CRARC Committee April update email #Committee_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.

Due to the proximity of the scheduled monthly general meeting to ANZAC Day, we have decided to push the meeting back one week to Wednesday 1 May (usual time of doors opening 7:30pm for an 8:00pm start). The meeting will primarily be to dispose of a significant volume of radio related equipment from the late Pieter Kloppenburg (formerly VK1CPK). Pieter was a very keen home brewer so there are large amounts of parts and components, test equipment and some radios that we will be auctioning / selling off at the meeting. More information to be promulgated shortly.

Club membership is running well, with 205 financial members. Please note that as per the vote at the recent AGM, membership subs will increase to $40 per year from 1 May 2024. As always, if you have any membership queries, contact Graham on membership@crarc.org.au

CRARC maintains a number of Beacons and Repeaters.

A short notice visit to Ginini was made last weekend to do some pre winter preps and general maintenance, including reaffixing the 23cm beacon to the tower (appears to be back to its usual performance). Efforts to progress the 6m repeater have ramped up and we hope to have it on test in the coming months (in particular thanks to Patrick VK1EE). The repeaters appear to be running correctly at all other sites, but if you notice any issues with repeater performance, please advise the committee by email.

On the education front, another Foundation course has been conducted this weekend just gone. The next Foundation course is scheduled May 18/19 and is presently open for registration via Eventbrite. 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) in addition to out of sessions examinations by arrangement with the education team.

For WICEN, the big event just recently supported was the Rally of Canberra. Unfortunately, the first day of racing was literally washed out with the deluge of rain on the Friday and Saturday, but the Sunday went ahead without issue. Yet again Phil VK1PL put in a huge effort to organise and run the communications component of this event with multiple repeater and linking sites plus of course the HQ setup. Pleasingly we had around 30 members put their hands up to assist without too many begging emails being needed! A huge thanks to all involved – your efforts were very much appreciated.

Matt VK1MA

For the CRARC Committee