May 2010 Edition 54 Page 1 Rambler Newsletter of the Ottawa Valley Mobile Radio Club Incorporated MINUTES, OVMRC GENERAL MEETING, April 15, 2010 1. CALL TO ORDER The President, Michel VE3EMB, called the meeting to order at 19:37. There were 26 people in attendance. 2. GUESTS AND VISITING AMATEURS Sharp, BobVA3QV; Balenda, Andrew (Amateur-in- Training); Baillargeon, Bob VE3MPG; Konarski, Tom VA3TJK; Vanderlans, John VE3CJB. 3. PROGRAM Dannis ? from Elkel (Les Produits Electroniques Elkel Ltée, www.elkel.com) began his presentation with mobile rigs: ? HF, VHF/UHF (all with computer hook-up potential) ? D-Star (not easy to use, not easy to program), and ? VHF. Dannis then discussed handheld radios: ? D-Star and others, ? Single-band, double-band, and multi-band. Antenna tuners Dannis does not recommend Antenna tuners. He believes it is better to match the antenna to the radio and only use antenna tuner if there is no other option. Automatic Antenna tuners have lower variable than manual antenna tuners. A . SWR meters Dannis stated that he believes multi-needles are the best, since you receive three readings at once. Single needle meters are cheaper by not as accurate. He then discussed software. Repeaters A new repeater with duplexer and controller will cost approximately $3,500. Dannis recommends Yaesu for analog. APRS Kenwood D710 is the radio he recommends. Warranties Icom: 2 years; Kenwood and Yaesu: 1 year. Repairs New units are smaller, more reliable and require fewer repairs. Once the warranty is over, repairs will cost you $45/hr at a local shop and $75/hr from the manufacturer. Before you repair a radio, cost more than a new unit. For used radios older than 10 years, just opening the case to investigate a problem will cause more things to break. Cross-Band Repeat Fewer mobile models are offering the options. Make sure you have an excellent heat sink if you use the option. Power Supplies Buy a good one as it will last for many years. VHF = 20 Amp, UHF = 30 Amp. Dannis prefers analog as there is less DC ripple. If buying a switching power supply, buy the same from the same manufacturer as the radio and ensure the Continued on Page: 3 = Page 1 = Page 2 Rambler May 2010 OVMRC Executive 2009-2010 President: Michel Barbeau, VE3EMB michel.barbeau@sympatico.ca, Vice-President: Beth Webster, VA3CEW cemwebster@canada.com, Treasurer: Robert Plante, VA3SHO plantrj@rogers.com, 613-231-6044 Assistant Treasurer: Arthur Smith, VA3BIT Arthur.smith@rogers.com, 613-795-1154 Secretary: Joe Lemieux, VE3EUS ve3eus@rac.ca, 613-745-5074 Standing Committee Chairpersons Amateur Radio Exhibit: Maurice André Vigneault, VE3VIG vig@mondenet.com, 613-749-9010 Amateur Radio Training & Accredited Examiner: Ernie Jury, VE3EJJ es282@freenet.carleton.ca, 613-728-3666 Historical: Larry Wilcox, VE3WEH larrywilcox@rogers.com, 613-747-5565 Membership: Joe Lemieux, VE3EUS ve3eus@rac.ca, 613-745-5074 Publicity & Programs: Vacant Radio Operations: Doug Lackey, VE3DLJ douglaslackey@hotmail.com Technical: Cam Milne, VA3FO cmilne@nortel.com, 613-763-8068 Emergency Preparedness: Paul Labbé, VE3NJS paul.labbe@usa.net Special Events Vacant Newsletter Editor: Robert Cherry, VE2AGE robert_cherry@hotmail.com Webmaster: Chris Wiesner, VA3SM va3sm@rac.ca, 613-837-2997 For information about the duties and responsibilities about all Executive and Chair positions, please visit the OVMRC forums, Member section or ontact any member of the Executive. Sponsors The OVMRC acknowledges the following organizations for their support of our activities: A e, Ottawa, ON B , Ottawa, ON ., Trois-Riviéres, QC Canada Inc., Mississauga, ON C ers Ltd., Ottawa, ON Travel-Mor Trailer Sales, Ottawa, ON The cb eb ie i hed by: Magma Communications Ltd. www.ovmrc.on.ca OVMRC Life Members Maurice-André Vigneault, VE3VIG Ralph Cameron, VE3BBM Doug Carswell, VE3ATY Doreen Morgan, VE3CGO Ed Morgan, VE3GX Bill Wilson, VE3NR (SK) OVMRC Repeaters 147.300 MHz(+) 444.200 MHZ(+) Amateur Radio Exhibit VE3JW Web site: ovmrc.on.ca/ve3jw.htm Canada Science & Technology Museum The Rambler is the official newsletter of the Ottawa Valley Mobile Radio Club Incorporated and is published 11 times a year (monthly, except for July). Opinions expressed in the Rambler are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the OVMRC, its officers or its members. Permission is granted to republish the contents in whole or in part, providing the source is acknowledged. Commercial use of the contents is expressly prohibited. Submit articles to the editor or by e-mail to: Robert Cherry, VE2AGE robert_cherry@hotmail.com = Page 2 = May 2010 Rambler Page 3 Continued from page: 1 power supply matches the radio. Amplifiers He does