CRARC Committee October / November 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. Apologies for the length, but lots to cover as it is a combined October/November edition.

On Wednesday 22^nd November 2023 (Wednesday next week), the CRARC end of year / Christmas function will be held at the club rooms, doors opening 7:30 for an 8pm kickoff. Any volunteers to support the organisation and running of the function, please advise by email to the committee email address.

A reminder, we will also be raffling off three of the Retevis RT3S 2/70 DMR/Analogue handheld radio packages (for details please see VK1News email of 27 Sep) at the end of the year function, so yet another great reason to attend on the night.

Club membership is running well, with 186 financial members – welcome back to a couple of new old members. As always, if you have any membership queries, contact Graham and Carl on membership@crarc.org.au

CRARC maintains a number of Beacons and Repeaters.

On Saturday 5 November a working bee was conducted to cleanup the area around the compound at Isaacs Ridge repeater site. A huge thanks to Steve VK2NSS, Phil VK1PL, Graeme VK1IO, Graham VK1GVC, Matt VK1MA, Malcom VK1MAL, Steve VK1TSK, Rod VK1CBR, Paul VK1EW and Tom VK1CAT for their efforts – thanks to any others who assisted and apologies for the omission. A large amount of brush and grass was removed from the site, significantly improving the fire protection at site which is an increasing worry given the high fire risk this summer. Another working bee is hoped to be held at the Ginini site probably early next year.

QSL Cards. Mike VK1OO is planning to mail off the outwards QSL cards over the Christmas break. Cub members wanting to get their cards included in this mailout can bring them to the meeting and pass to Mike.

On the education front, yet another Foundation course has been successfully conducted last weekend. Amanda VK1WX advises that due to AMC/ACMA changeover of assessment responsibilities in February, the usual January course will not be conducted. The next course is planned for the weekend of 16/17 March 2024. Out of session examinations can still be conducted by arrangement with Amanda and the other members of the education team.

For WICEN, we have had a somewhat slower Spring period with only the Brookvale Horse Endurance event needing WICEN personnel assistance. The big event of the year, the Rally of Canberra (yes it is back to the old name this year) is coming up this weekend – over 30 members are supporting the activity over the weekend which is very much appreciated. Please note that there are a number of portable repeaters that have been set up for the weekend and several of the permanent repeaters will also be used for the event (Bulls Head 2m and Isaacs 70cm analogue and the dstar is down as the antennas and cans have been repurposed for the event) and it would be appreciated if non rally users can avoid using these repeaters whilst they are used by WICEN personnel to provide rally safety comms. The other repeaters (Isaacs DMR, Ginini 2m and 70cm are still available for normal use, although if the primary rally support repeaters fail, short term use of the remaining repeaters may be needed.

Upgrades and work continues on the shack at the clubrooms with more additional equipment having been acquired. We now have an IC-7300 in the shack and an ATU with a large wire giving us full 160m to 6m capability as well as 2m/70cm on the vertical antenna. We anticipate the shack will continue to evolve as upgrades and changes are made.

Matt VK1MA

For the CRARC Committee