President’s Message, November 17, 2016

Upcoming General Meeting

‪Next Tuesday, November 22, the fun part of the November GM will be about HF operation via a remote station.  This topic was one of the high interest areas expressed at our GM in September.

Unlike VHF operation where the size of an efficient antenna is modest, HF antennas of comparable efficiency are "high, wide and handsome".  Even on 20 meters a half wave dipole is 33 feet long and prefers to be 30 or more feet above ground to perform well. Yes, size matters; it's a physics thing.  So, if you have enough real estate, a mature tree or two, permission from your partner and reasonable neighbours you can have a go at putting up a simple wire antenna and have some fun on HF - maybe.

Another challenge all us city dwellers are facing is the increasing level and amount of electromagnetic noise produced by all the other radiators in the neighbourhood. Getting away from the noise is rapidly becoming a major impediment to the enjoyment of HF operation.

So, if having your own effective HF antennas is challenging for your situation then consider participation in remote station operation. It turns out CARA has one. It can be operated from the comfort of your own dwelling via the Internet and a computer equipped with the remote station operation software. This methodology will be illustrated and demonstrated as part of the presentation.

Recent Board activity

Enjoy Amateur Radio - Serve our Community

The previous CARA Executive adopted the above statement of mission for our club. The current CARA Executive thinks they got it right. In a simple statement the two sides of the coin illustrate the benefit and cost sides of any volunteer based organization.

Enjoy Amateur Radio; that's the fun part. It brought us to the hobby; it keeps us active in its various pursuits and in contact with people of similar interests. It is the benefit side of membership. It's not a thing, thing; it's a feeling thing.

Serve our Community is the cost side. Time, talent and treasure are the three currencies required of members to meet the cost side. Of the three, time and talent are of most value. CARA is in the most fortunate situation to have access to treasure that does not come directly from its members' pocketbooks but does require investment of members' time. CARA is most in need of the participation of its members.Time is currency of high value and its investment benefit is not a thing, thing, it's a feeling thing.

The cost benefit situation in the world of retail commerce is a different challenge involving the same three currencies but in the reverse order. Its objective is to maximize the perceived benefit to extract the most treasure from its customer base while minimizing the effort and time to make the investment in their goods or services. It is cost driven and relies heavily on the perception of the need for the latest thing, thing. 

In talking to other leaders of amateur radio club's in our region we learn that we are all facing membership participation challenges. In implementing the past Board's mission the current Board recognizes the need to refocus leadership and organizational infrastructure as well as membership time and talent to realize the benefit of membership enjoyment. We understand that a members’ participation is a large component of the member's enjoyment. Hence we need to involve more members in the doing of the building and operating of the infrastructure rather than just using it. In short we need to build communities of doers" willing to share their time and talents at the point where it matters to achieve membership enjoyment for themselves and their fellow members. 

Over the next quarter, the focus of the Board will be to establish a number of important functional roles with defined responsibilities to coordinate club operations. How that is to be approached will comprise the business portion of next week's GM. It won't be as much fun as the Remote Station presentation but it will be important to meaningful engagement of those members willing and able to contribute their time and talent towards this objective.

Looking forward to lively and interesting conversation. See you there, ‪next Tuesday at the club station ‪at 7:00 PM.

73 de VE6TI

Gordon Hungerford

The leaves are falling, temperatures are falling and the days continue to shorten. Winter is coming. The allusion in the "Game of Thrones" books and TV series references the need to prepare for what is coming. A bit lame, I admit. I needed a segue and there it is.

With the election of a completely new CARA Board the need for preparation for the future of the club was clear from the start. Since the end of June we have had several face-to-face meetings, Go To Meeting sessions, and exchanged dozens and dozens of emails to get to know each other's interests, skills and form as group. Keeping HMCS CARA on its established course at the same time provided opportunity to understand how the current ship functions.

So, what has been accomplished so far? 

I think the most significant outcome is agreement at the Board that CARA needs to be less about things and stuff and more about being relevant to current members and attractive to future members of the club. 

With that focus we have set four directional goals:

•    Have fun while learning about and participating in the vast array of endeavours in the world of Amateur Radio.

•    Attract and retain members, young and old, just learning or experienced, in school, working or enjoying retirement.

•    Manage the club's tangible and human assets to sustain the Club's future, sustain the hobby and support public events in need of the radio-based communications that our skills and facilities can provide.