not recommend VHF amplifiers. The create ripple in the transmission line and you will blow out the P.A. in a hand-held unit. Grounding The ARRL Handbook is a great reference. An effective grounding needs to contact water. If using a grounding rod, clay soil is the best. For sandy soil, a multi-wire ground plane is the better method. Sales Trends Elkel noticed their 2003- 2006 sales were down approximately 10%. Since 2008, sales have increased by about 3% per year. Local Amateurs In Trois-Rivières, about 30 people from their course were newly licensed in the past month. Around 22 people have already signed up for the September course. The Grandmaître club has 400 members, mostly outdoor enthusiasts and hunters. 4. ASSISTANCE 5. REPORTS 5.1) Treasurer No Report 5.2) Amateur Radio Exhibit Maurice-André VE3VIG met with the Director General of the museum regarding the new set-up (approved by OVMRC last month). The Museum is enthusiastic and has offered to purchase the new monitors. 5.3) Radio Course Ernie VE3EJJ congratulated Dave McFadden VE3ECV on the successful completion of his basic exam. 5.4) Historical Larry VE3WEH thanked Beth VA3CEW for chairing the last General meeting, taking care of the Membership desk and taking the minutes for this meeting; and taking the minutes of the March and April Executive meetings. Larry thanked Chris VA3SM (formerlyVE3CUZ) for scanning the old Ramblers for posting to the website. 5.5) Radio Operations 5.6) Special Events 5.7) Emergency Preparedness 5.8) Membership Tom VA3TJK and John VE3CJB would like to join the Club. Beth VA3CEW will forward contact information to Joe VE3EUS. Beth would like to thank Ante VA2BBW for taking care of the 50/50 sales tonight. 5.9) Website 6. NEW BUSINESS 7. COMMENTS FROM THE FLOOR 8. UPCOMING CLUB MEETINGS The next meeting of the Club executive will be held on Thursday, April 22, 2010 at 19:00 at the Canada Science and Technology Museum. The next general meeting of the Club will be held on Thursday, May 20, 2010 at 19:30 at the Canada Science and Technology Museum. 9. DOOR PRIZES AND DRAWS The 50/50 draw was worth $17.50 and won by Tom VA3TSK. The Door Prizes were won by Ante VA2BBW, Darin VE3OIJ, Michel VE3EMB, Glenn VE3XRA, Patrick VA3LTN, Andrew (Amateur- in-Training). 10. ADJOURNMENT There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 21:40 at which time the audience was invited to continue discussing radios with Dannis from Elkel. Subsequently, many of the attendees proceeded, as is customary, to the local coffee shop to talk radio. All = Page 3 = Page 4 Rambler May 2010 are welcome to join in after the meeting. Signed Beth VA3CEW Vice-President, in the absence of Joe VE3EUS, Secretary MONTHLY MERIT AWARD atVE3JW Starting June 1, 2010, Monthly Merit Awards will be available to any certified Amateur Radio operators, regardless of club membership, who come in to the VE3JW station and log contacts on any of five categories of radio communications modes. The five categories are as follows: 1 - Best Single Side Band voice QSO (distance) 2 - Best Morse Code (CW) QSO (distance) 3 - Best HF Digital QSO (distance) 4 - Best Satellite QSO any mode (distance) 5 - Best IRLP or D-Star QSO (distance) Note that the award is for the farthest distance from the VE3JW station. The results will be printed in the Rambler and, in addition, there will be a list of the operators who have completed at least 5 contacts for our logs during the month. A special award will be bestowed on the operator with the most contacts for the month, all categories included. will also include the total month and the total number of volunteer hours at the station. You are reminded that there is no fee for entrance at the Museum when you come in, as a certified Radio Amateur, for the VE3JW station only. If you wish to visit the Museum, you will then have to pay your entrance fee, unless you are a registered volunteer at the Museum. See the OVMRC web page for privileges of volunteers at the Museum. We invite all Radio Amateurs from anywhere to come and visit us, try out our fully complemented Amateur Radio Station, learn new modes, and attempt to obtain one of the awards. See the OVMRC web page for the list of volunteers and to find out who, and when, the station will be open. To better insure access, a contact with the volunteer, or a short email to: ve3vig@amsat.org is sufficient. See you at JW! Maurice-Andre Vigneault, VE3VIG Amateur Radio Exhibit Group VE3JW Ottawa Valley Mobile Radio Club, Inc. Canada Science and Technology Museum VE3JW Report Thank you to all the membership for voting the upgrade to the VE3JW station. Already, it is taking shape as we have benefited from an excellent