RAC Bulletin 2015-12-05

RAC Ontario Sections Bulletin for December 05, 2015

This is V__3____, Official Bulletin Station for Radio Amateurs of Canada, with this week's bulletin

NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL NEWS

1. RAC Winter Contest, December 19th, 2015.

Mark your calendars for the 24 hour RAC Winter Contest.
Its a CW/Phone dual mode contest 160m - 2m (except warc bands).
Exchange - Canadian stations send RS(T) and Province or Territory.
Other stations send RS(T) and serial number.
See The Canadian Amateur magazine Nov/Dec 2015 (page 46) for further
information.
The RAC website should be updated soon with the 2015 info.

-- TCA Magazine

2. WRC-15 Concludes.

The WRC-15 (World Radiocommunication Conference 2015) concluded its deliberations by
allocating spectrum to mobile broadband, amateur radio service, emergency & disaster relief,
search & rescue, earth observation satellites, unmanned aircraft & wireless avionics, flight tracking,
maritime communications and road safety.

See the full article at http://bit.ly/1NiVrKA

ONTARIO SECTIONS NEWS

ITEMS OF INTEREST

3. Magic Moments By Bruce Murray — VE6BRZ

The other day a friend asked what kept me interested in amateur radio.
I’m not a contester, I enjoy the occasional rag chew, chase a little DX and have done some
community service but why am I still involved in this day of instant communication and the Internet?
After much introspection (old guys become good at this) I concluded it was because I enjoyed the 
“Magic Moments.” I’ll explain by way of example.
Assembling my first Heathkit and the smoke stayed in, the lights lit up and it worked.
Making my first contact ever, getting APRS or PSK 31 to work or building my first J-pole antenna
and finally reaching that repeater.
It includes things like helping my son get his own amateur licence or mentoring a new ham 
and sharing their excitement. These experiences created “Magic Moments” that let me feel I had
accomplished something of value and gave me pleasure.

see the full article at
http://www.sunnysouthnews.com/blog/2015/11/17/magic-moments/

4. APRS Cave-Link Repeaters Get the Signal Out of Mammoth Cave

Imagine that you’re coordinating a large scale search-and-rescue mission in a cave.
You need to know where all your groups are, and whether or not they’ve found anything.
But how do they all communicate to the command center?

You’d guess radio, but you’d guess wrong. Radio doesn’t propagate well at all in a maze of twisty passages;
rocks absorb radio waves, especially in the VHF/UHF range that’s best suited for most small radios.

Some experiments by groups of amateur radio operators, and cavers, with APRS digipeaters aim to change that.
Now, GPS still doesn’t work underground, so the cavers need to bring an accurate map along with them
and enter their own location. But even getting important messages (“we found him!”)
passed around inside a cave environment is enough of a challenge.

For the full story see Hackaday.com

This concludes this week's bulletin. Does anyone require repeats or clarifications?
Hearing none, This is V__3____ returning the frequency to net control.

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Bulletin sent from Official Bulletin Manager

Posted by: Paul Caccamo 

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