CRARC Committee update – March edition

Canberra Region Amateur Radio Club

CRARC Committee update – March edition

Reminder – Wednesday 22 Mar 2023 (yes TONIGHT), the CRARC March general meeting will be held at the club rooms, doors opening 7:30 for an 8pm kickoff.

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.

The hamclubonline (HCOL) membership management tool continues to tick along – there have been some issues found so if in doubt, contact Graham VK1GVC. Currently we have 193 financial members of the club. As always if you have any membership issues please email Graham VK1GVC on membership@crarc.org.au

CRARC maintains a number of Beacons and Repeaters.

Repeater

Status

Comment

Isaacs 2m Analogue

Non-operational

Long term U/S due QRM from adjacent site

Isaacs 2m D-star

Operational

Ongoing packet loss issues due link issues

Isaacs 2m beacon

Operational

 

Isaacs 70cm Analogue

Operational

Includes IRLP and Echolink (Pi controller for IRLP and Echolink suspected to be faulty)

Isaacs 70cm DMR

Operational

MMDVM seems to have failed again, to be investigated.

Bulls Head 2m Analogue

Operational

 

Ginini 2m Analogue

Operational

 

Ginini 2m APRS

Operational

 

Ginini 70cm Analogue

Operational

 

Ginini 23cm Beacon

Operational

 

The DMR repeater appears to have suffered from a corrupted card again. The Pi controlling the IRLP and Echolink functionality at Isaacs is not able to be remotely accessed and appears to have failed. Both issues to be investigated shortly.

A Foundation course was run on the weekend of 11-12 March with a number of upgrade assessments also conducted. The next course is 20-21 May and is already open for registering. 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.

There have been no additional WICEN activities since the last update went out, with the next fix for WICEN addicts not until May. With the current low activity levels, are WICEN ops interested in some maintenance and or training days to be held?

Resumption of tech nights is being investigated – are there any volunteers to assist with the running of these – the more the merrier!

New Committee construct – after the AGM, we now have a new committee which looks as follows:

President – Matt VK1MA

Vice President – Carl VK1KCM

Vice President – Bruce VK1BB

Secretary – Fergus VK1FM

Treasurer – Malcom VK1MAL

Membership Secretary – Graham VK1GVC

Committee member – Steve VK2NSS

Committee member – Bob VK1ERF

Committee member – Graeme VK1IO

Thanks to both the new and previous committee members for dedicating their time and effort to look after the club and its interests. Hopefully we can see the club returning to some semblance of normalcy post covid with more in person / face to face activities. But this requires volunteers to step up and help out – we have a serious shortage of presentations from members, so if you want face to face activities, we need your help to do this!

 

Matt

VK1MA

For the CRARC Committee