•    Seek opportunities to collaborate and participate in the efforts of other amateur radio club's in the region as they pursue similar goals.

September's General Meeting format, where we mixed the Fun and Business parts of the meeting, will be followed again in October. The Fun Part is a primer on the CARA Net initiative started a couple of years ago. Robin Greig, VE6RBN and our current Vice President will take us through the what, why, current status and next steps in this strategy to link club repeaters. He promises the presentation to be more about the utility, flexibility and benefits of this approach rather than the magic that goes on in the boxes. A progress update will be provided as well.

For the business part we will report on our first steps to improve communications with the membership. At our last GM this was the most discussed topic at the round table sessions. Last week's Board meeting re-examined the Communications Proposal commissioned by the previous Board and passed a motion to further implement more of its recommendations.  We will again set up the round tables to examine our current communications vehicles and opportunities for further improvements.

So please attend the meeting ‪Tuesday October 25. Club station, ‪7: 00 PM and add your voice to the conversations that shape CARA's future.

Last Month's meeting 30 + members attended the GM at the CSCC location.

Upon entry, members found the chairs set up for the program presentation were already occupied; not with people but with stacks of "QST" magazines. These artifacts escaped from the depths of the club's storage prison where many had languished for decades.

Their hope was to be adopted by the CARA members and provided with a new home or face the incinerator. And adopted they were. Big thanks to Rob Wilson, VE6CCL for organizing the jail break.

The Fun Part: the Program

John Fallows, VE6YE brought along the five foot diameter magnetic loop antenna completed over the summer and recounted its story of construction and testing.  Turns out that the magnetic loop design has some very useful characteristics for operation in the midrange HF bands. It's very compact compared to full sized loops, half wave dipoles and beams.  More importantly does not need to be mounted high above the ground and has good local noise reduction characteristics when rotated.

To good to be true you say.  Well like all things whose performance is based upon the immutable laws of physics, the loop has its limits. It is very narrow in band width and has radiation resistance in the range of miliohms. This translates to a capacitive matching challenge involving very high voltages and the reduction of series resistances in the antenna circuit to the bare minimum.

John accomplished the above in the traditional home-brew fashion of buying available materials locally or from Internet suppliers and building the rest. In this case the building of the variable capacitor involved the use of a 3D printer and a CNC (computer numerical control) machine that he just happened to have home-brewed as well. Use of very inexpensive Arduino based hardware and the writing of the code to enabled the control of its adjustment rounded out the project. If you missed the presentation you can view a video @ play.fallows.ca/wp/category/radio/ham-radio/

The business part of the meeting: Engaging the members

As announced we engaged the attending members in a round table discussion of the Board's directional goals. One chair reserved at each table for a Director and the rest for members.  And discuss we did. Directors responded to concerns voiced by the members and where within our directional goals they will be addressed. This part of meeting lasted upward of an hour and the Board will share a compilation of the table notes within the next week, set some priorities and publish the result to the Website and review with the membership at the business part of the October GM.

Since then: Analysis of feedback

Tuesday, Oct 4th the Board met and reviewed Director notes from the above activity. October 18 we will meet again to establish priorities for presentation and discussion at the Oct GM.

Communicating openly and frequently with the membership is one of our foundation goals. The need for that was communicated quite clearly at September's meeting and it was great to get to get it in a 2 way fashion.  Let's keep the conversation going.

We are about to kick off the 2016-2017 CARA fall season. The first regular club meeting will be ‪September 27th. Location will be the Calgary Sports Car Club, Southwest corner of 80th Avenue and Metis trail NE. 

The fun part

One of our members will present the activities and results of his “fun in the summer project” to home-brew a compact loop antenna for the mid HF range amateur radio bands. The home-brew part is literal. It begins with the construction of the very tools used to accomplish the objective. These include a 3D printer, and a CNC milling machine.  The outcome of his efforts is remarkable.  However, I think it was the journey that best illustrates the breadth of the amateur radio hobby as a vehicle for continuous learning and personal satisfaction.

Over refreshments you will be able to meet and chat with the executive elected at the end of June. Robin Greig, VE6RBN, Jim Weisert, VE6GO and Jerry Spring, VE6TL are the new members of the Board. Peter Barry, VE6PJB and myself, Gordon Hungerford, VE6TI have served on previous executives.

The business Part

Over the summer the new executive had a couple of face to face meetings and several Go To Meetings to form as a group and flesh out some of near term goals and actions. We now have a bit more "flesh on the bone" and will outline the direction and focus we have envisioned for CARA over the next two years.

