Cambridge Amateur Radio Club

We’re still experiencing a few issues with our repeater we’re working on. We should have it fixed soon. In the meantime in the evenings you may experience issues getting through.

Hi everyone, time for a quick update on our repeater status. Currently we are still off the air. We need to look at replacing some cabling and making sure our equipment is ready to go back into service. Thankfully, we purchased a couple of back up duplexers, so we should be good to get back on the air soon. We are aiming for late November/Early December. We have a little more cleaning to do at the shack before we're back up and running.

On behalf of our Club, I would like to take a moment to thank all of you who have expressed your concern for our Club and offered donations to help get us back up and running, and thank you to our media friends at CTV Kitchener, CBC Kitchener, and Cambridge Today for highlighting what happened to our group. And (once again) a huge thank you to our friends at KWARC for letting us use their repeater for a little while.

When we're ready to get back on the air, we'll have another post here to let you know.

Again, on behalf of our Execuctive and Club Members, Thank you.

de Scott, VA3YKF

Some rather disappointing news to share today.

I went up to the shack to see what was going on with the repeater and found that someone had broken in, ransacked the place, destroyed the duplexer, and set the place on fire. Thankfully our repeaters were the only thing they didn’t break into. Everything else was either destroyed or stolen.

For the time being, our repeater is offline until we figure out next steps. We will not be having a Wednesday Night Net for a bit, and have a request into KWARC to see if they will let us use one of their repeaters that have reach into Cambridge. More on that at a later date.

Sometimes you might hear something when you’re out and about. If you hear of anyone boasting that they destroyed the shack, please call Crime Stoppers.

For the time being, we will meet Wednesday evenings at the Arena from 6:30 onwards, until it gets dark early enough and weather permitting of course.

Field day is coming up soon! Check out our website at www.cambridgeham.ca for all the details.

Even if you're not a ham radio operator come stop by and see what we do. We have lots of neat radio toys to show you. We promise we won't radio geek too much on you.

Below: CARC Amateur Radio Operator Steve is making Parks on the Air Contact at Dumfries.

We had a great time today at the Greenway Chaplin Community Centre neighbourhood day!

We should have asked our firefighter friends at the Cambridge Fire Dept if we could have used their ladder as an antenna extension.

Great fun though. For those interested in learning about what we do, you can always email us at [email protected].

Here is Cam (VE3KCN) trying to pull in some weather images to show the kids at the March Break Camp earlier this week with Mike ( VE3WNP) watching on.

Our friends at the Greenway Chaplin Community Centre invited us to their March Break Camp this week. We had a blast showing the next generation of amateur operators what we are all about!

March Break Camp started off this week with a special visit from the volunteers at Cambridge Amateur Radio Club .
Campers learned about radio, Morse code, the weather balloon and the big hit was hearing people all over the world calling in on a long distance radio. We reached Italy, the US and England!

It's time for a party! Ham Radio Style!

As most of you know, the City of Cambridge is celebrating 50 years as a City! We have a special event callsign from Feb 1 - Feb 15 that will be in use on various bands and modes: VB3CAM50

If you hear us, make sure you say hello!

It's Exam Day for two members. Good Luck!

Just a reminder that our weekly net is at 7pm now, instead of 8pm, on 146.790-

Renewing Members: If you sent us an e-transfer and it has not been claimed yet by us, please re-send it to [email protected] ... we updated our email package and may have lost your Interac transfer in the process.

"Coffee with the Hams" restarts on Sunday January 8th at the Tims in Preston, at King and Bishop, at 2pm until around 4pm. See you there!

Hi Folks,
As you know the City of Cambridge is celebrating their 50th year as a City this year. We have applied for and received a special event callsign from ISED to let the world know that it's Cambridge's 50th Anniversary!

More details will be provided soon, but we are looking at a Saturday in February for our event.

Dear Amateur Radio Friends,

It is with sadness that I announce that Shawn (VE3PSV) has passed away after complications from his fall recently. He passed away, peacefully, on Thursday September 29.

Shawn was a valued member of our Club and was always eager to share his knowledge on the different nets (Great Lakes, SET's etc...) that he was involved in, to members who were willing to learn from him. he was usually one of the first members to make newcomers feel welcomed, when they joined the Club. Shawn was licensed for many, many years and learned about amateur radio from the CNIB amateur radio program.

