Committee May Update

The CRARC committee meets monthly on-line, to discuss the running of CRARC. Normally these meetings are held on the second Wednesday of the month.

The committee decided, for this year, the Club membership subscriptions will remain at the current level.

The Club’s personal liability insurance was renewed in March. This insurance covers the club and its members (whilst on club business) for personal liability claims up to $20,000,000. Insurance is obtained through the WIA. We pay a slightly higher premium by not divulging the details of our members who are also members of the WIA.

The committee also looks after payments for Scout Hall rental, WICEN Trailer registration, power bills for the club’s repeaters as well as ACMA Licence fees for the club’s callsigns, beacons and repeaters.

The club now has 188 members. Keeping track of members is becoming more complex. Consequently, we have been looking at using an automated amateur radio club management system. Such a system could be used to manage membership, membership renewals, events, assets, rosters and calendars. A potentially suitable system is currently being investigated.

The biggest WICEN event this year was the National Capital Rally. This involved many club members over a weekend in April.

CRARC maintains a number of Beacons and Repeaters.

Except for the Isaacs Ridge VHF repeater the analog repeaters at Mt. Ginini, Bulls Head and Isaacs Ridge UHF repeater are all operational

The D-Star and IRLP/ Echolinlk Repeater at Isaacs Ridge are online and operational. The committee is currently looking at ways of upgrading the internet link to the D-Star repeater.

The DMR repeater at Isaacs Ridge is operational again at reduced output power. The committee is looking at ways of upgrading the entire repeater.

The 2 metre beacon is currently off the air and is being repaired

The Foundation Licence Courses and Examinations that were held in March and May were well attended. The next course is scheduled for July. All course attendees qualify for a year’s free membership of CRARC.

Since the Covid outbreak, face to face meetings and Tech nights have not been conducted due to the number of club members who are in the vulnerable category. The committee is looking at ways of restoring club meetings and is looking at a variety of topics. Currently the use of “Jitsi” conferencing software is being investigated. If you have a topic that you wish to present and is of interest to club members please contact the committee.