The previous Board undertook a major planning initiative to increase current membership participation and grow the membership and ensure the sustainability of CARA. The scope and effort was substantial, the outcome valuable and it charts a course towards accomplishment of the stated goals. The new Board will undertake the task of implementation of this work towards accomplishment of the goals outlined last month. Namely:

• Encourage the exploration and enjoyment of the vast opportunities’ in the amateur radio hobby.
• Engage, through program offerings the young and old, novice and expert.
• Manage tangible assets and the efforts of our membership to sustain and grow CARA.
• Communicate openly and frequently with the membership.
• Identify opportunities for meaningful collaboration with other local and regional amateur radio organizations.

Over the summer input received from members sees the third goal emerging as top of mind. Towards that end the Board will establish a process to examine the current state of asset investment and utilization. This effort will provide a basis for objective evaluation of the effectiveness of the current operation as well as opportunities to advance the first two goals. 

Questions will be welcomed and consideration given to all suggestions from attendees. As stated in my first posting, the success of a club is primarily achieved through the participation and contributions of its individual members rather than its titled leaders.

Please attend, bring a friend or ask someone you know, who has perhaps let their membership lapse, to give the club another look.

tnx and 73

de VE6TI

Gordon Hungerford, President

July 25, the Board members elected at the June general meeting met for the first time. Stampede, the Folk Fest, and summer time activities had intervened. However, we were active via phone calls and emails and prior to the first meeting, each of us exchanged input to five questions:

• What is the scope of my amateur radio interests?
• What skills and experiences, personal and organizational, do I have to offer?
• What are my current views and perceptions of the state of our club?
• What do I think the near term focus for the club could/should be?
• What do I think the longer-term focus could/should be?

This information served as an introduction to each other as Board members and provided a starting point for the election of officers. The new Board roles landed as follows: Secretary, Peter Barry, VE6PJB; Treasurer, Jim Weisert, VE6GO; Vice President, Robin Greig; VE6RBN, President; Gordon Hungerford, VE6TI and Jerry Spring, Director.

We then considered and adopted the agenda proposed for the balance of the meeting. Past Treasurer, Dale Olson entered the meeting providing financial information and the process to set up the new signing authorities.

Next, each Director’s responses to the last two bullets of the input exercise identified common areas of focus for the near and longer terms. We then set up some general guiding principals as follows:

• Encourage the exploration and enjoyment of the vast opportunities in the amateur radio hobby.
• Engage, through program offerings, the young and old, novice and expert.
• Manage assets, tangible and personnel, to sustain and grow CARA.
• Communicate openly and frequently with the membership.
• Identify opportunities for meaningful collaboration with other local and regional amateur radio organizations.

From a personal perspective, I am pleased and excited to be part of the group now charged with guiding the club over the next couple of years. However, history reminds us repeatedly that the success of a club like ours results primarily from the participation, support and commitment of its membership rather than the guidance of its leaders. Let's all have some fun and enjoy each others company as we pursue the lifelong learning opportunities of amateur radio.

Greetings to all Hams,

Summer is with us once again, it's nice and warm, many of us are looking forward to field day and the many volunteer events and activities that are happening in the next few months.  Keep an eye on your email for opportunities to take part.

This is your club and your participation is what makes it what it is.

As most of you know we have brought forward our elections from September 2016 to June 2016 to allow there to be a better transition before the new executive takes the reins in September.

Also as most of you know I have decided after several terms on the executive and as a several term president decided its time to allow others to take this on.  I will at this time still be very involved with the repeater network, APRS, Cameras, Weather, Skimmer and CARANet (our wide area network that is expanding between sites) so will continue to be a part of the life of CARA but more concentrating on this direct role and the encouragement of others to get involved with this great hobby and CARA.

Many will have received the email letting you know that in fact the complete executive has decided to step aside, the majority have been on the executive for many terms and i thank them for their service and understand their various reasons, most the same as my own, also that change and moving forward can best happen if we allow it to.  Many will still be active in CARA and the hobby so won't just disappear!

For those that may considering standing check your eligibility, the list is on the latest edition of Key Klix please give it serious consideration, and start to think how you can serve CARA and the Ham community though this.

73

Dave

Greetings to all Hams,

Thanks to all involved in organizing and participating in the Flea market & Learning conference, it was our best attendance in recent times (257 up 25% on last year). Congratulations to the winners of prizes and hope you all found some good fleas.

