CRARC Committee update – May edition #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.

Reminder – Wednesday 24th May 2023 (yes this Wednesday), the CRARC May general meeting will be held at the club rooms, doors opening 7:30 for an 8pm kickoff with an antenna construction night. We will be constructing the rollup 2m flowerpot – we will be providing all components necessary to construct the antenna at a nominal cost (expected to be around $15 per antenna). More details to follow shortly.

Although we are experiencing some frustrating communication issues in getting some necessary changes made, the hamclubonline (HCOL) membership management tool continues to tick along – if you encounter any issues please contact Graham VK1GVC. Currently we have 198 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.

The DMR repeater is confirmed to have suffered from a corrupted card again, possibly due to nearby lightning strikes. The controller has been ruggedised and hopefully will be more durable in the future. Thanks to the efforts (again) from Phil VK1PL and Carl VK1KCM, the repeater is now back operational on the Isaacs Ridge site.

The next Foundation course is this weekend with 10 participants – a big job ahead for the education group. The following course is currently scheduled for 15-16 Jul and will open for registering after completion of the current course. 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.

Insurance – for a number of years now CRARC has participated in the WIA Public Liability Insurance scheme, however this year with a change in insurers, the insurance offered was not deemed suitable and we have sourced public liability insurance through the previous brokers.

Low key support to the BMSC “Horizon Apartments Narooma Forest Rally is currently underway (thanks to Phil VK1PL and John VK1ET). The next WICEN supported event will be the Brookvale Horse Endurance Ride on 15 October.

Over the next couple of months, we intend to hold a series of meetings that will be focussed on antennas and antenna construction activities. We currently have no other presentations for future meeting nights, so if you have anything suitable, please let us know. We need members to assist with these presentations – please do not just expect the committee to continue plucking topics out of thin air.

Matt VK1MA

For the CRARC Committee