offer from RadioWorld at HAMEX 2010 in Toronto last March. The Icom ID-880H was acquired for only $550.00, a great saving for the budget. We also acquired a Rigblaster Plus for only $140.00. We met with the Director General of the Canada Science and Technology Museum, showing a Power Point presentation of our proposition. He enthusiastically responded with agreement to the project and took responsibility for part of it. The Museum will provide the VE3JW station with a 52- inch LCD monitor for our main screen and three 19- inch monitors for our three computers. They are studying the possibility of a = Page 4 = May 2010 Rambler Page 5 telebridge facility which includes access to VE3JW on a 24/7 basis. Most interest was shown towards the installation of an International Space Station mock-up of Amateur Radio on board. This will come later, after the museum concludes arrangements with the Canada Space Agency about a new display that they have in mind. We forged ahead and ordered the Software Defined Radio (SDR) Flex- 3000 and we took delivery of it in mid-April. It is already installed at VE3JW and on May 1, we completed the first contact with it using the CW mode. Due to the Flex-3000 requirements, we had to substantially upgrade console #3 computer. We acquired a quad-core unit with an L2 cache and a Flywire connection. All is working well but progress on the learning curve for the system is hovering at .01 on a scale of 10. But what a sight! The D-Star system was tested through the VA3ODG gate by linking to the Western Reflector. The linking and unlinking process worked flawlessly. Contact though the gate was made with Andrew, M0GRU in London, England. A connection to the #1 console computer allowed us to program the ID-880H and to try out the D-RATS software, which is a transfer system. As other stations come on with the same , further test its capabilities. C C station VA3CUA is building up to it. Antenna wise, we have acquired a Diamond X50A dual band for the D-Star and we will be installing it at the same time as we trim the Alpha-Delta 80/40m dipole which was installed last month. T further development. Meantime, we invite you all to visit the VE3JW station and try out the newer equipment, although it is not fully installed yet. We plan to complete the upgrade and have an opening day celebration further down the log. Meet me at JW! Maurice-Andre Vigneault, VE3VIG AMSAT IN CORNWALL April 28, 2010 Your AMSAT/ARISS representatives were once again on the road, this time visiting the Cornwall Armoury for the April meeting of the Seaway Valley Amateur Radio Club in Cornwall, Ontario. We had been invited to speak on satellite communications and we brought along information for the ARISS program as a school in that area had approached us inquiring about a possible contact between students and astronauts. I wanted to inform the local Amateur Radio community on how much fun it can be to participate in such a contact, and to encourage them to lend a helping hand. The structure of the talk was based on the Satellite Communications Training that we provide gratuitously at the Canada Science and Technology Museum's VE3JW Amateur Radio Exhibit in Ottawa. The talk was well received and enjoyed as some of the participants realized that they already had a satellite station, now that we have easy-sats such as Echo and Hope; a dual band radio and a small gain antenna is all = Page 5 = Page 6 Rambler May 2010 that is necessary. By the way, we are hearing more and more portable stations on the satellites nowadays. AMSAT/ARISS Working Group representative Darin, VE3OIJ, of the PS&U Committee, also a VE3JW volunteer, was along to help. The AMSAT banner was predominantly installed and we distributed handouts on AMSAT and the ARISS program, stickers and logos from the Canadian Space Agency and we had two complete mini satellite stations displayed. Here is the way Joe, VE3ADB felt about our visit. M -Andre: This is to formally thank you and Darin on behalf of the Seaway Valley Amateur Radio Club for coming to talk to us during last evening's General Meeting. Your very informative and technical presentation was the highlight of the evening and was much appreciated by all who came. Not only did you enlighten us on this very interesting topic of Satellite Communications but you had the foresight to provide us with a CD containing the electronic version of your presentation as well other useful software and satellite-related programs. One of our members (VE3OLB) has committed to making copies for all who came. Your presence brought out Joe (VA3JHT) who obviously values your friendship from "the old days". Patricia (VA3PUR) was so happy to hear that we had secured you as our guest speaker that her eyes lit up during the executive meeting when this was discussed. Her smile last evening further evidenced this as she presented you both with our small tokens of appreciation for your travels and knowledge sharing. Attached is a photo of that evening which we hope will keep the memories of our time together alive. Do come again in the near future. Again, thanks. 