This year the Vernon Winter Carnival Parade will go ahead.
NORAC members have historically organized the parade floats in the staging area by W.L. Seaton Secondary School.
Club members meet at 8 AM sharp on February 5, 2022 at 2701 41st Ave, Vernon to grab a safety vest and some cones. Next step is to lay out the sections of the staging area for floats to assemble in.
It's important for the floats to be in the correct order so that the TV presenters and announcers along the parade route know what's coming next.
The parade starts at high noon, so that leaves a hour or so to lay out the cones and then a couple of hours to guide floats into their positions. Once the parade is away in the correct order, the work is done.
As usual, handheld transceivers are utilized, but we may add a net controller in a vehicle for primary coordination as well. We're looking at Bob VE7EZI for net control as he knows the flow of the organization activities very well. For the rest of us, bring an extra battery and maybe a chest holster for your radio, maybe a speaker mic and get ready to coordinate. Good warm clothes, boots, gloves and a toque are also recommended - this is the Vernon Winter Carnival Parade.
In regards to frequency coordination, some years we've used simplex, last year we used VE7EGO VHF, but this year we're going to shake it up a bit and use VA7OKN.
If you are not familiar with this repeater, VA7OKN is Wilf VE7OHM's personal repeater, located at Garry VE7EIY's house, overlooking Vernon from the top of East Hill. This is a multi-mode repeater (FM and NDXN) but for this event, we'll just use FM. The cool part about this repeater is that it is also dual-band AND full-duplex... so you can hit it on VHF or UHF and it will cross band as well as repeat on the input band. So we can have VHF and UHF portables in use, with UHF being a boon if our team members are close together (less desense with two UHFs close together vs two VHFs as the frequency split on UHF is larger (5M vs 600k).
Here are the details of VA7OKN to program into your radio:
VA7OKN VHF FM:
Frequency 146.900
Offset = - (minus 600 kHz)
Tone = 123.0 for Analog FM (TX and RX)
VA7OKN UHF FM:
Frequency 449.525
Offset = - (minus 5MHz)
Tone = 100.0 for Analog FM (TX and RX)
Yes, there are tones required! Get your HT programmed and tested well ahead of the event. Email Mike VE7KPZ at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you have issues with your setup.
But also, do note the planned backup simplex frequency of 146.560 MHz. If there are any issues with the repeater on the day, it's good to have a backup plan: QSY over to this secondary simplex frequency. Please ensure it is also programmed into your radio(s).
If you will be attending to volunteer service, please contact our volunteer coordinator Bob VE7EZI at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to indicate you will be there. The more the better so we can split the staging area up into smaller sections for easier coordination.
Looking forward to this fun radio-coordinated service event,
Mike VE7KPZ
NORAC VP, Technical Coordinator and 4-time Vernon Winter Carnival Parade Volunteer