’re called Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) which can disrupt communications. A nice CME was observed on Tuesday August 4th. Check out this GIF.
The British Columbia Aviation Museum (BCAM) at the Victoria International Airport is in the process of restoring a Canadian built Lancaster Mk.X Bomber, eventually to return the airframe to certified flying status. The airframe, serial FM104, was on unprotected display on the Toronto waterfront for many years, resulting in the loss of all equipment on the inside of the aircraft fuselage. The aircraft will be restored as a post-war Search & Rescue variant which had been converted from the Maritime Reconnaissance role.
The artifacts the project is looking for (which radio amateurs might help find) include transmitters, receivers, power supplies / dynamotors, antennas, interphone station boxes, mounts for any of this equipment and also cabling and connectors.
This link will take you to a well-researched website that describes in detail these various electronic systems incorporated into a post-war RCAF Lancaster. BCAM would be interested in hearing from you if you have any of the components of these systems that you would be willing to donate to the museum.
For donations or questions, please contact restorer Paul MacNeill at paulmn@shaw.ca
WARA is testing holding our Saturday Morning Coffee Breaks by using the Zoom platform. This will be very informal in place of the breakfasts that we can’t hold right now. The first Zoom meetup was very well received, and there was a sense that the group wanted it to continue.
Saturday Zoom meetings provide a chance to say “Hello”, meet and put faces to people we only hear on air, swap stories, and have a “Show and Tell” if you have a new piece of kit you want to brag about.
All members should have received an email with the login information. I hope to see you on Saturday mornings at 10 am PST.
Thanks, Brent Besse VA7BNB, WARA President