73, Earle,Jim,Patricia, Joe and , SARC An enjoyable one-hour ride in Eastern Ontario from Ottawa made it a convenient one-evening outing and gave us a chance to meet with old acquaintances and make new friends while learning about the different activities of a lively Radio Amateur community south of us. Thank you to the Seaway Valley Amateur Radio Club and to its President Earle, VE3IMP, for the warm welcome and for the opportunity to inform them about AMSAT/ARISS activities. We thankfully accepted the nice coffee mugs dressed with the SVARC logo presented to us at the conclusion of the meeting. Thank you all and we're looking forward to other enjoyable outings in the near future. Maurice-André Vigneault, VE3VIG AMSAT Canada Delegate ARISS International Working Group President s Ramblings By Michel Barbeau, VE3EMB President, OVMRC I m pleased to write that I received several replies to my call for participants for the OVMRC Field Day 2010. I got replies from Bob VA3RCS, Ernie VE3EJJ, Paul VE3NJS, Alan VE3STL (including the Carleton University Amateur Radio Club (CUARC)) and Maurice André VE3VIG. This will be a very nice group. Ernie VE3EJJ has accepted to play, again this year, the role of Safety Officer. Thanks Ernie! We will be operating VE3RAM on the grounds of the Canada Science and Technology Museum, June 26th and 27th. Everyone is welcome. However, if you are planning to come and operate with your own equipment on the grounds of the museum for the Field Day, I need to know in advance since we have to provide a list of participants to the museum. I need to get your name only if you re planning to setup your own station. You can email me at michel.barbeau@sympatico.ca. Another great news, four of our members will be honoured by the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration. Maurice André VE3VIG, Bob VE3SUY, Larry VE3WEH and Ernie VE3EJJ will all receive the Ontario = Page 6 = May 2010 Rambler Page 7 Volunteer Service Award. The Ontario Volunteer Service Awards are a way for the government of Ontario to recognize volunteers for their undeniable contributions. The awards are also a way to thank volunteers for their continuous years of commitment and dedicated service to a group, OVMRC in this case. They will receive their award during a ceremony in Ottawa June 4th. We hope to be able to snap nice pictures for publication in the Rambler. I ind you that we have in June our Annual General Meeting. We will determine the composition of the OVMRC Executive Committee for the 2010-2011 fiscal year. You may get in the current issue of the Rambler the complete list of available OVMRC Executive and Standing Committee Chairperson positions. Not all members of the executive will be able to serve for another fiscal year. There will be several vacant positions and we need help. If you are interested to join the team, please talk to any of the current executives. Your refrain you from getting involved in the club and serving as an executive. The executives support each other incredibly well and they tell you what you have to do exactly when it will be needed. As parts of the upgrade, Maurice André VE3VIG has completed the installation of several new items at the E3J. have a D-Star radio and a Software Defined Radio in operation. A few more new pieces of equipment will be installed. I thank Maurice André for all the efforts in puts in the upgrade of VE3JW. I . RAC-Bulletin] RAC Bulletin 2010-11E RAC requests Industry Canada for 60m Spot frequency assignments. A formal request has been sent to the Director, Spectrum and Radio Policy, Industry Canada for consideration in authorizing for the Canadian Amateur Service the same five 5 MHz frequencies that are now authorized in the USA. In addition, two spot frequencies are also requested for exclusive Canadian Amateur use. The ground work for this was established at previous meetings of the Canadian Amateur Radio Advisory Board (CARAB). RAC anticipates this request will go through a lengthy due process of analysis and review at Industry Canada before being published as a Canada Gazette Notice for public comment. If all goes well, we may see authorization within a year. Norm Rashleigh, VE3LC RAC Vice-President Industrial Laison Next Meeting 20 th May 19:30 CSTM = Page 7 =