We will be sending a card on behalf of the club to Shawn's family and making a donation to the CNIB in his name.

There are no details on a service yet. Once we receive details, we will pass them on.

-- Scott.

We did it!

https://www.cambridgetoday.ca/local-news/cambridge-students-make-radio-contact-with-nasa-astronaut-5713932

Cambridge students make radio contact with NASA astronaut on ISS Students and radio enthusiasts were "over the moon" excited making contact with the ISS on Thursday

We did it. We made contact with the ISS this afternoon and spoke to Astronaut Kjell. The kids were excIted. We were excited. The library folks were excited. Excitement all around.

By far one of the most exciting events we’ve done. Our team worked well together, we got the job done and we made it happen.

Special thanks to Laura and Emily at the Old Post Office for arranging everything on their side as well.

It’s almost time! We got the twitter ARISS message.

https://twitter.com/ariss_status/status/1559302744455913473?s=21&t=1e-wGYK_phIvNB6xV8UgLg

ARISS on Twitter “ARISS ct. w/Cambridge Public Library and Idea Exchange, Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. The ct. is Aug 18 at 17:45 UTC. Ct. is direct w/ VE3SWA. Watch for live stream at https://t.co/aegHsb9ctf. For more details, go to https://t.co/oiw7hbxFQZ .”

ISS Update:

For those of you wishing to attend, our event for the contact will start around 1:30pm. Access to the 2nd Floor and Patio might not be feasible depending on the number of people on that floor. If that's the case, you can head to the basement theatre in the Old Post Office and watch from there, where they will have a livestream running.

If you can't make it, the OPO will have a livestream on YouTube to watch so you can take part remotely.

We've got Astronaut Kjell joining us on Thursday afternoon, and he'll be taking questions from the kids at the OPO, about life in space and what it's like.

The Cambridge Amateur Radio Club is excited to announce that we will be holding a contact with the International Space Station (ISS) in partnership with our friends at the Idea Exchange Old Post Office on August 18, 2022 starting around 1345hrs. We will be speaking with Astronaut Kjell Lindgren KO5MOS (Great callsign, right??).

Special thanks to our ISS CARC Members for working to put this together: Scott, Jen, Nancy, Keith, Cam, Iain, Ron and Tristan.

Most of you may know that we are planning an ISS contact with our friends at the Idea Exchange in mid August.

Just wanted to post an update today.

We have confirmed what times are good for the Idea Exchange, and waiting on a reply from NASA now on who our astronaut will be, and what time and date they will be taking questions from kids.

This is an open event (once we know the time and date). If you're a space nerd, feel free to join us. The entire event will be about ten minutes long as they pass overhead.

If you'd like more information, drop us a line: [email protected]

Great news! Our repeater is back on the air after months of repairs and maintenance.

If you forgot, we're on 146.790- and Wednesday is net night! No tone required at this time.

In case you missed it...

https://www.rac.ca/special-call-signs-available-in-honour-of-the-queens-platinum-jubilee/

Special Call Signs Available in Honour of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Special Call Signs Available in Honour of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Available from May 15 to July 14, 2022 2022-05-09 By Alan Griffin Special Call Signs Available from May 15 to July 14, 2022 in Honour of the Queen’s Platinum JubileeFor immediate release:In 2022, Canada is celebrating the Pla...

Our repeater is still offline due to maintenance activities with the Duplexer. We will be back online once the maintenance activities are completed in about a week or so.

We had an article published about the club in our local online newspaper. Check it out.

Thanks Barbara for a great article

https://www.cambridgetoday.ca/local-news/amateur-radio-club-hams-it-up-in-cambridge-5268285

Amateur radio club ‘hams’ it up in Cambridge 'Amateur radio offers something different and unique. And there is always something new to learn'

Good Day Members,

Your Executives for 2022-2024 were installed last night during our AGM.

Your Executives for the 2022-2024 period are:

- Kyle Krulicki, VE3BKK, President
- Scott Mitchell, VA3GGT, Vice President
- Jen Dines, VA3XXD, Secretary Treasurer

Thank you,

Scott
(On behalf of the Executives).