May 2-4, 2025 - Fintry Provincial Park, Central Okanagan, BC
The life of silent key Cary VA7MXY Benson was celebrated at Fintry Provincial Park group site 3 this first weekend in May, 2025. Radio friends, childhood friends and family attended a wonderful weekend at the park topped with a decadent pot-luck dinner Saturday night. In total, nearly 30 people came together doing what Cary loved, camping. Stories were shared throughout the day and around the fire each night to ensure Cary's memory is preserved.
For NORAC members in attendance we remember Cary as being one of the most brilliant on-air operators, an instigator of many club camping trips, a regular club service volunteer and an all-round amateur radio enthusiast. At this event the hams in attendance tested out some of Cary's old gear as well as got on the air in his memory.
Group site 3 just before the pot-luck dinner on Saturday afternoon.
Mike VE7KPZ prepares for some FT8 digital mode communications while David VA7DRS looks on.
Colin VA7EEH's DX Commander Expedition multi-band vertical antenna setup at the edge of the site with Tao the dog in foreground.
Jane VE7WWJ working some FT8 to overcome the challenging HF band conditions.
Colin VA7EEH prepares his famous ribs for the pot-luck dinner while Tao the dog looks on with anticipation.
Good times around the campfire with Paul VE7PDE, friend of Cary's, Colin VA7EEH and Lorne VE7LWK.
Hams also in attendance but not pictured were Ritchie VA7RLX with YL Rose, Michal VE7TMZ/VE7MHX with YL and John VE7JWS.
John VE7JWS produced some fantastic laser-enscribed "dog tags" to mark the event.
It was great to see Cary's YL Maggie and son Aiden surrounded by so many great folks, some coming from as far as the lower mainland for the event.
Colin VA7EEH has already booked the group site for spring 2026 as it was such a well-attended event.
The VA7OKN repeater is back on the air from just above East Hill in Vernon.
Wilf VE7OHM installed and tested the repeater with Paul VE7KWA's assistance on Sunday April 13, 2025.
The repeater can be used analog FM or digital NXDN and is linked to VE7RVN (the SIRG hub atop Silver Star which ties into the Vernon IRLP 1050 node).
Please see the NORAC Frequencies page for more information on this repeater.
Thanks to Wilf for offering this repeater for public use, and to Garry VE7EIY for hosting the hardware at his QTH.
If you have any questions about the use of this repeater please contact Paul via
norac.bc.ca has just completed a major website migration and infrastructure update with our internet service provider Provision Data Systems. We can't say enough good stuff about the support Provision has given. They have had the answers to all of our questions and have been super responsive to all of our requests for service. Kudos to such a smart and responsive team.
For our club members' info, we've moved to a newer Linux server, Apache web server, MySQL database and PHP scripting engine. The recent versions of these components will continue to be patched against security vulnerabilities. In addition to that we have also updated/migrated to the latest version of Joomla, the content management system that underpins our website.
Big thanks for Provision's continued support of NORAC,
Mike VE7KPZ
NORAC Webmaster 2025
Provision Data Systems is the second largest commercial datacenter in the Okanagan and an Internet Service Provider based in Kelowna. Provision Data provides web hosting, managed services, dedicated servers, colocation and custom Internet related solutions for corporations and other ISP’s. We have 25 years of experience in the IT industry, and currently run multiple datacenters that are located in the prestigious Landmark Technology Campus. We have ambitious growth potential, and have experienced continuous annual growth over the last 20 years.
The following article was originally published in the March/April 2025 edition of The Canadian Amateur magazine and is being reproduced with the permission of its publisher Radio Amateurs of Canada.
This year, for the annual Winter Field Day event, the tenacious team of Austin VE7QH, Simon VE7RIZ and Mike VE7KPZ agreed to do a self-propelled winter expedition.
Mike found a rustic little cabin in the woods and made a reservation for the WFD weekend. Located in the Larch Hills Nordic area near Salmon Arm, BC, Cec's cabin would be the perfect spot to operate from. The cabin is off-grid and has no cellular service.
