Message from Peter LaGrandeur VA6RPL CARA President

Greetings, fellow amateur radio enthusiasts.  Your Executive Committee continues to work hard for you.  Contact us anytime at executive@caraham.org .

As I write this, our flea market has just concluded, our first in three years.  We had a great turnout at Calgary’s Eastside City Church, with two hundred and twenty one persons going through the reception table.  Many thanks to coordinator Joel Weder VE6EI and the very large team of people who all contributed to the success of the day.  Some highlights of the day include a record 50/50 pot of over $1600.  Another highlight was the plethora of gifts from vendors BH Electronics and NTF Communications.  Thanks, Brian and Ray!  The main prize was the raffle for the $1700 ICOM IC-705 tri-band amateur portable base radio donated by GPS Central in Calgary.  Many thanks to Greg Kulin for that one, with GPSC employee Cory on hand to present the prize to the raffle winner.

CARA’s parallel event at the ESC Church was the ‘annual’ Learning Conference aka ‘Ham University’.  Like the flea market, this was the first one in three years, due to the Covid 19 interlude.  That didn’t deter a full room of learners from attending the three sessions, all of which were top flight from great presenters.  “The New Solar Cycle” from ‘Professor’ Jerry Spring VE6TL, “Portable Operation in the Rockies” from Paul Mower VA6MPM, and “DMR In Calgary” from Peter Barry VA6PJB.  Well done gentlemen!  Many kudos goes to this year’s Learning Conference coordinator, Peter Barry VA6PJB.

We are now heading into our busy spring period of events, and our hats go off to all the organizers and volunteers who make them the great success that they always are.  Please see the Events Calendar https://caraham.org/events for upcoming activities.

As I look back on the last two years of the CARA executive committee, I can count numerous housekeeping tasks, and various improvements, that have made membership in CARA so much better.  Some of them include:

• Significant reduction of storage costs from $2000/yr to $700,  Most storage is now consolidated into a weatherproof sea can at a patrolled 24/7 accessible location very close to our clubhouse.  Shelves were built, which now enable efficient storage within, and keep things from being piled on the floor.  Our comm trailer has also been moved there, beside the container.  This site is flat and level, well drained, mouse free, plowed in winter, and easily accessible year round.

• This sea can has also been configured to serve as a remote radio station, and stands ready for the addition of radio gear and supportive infrastructure, when required.

• Our valuable bank of glass vacuum tubes has been better sorted and categorized, and now resides in the sea can storage facility.

• The ongoing large task of dealing with the tide of gear from Silent Keys, and donators, has been better organized and streamlined.  We now can assess the equipment, sort, categorize, offer to CARA interest groups, and advertise for sale on the CARA web site, with much greater efficiency.

• Our Policy and Procedure Manual has been updated, including clarification of CARA’s membership categories.  The electoral process has also been updated to provide better continuity from one year to the next, with annual elections, where only half the executive committee is changed out per year.

• That perennial, and worsening, problem of flooding in the basement of the Calgary Sports Car Club, which regularly endangered our world class VE6AO HF station, has now been mitigated.   Compounding the effect of water damage, was the looming threat of mold and potential condemnation of the building.  The improvements were achieved by negotiations with the CSCC to do significant landscaping and concrete work on the south side of the building.

• The VE6AO station has had some significant upgrades to its infrastructure:

• • An Earth Moon Earth (EME) bounce antenna system is close to completion.  

  • A log periodic antenna system is nearing completion, which will fill in gaps in bands for better comms and contesting.  

  • One of the HF contesting radios has been replaced with a new Yaesu FT-DX101D.  Preliminary reports on this radio indicate that its addition is a big success.

• A comprehensive member survey was conducted, which incorporated input from a large cross section of the interest groups.  The results have been made available to the members in unprocessed form.

• CARA’s web presence has undergone a revamp.  The objectives were two fold:

• • The previous CARA website functioned well enough to provide info for established members.  However, CARA has a great deal to offer in terms of activities and resources, and that website did not represent the club well.  Persons wanting to learn amateur radio, potential new members, amateur radio operators at large, our public service partners, benefactors like the AGLC, all had to root around in our menu system to find things, which were often buried several layers deep, in non-logical places.  To that end, a new “landing page” has become the new home page.  This new home page features “jump tiles” which showcase many of the great things CARA has to offer, and which facilitate “one-click” links to topics new visitors to CARA’s sites are commonly looking for.  

  • The website’s internal page structure has seen pages added, edited, amalgamated, shuffled, and retired, as required.  The result is a much more concise, intuitive interface with very limited “digging” to get to information.

• Our social media has been enhanced with a new FaceBook group page.  This complements our existing Twitter and YouTube streams.

Yes indeed, your Executive Committee, in concert with many members, has worked hard to make CARA a better place for our hobby.  May we ask each and every one of you to please consider taking your turn serving on the CARA exec committee.  The next election is at the June 28 general meeting.  Serving is a very rewarding experience.