 Coming up in on June 4 - 5th is this years Rocky Mountain Rally we need volunteers,  find out more information:  https://cara.wildapricot.org/event-2207340 or contact Dave Cason at   dcason@shaw.ca

Also at June's general meeting the last of the year we have decided to hold our next CARA executive elections rather than in September, with the new exec taking office in the new season starting in September. Primarily this was done to allow a cross over between old and new executive, if you are interested contact one of the executive for information on eligibility.

This months General meeting on April 26th Topic is home brew 1kw VHF amplifiers and Tim Ellam VE6SH  IARU president will give us an update from the IARU.

73

Dave

Greetings to all Hams!

Thank you to all those who came out to help with the Casino, we had fun and have secured funding for our projects for the next couple of years. It will be a few months for the money to come through.

So its time to start thinking of CARA projects to apply for funding, our main emphasis for this Casino is on maintenance/ refurbishment across the board (other projects will be considered though), the things that have needed to be done for a while that never got the funding they needed.

Another part of this is for members to not only be a project manager for a project(usually the submitter) but for members to take part in the execution of the projects, there should be encouragement to be as many participating as possible. While many of the tasks need specific skills we should also be looking to pass on those skills to others, so be prepared to share to others for a couple of minutes at a meeting about your idea!

This months meeting ( Feb 23rd @ 7 pm at the Calgary Sports Car Club) will be co-presented by CARA and the Calgary Sports Car Club about ham radio and Car rallies, and the vital role we play. Linked to this we have a rally coming up in Cochrane on March 6th that needs radio operators, come out and enjoy a great day out if you are interested check out https://cara.wildapricot.org/event-2172351 or contact Mark Lunn at mlunn@shaw.ca

73

Dave

Greetings and Happy  New Year to all Hams!

Thank you to all who came and participated in last nights general meeting we had approx 50 attend. There were lots of great sharing of equipment and experience showing the width and depth of our great hobby, and i am sure most of us gained some good knowledge from it.

Again congratulations to the Basic Class of Early and Late 2015, and happy studies to the participants in our current ongoing Advanced Class.

As discussed at the meeting this weekend on Sat Jan 30th there will be a VHF Fox hunt, if you are interested meet at the Sunridge coffee Klatch at 8:30am to find out details and the process of what will be a great fun morning.

Keep an eye on Twitter for more information and for other activities.

On Feb 8th and 9th is our Casino @Cash Casino  that funds the majority of the projects Cara does we still need more volunteers (ideally 15 more) to cover the evening and night (cash room shift) if you are able to help check out the web https://cara.wildapricot.org/event-2044689 or email Dale at 
dolson@shaw.ca .

Next month (Feb) meeting will be co-presented by CARA and the Calgary Sports Car Club about ham radio and Car rallies, and the vital role we play.

73

Dave VA6DBA
President CARA

Greetings and Merry Christmas to all Hams!

Thanks for Bill VE6WK for his show and tell at the last meeting, his Raspberry Pi based portable Azimuth/Elevation rotator system was very impressive, as was the QSO with a ham satellite at the end of the meeting.

Also thanks to Lawence VE6LS for his introduction to EME moon bounce, there is some very creative Hams making nice antenna systems to get that tiny signal back!

Congratulations to our 17 2015 Basic Ham class successful candidates., the standard was very high with several 100% and several very close.

Our January 2016 General meeting on Jan 26th  at our regular meeting place of the Calgary Sports Car Club will be a follow up for them to welcome them to CARA, starting at 7:00pm  from now onward (not 7:30pm)  this will be an extended show and tell, bring along your experiences and equipment to share and show the length and breadth of this amazing hobby to our new hams and any others you may know who are interested in becoming hams.

Also on January 12th our Advanced class starts for 16 weeks, check our website for more details.

Lastly we still need more volunteers for our next Casino on Feb 8 & 9 2016 

contact Mike VE6TC at nrossairdrie@shaw.ca or Dale VE6QDO@shaw.ca for more details the AGLC Form is at http://cara.memberlodge.com/Resources/Documents/AGLCForm0001.pdf that needs to be filled out and passed back to the above for forwarding to AGLC. This is how we fund the majority of our projects and operations so it's important for us to staff well, check website for more details.

73

Dave VA6DBA
President CARA

ps. Note start time of general meetings is now 7 pm for show and tell not 7:30pm as before.