The team needed a radio callsign to use for the event. Amazingly the VE7RAC call had not yet been reserved. Approval to use the call for the event was arranged with new RAC BC/Yukon director Hiroshi Takahashi VA7LET.
The team also needed to find lightweight equipment to haul in food, radio and camping gear. Mike found a tiny pulk at Canadian Tire on sale, Austin borrowed a pulk from a friend and Simon re-purposed a kid carrier on skis for his gear transport.
The Friday of the WFD weekend finally arrived and the group met up at the Larch Hills Nordic area parking lot at 9am. The 6km snow hike to the cabin included just 200m of elevation gain, however, with heavily loaded pulks/kid carrier, it took a fair amount of physical effort. Simon surprised all by leading the entire way in.
Upon arrival at the cabin, the first task was to light a fire in the wood stove. Then a quick lunch and on to antenna setup. With just a couple of hours of daylight left, Austin and Simon focussed on the BuddiHEX while Mike focussed on the wire antenna for 40m and 80m bands. The antennas, coax and guy lines were well marked as visitors would be expected in and around the cabin the next day.
It was also the right time to start snow melting for drinking water. Mike placed his monster-sized thrift-store-beauty-of-a-find stainless steel pot on the wood stove and filled it with snow from a clean spot outside. Soon the team (and other cabin guests over the weekend) had a virtually unlimited supply of water that could be filtered for cooking/drinking or used directly for washing up.
Sunset signalled that it was time for dinner. Simon prepared a delicious meatball alfredo pasta along with Texas toast garlic bread, all cooked on the wood stove.
For bunks Simon and Mike slept up in the tiny loft, while Austin chose to sleep on a bench downstairs. Controlling the wood stove to keep temperatures consistent turned out to be the team's biggest challenge. Temperatures downstairs approached 0 Celcius/32 Fahrenheit lows while upstairs saw peaks of up to 38 Celcius/100 Fahrenheit. Despite a couple of too-warm moments upstairs, everyone slept well Friday night.
Saturday morning started early with the setup and test of the radio gear. The BuddiHEX antenna showed high SWR on all bands - eek! Fault finding found the SO-239 to BNC adapter at the feed point of the antenna to be defective. This was quickly replaced with a spare and then all was good to go for an 8am on-air start.
Austin and Simon started working on 20, 15 and 10 meter bands, CW and phone, via the VA6AM triplexer and band pass filters with the hex. Mike went to work on making espresso and sourdough toast with fancy preserves.
As the day progressed, Simon and Mike took turns operating phone on Mike's IC-705/PA500 rig while Austin worked CW and phone on his KX2/PA500 setup. In a rare quiet moment, Mike switched over to digital and sent and received some Winlink messages, one of the many outlined objectives for the WFD event.
Cec's cabin, in the daytime, is normally a warming hut for the cross country skiers that enjoy the Larch Hills Nordic area's trails. What surprised the team was just how much interest these random visitors showed for amateur radio operation. Headphones had to come off every half hour or so to let the onlookers hear both sides of the QSOs through the radios' speakers. In total nearly 50 guests were exposed to the joy of playing radio.
Mike was able to squeeze in cooking a fire-grilled steak dinner with caesar salad and some more Texas toast garlic bread. After dinner, the team focussed on satellite work, another emphasized WFD objective. Easy FM QSOs were made via the International Space Station. SSB/linear satellite QSOs were harder to come by so focus switched to making QSOs on the 40 and 80 meter bands. Additionally a 2m simplex FM contact was made with Salmon Arm local and friend Peter VE7PAE.
By 9 PM the team was exhausted. Twelve hours of intense radio operation, with a lot of explaining for the curious onlookers, made for a very long day. A development that Austin had to be home earlier than expected on Sunday prompted the call to shut down the station that night with 534 QSOs in the log.
