CRARC Committee October update
The CRARC committee meets on-line on the second Wednesday of the month, to discuss the running of CRARC. This email is an outline of items covered and other topics potentially of interest to CRARC members and is promulgated to keep members aware of what is going on.
The October monthly meeting was a presentation by Dale VK1DSH on the ACMA proposals for class licencing and higher power aspects and very well attended – a video of this was recorded and is available on the club youtube account – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KpTkA7EVns. This was the first face to face meeting the club has conducted in quite some time and hopefully will be the first of many more to come. Next month’s meeting will be a presentation by Bob VK1ERF on the node-red automated shack concept. Any other offers of presentations would be very much appreciated – we do have a list of potential topics that we will be seeking presenters to volunteer for – further information to follow shortly.
As most members would have observed, we have mostly transitioned over the hamclubonline membership management tool as the membership secretary strives to do himself out of a job! This system should be easy for members to use as well as making the control and oversight of the process for the committee far easier than the more mandraulic processes used previously. If you have any queries or issues with the system, please feel free to hit Graham up at membership@crarc.org.au. Please note that there will be a short general meeting at the next social meeting (23 November). The purpose of this is to approve a change to the club constitution so that a membership year is no longer fixed and starting on 1 July – it will be the date a new member’s application is approved by the committee.
Contesting – we have renewed the clubs contest call of VK1C. With committee approval, this callsign may be used by suitably qualified club members (must be actively supervised by advance licenced amateur) for participation in contests. Any queries on this, please pass through the committee email address.
CRARC maintains a number of Beacons and Repeaters.
Except for the Isaacs Ridge VHF repeater, the analogue repeaters (Mt. Ginini 2/70, Bulls Head 2m and Isaacs Ridge 70cm) are all operational. The D-Star and IRLP/ Echolinlk Repeater at Isaacs Ridge remain online and operational, although here remains some packet loss issues with d-star due to link interference issues. The 2-metre beacon is currently being worked on (issue determined to be faulty power supply with a replacement being constructed, hopefully back up on air in the not too distant future).
The DMR repeater at Isaacs Ridge appears to be working well with no reported issues, however if people do notice anything unusual, please let the committee know.
This year WICEN supported activities have been much reduced. The Brookvale horse endurance ride was unable to be supported due to the rescheduled event clashing with Fitz’s challenge and we understand it was finally cancelled due to weather related issues. The Fitz’s Challenge however ended up being run as scheduled this weekend just past and despite numbers being down compared to normal levels, it ended up being quite a successful event. Thanks to all of those who assisted with the event. Note that this is the last event that we have on the calendar for the year – the next fix for the WICEN addicts is not until early next year.
The last Foundation course of the year is scheduled for November and registrations for the course are already open and filling – note that the education team may also conduct upgrade assessments on the Saturday of the course (pending assessor availability and sufficient lead time to order exams) and out of sessions examinations by arrangement with the education team.
Matt
VK1MA
For the CRARC Committee