Formed in 1974, the Canberra Region Amateur Radio Club (formerly the WIA, ACT Division) is the principal amateur radio club in the ACT and has one of the highest rates of membership per licensed amateur of any State/Territory in Australia. In November 2004 the decision to change to a Club was formally passed and so the Canberra Region Amateur Radio Club was born.
The Club provides a number of services and activities as detailed below. Should you have any questions about the Club or the hobby of amateur radio, please do not hesitate to contact one of our committee members.
Through the WICEN (ACT) group, the Club is regularly involved in community events in providing emergency and logistical communications and support. One of the more visible events is the National Capital Rally where WICEN and our local operators have consistently been rated as amongst the best in the world in providing reliable and timely safety communications.
Repeaters
Thanks to the skill and seemingly tireless energy of the Technical/Repeater group, the Canberra Area enjoys an excellent repeater network with coverage over a large portion of the ACT/NSW region. Visit the Services page for the full list.
General Meetings
General Meetings are held once a month on a Wednesday evening at 8pm at the “Mt Mugga” Scout Hall 17 Astrolabe St, Red Hill. Keep an eye on the “Events” page for exact details. Visitors are always welcome.
The general format of meetings is a short period of official business, then move onto the meetings presentation or event. The meetings provide a good opportunity to meet fellow amateurs over a coffee after the evening’s presentation is complete and provide a great forum for chatting about the hobby or learning about what others are up to. The coming events page provides further detail on upcoming meeting topics.
Parking at Mt Mugga Scout Hall.(opposite the Mt Mugga Scout Hall)
When attending Mt Mugga Scout Hall, please avoid parking in “critical vehicle bays” such as disable parking bays and the ambulance bay marked with a large X. The bays are outside the scout hall property boundary hence, they are owned by Baptist Community Services.
Non authorised parking also affects visiting clinical staff such as doctors and nurses. (including visiting family) Now because of the lack of good street lighting and faded parking line markings, it can be difficult to see where you are parking even in daylight.
Attached is a Google Earth Map showing the Ambulance and Disabled parking areas to make it easier to know where they are. Please remember, this is a private road and even the Disabled parking spaces are not under ACT Govt Jurisdiction. So, please try NOT to park in these spots even if you do have an Australian Disability Parking Permit (ADPP) or similar.
Other Events
The local news bulletin is NO LONGER on air, but rather an “Email Newsletter” is distributed to those people who wish to receive it. The Club has transitioned from the old email reflector to using groups.io https://groups.io/g/crarc-news. To subscribe to the service, you need to join the https://groups.io/g/crarc-news/topics on groups.io (note that this is a broadcast medium for the club to promulgate information to members and amateurs in the region, so there is no capacity for general members to post to this group).
There is a broadcast of WIA News on Sundays from VK1WIA 9.00 AM LOCAL on 146.950 MHz, 438.050 MHZ on the Mt Ginini repeaters. Callbacks are welcome on all frequencies after these transmissions.
Why not subscribe to the “VK1 Reflector”?
As with the VK1-News (now CRARC-NEWS), the reflector has also transitioned to using groups.io to better allow Amateurs of the area to keep abreast of local happenings, this is a closed list and requires registration.
To subscribe to the service, you need to join the VK1-Reflector on groups.io
Once you are subscribed, you can send messages to all subscribers by sending them to vk1-reflect@groups.io – note that only members of the group can send messages to the group.
VK1 oriented Discord server
“Discord is a voice, video and text communication service used by over a hundred million people to hang out and talk with their friends and communities.” says the Discord website. Amateurs in VK1 are using it to provide a real-time chat, image exchange and voice and video sharing capability to compliment the vk1-reflect mailing list.
To join the VK1 Discord server click on the following link, or paste it into the “Join a Server” dialog in your Discord client.
You will need to create a login, it will step you through that procedure. More information on Discord is available from the Beginner’s Guide.