Saturday night was spent relaxing, exchanging stories and eating a lovely dessert of fruit gummies and Skor bar bites. The team slept well again Saturday night.
Sunday morning Simon cooked a fantastic bacon and eggs breakfast on the wood stove and then it was time to tear down the site. A much quicker downhill snow hike back to the parking lot made for an easy exit.
The entire team was blown away by the hospitable and friendly folks encountered at the cabin and on the area's trails. Austin, Simon and Mike still can't get over the amazing amount of interest in amateur radio shown by the cabin's visitors that Saturday.
Big thanks go to Karen, manager of the Larch Hills Nordic operations, for allowing the team to use the cabin for the weekend. As well, big thanks to RAC for allowing the use the VE7RAC call for this event. And finally, big thanks to Simon for bringing his new Starlink Mini along so that our YLs at home could also get a taste of the incredible backwoods cabin radio action over FaceTime.
It was fun,
73,
Mike VE7KPZ
Ps: primary gear used for this endeavour:
Elecraft KX2 transceiver with DL4KA PA500 HF amplifier
Icom IC-705 transceiver with DL4KA PA500 HF amplifier and TopTek PA-85V VHF amplifier
Kenwood TH-D74A handheld transceiver
BuddiHEX hex beam 20-6m antenna with Mastwerks 7m mast system
HyEndFed Portable Mini Field Day 80-10m EFHW wire antenna with Spiderbeam 12m mast
Elk log-periodic VHF/UHF antenna
VA6AM triplexer with matching bandpass filters for 20/15/10m
HyEndFed competition bandpass filter for 40m
Microsoft Surface and Surface Go Windows tablets running N3FJP logging software networked via hotspot wifi
Fun side note: Austin worked Scott N3FJP during the WFD event!
Power Queen 12V 100Ah Mini LiFePO4 battery (~80 Ah used for radios, amps, wifi and computer powering)
RoamSat Mini (Starlink)
February 8, 2025 - Vernon, BC
Another Carnival Parade Successfully Delivered!
Big thanks to all the NORAC members who turned out today to support the Vernon Winter Carnival parade. It was a great event and the NORAC team pulled off another successful parade organization with great support from the new executive from VWC. There was definitely some creative parking the NORAC team came up with given the rather cramped size of the new staging area.
This is a very important event to serve our community and create publicity for the club and amateur radio service.
Team members included:
John VE7JWS
Doug VA7CPS
Howard VA7PWF
Colin VA7EEH
Mike VE7KPZ
Robert VE7EZI
Jake VE7WEA
Jake's YL Caitlin
Jake's buddy Spencer
Richard VE7NT
Felix VA7VOL
Bud VE7KBK
Mike VA7XDM
David VA7SZ
Ritchie VA7RLX
A special shout out to Felix VA7VOL who did most of the heavy lifting to plan in advance.
In total, with pre-event planning plus on-the-day efforts, the club provided approximately 20+(15*4)=80 hours of service to our community.
Here are some pics of NORAC club members in action (thanks to John VE7JWS and David VA7SZ):
The volunteer crew gets ready for the briefing meeting.
The team's excitement shows in anticipation of a challenging event.
Mike VE7KPZ answers some questions from parade participants.
Howard VA7PWF and Colin VE7EEH happy to get the participants staged in numerical order.
Mike VE7KPZ receives guidance from Robert VE7EZI (multi-year VWCP organizational lead alumni).
Ritchie VA7RLX checks in with the Vernon SAR group while guiding traffic down a tight corridor.
Doug VA7CPS and Bud VE7KBK re-checking the plan. This duo had the trickiest section to coordinate this year.
Jake VE7WEA and Spencer manning the entry point of the staging corral.
Jake VE7WEA answers a participant's question while Spencer looks on.
Mike VA7XDM checking in with staging area organizational lead Felix VA7VOL.
Ps: right-click on any image and select "open image in new tab/window" to see a higher resolution version.