Who said kids are not into Amateur Radio

We just graduated this mom and her two kids from our recent on-line course. The kids are age 11 and 13 and passed the written exam AND a CW endorsement with neighbour Guy VA7GI coaching them. 

Congratulations and see you on the bands. 

~

VB7MAN is ON AIR!

Mark VA7MM and others are our first guest operators

A recent VB7MAN QSO with Jake, KC7WXD, in Nevada.

Jake is an antique wireless experimenter and the chirpy note of the Command Set at VA7MM using VB7MAN, obviously caught his attention. The photo is of Jake’s homebrew 802 tube transmitter. His QRP signal at 2.5 W with the 802 transmitter was a perfectly copiable up here in BC.

If you would like to be a guest operator using the MANNA@80 callsign VB7MAN, have a look at the calendar for available slots and send us a note at vb7man@gmail.com. You can use any band and any mode anywhere in BC.

~

The Planning for MANNA@80 Continues...

Planning for the special event stations commemorating the life-saving food drops to NW Netherlands near the end of World War II is now in full swing. 62 nationalities were part of Bomber Command in WW2. 

Please visit Operation Manna @ 80 for a full list of stations around the globe. Here are the Canadian stations participating:

VB7MAN Surrey Amateur Radio Communications

In Canada, Surrey Amateur Radio Communications (SARC) has been granted special event callsign VB7MAN from April 1^st to May 10^th. We will be on the air from our training station and elsewhere prior to, during, and after the event and will seek involvement of the high school students from our RF Communications class. Contacts with Europe can be sporadic from our location but we are generally able to contact North and South America, Asia, and Oceania. We have created a QSL card to commemorate the event. The card bears the $100 Royal Canadian Mint gold and silver coin struck in 2020 for the 75^th anniversary. 

We will update this page as plans progress but hope to make a QSO with you in April or May. Any certified amateur in BC may operate the special event callsign, as long as it is only used in one location at a time. If you wish to use the call on any band or mode, a Google calendar has been set up to reserve the call for your use between April 1st and May 10th. If you wish to book an operating time for VB7MAN, please contact VB7MAN@gmail.com.

John VE7TI
Coordinator VB7MAN@gmail.com

 

VB6MAN Calgary Amateur Radio Association

CARA will be operating from the Bomber Command Museum of Canada in Nanton, Alberta. They will activate on April 25, 26, and 27th and May 9 and 10. The final dates and hours of operations will depend on the radio amateur operators participating.

 

VE1MAN Nova Scotia

The Canadian teams closest to Europe will be operating from their club station as VE1MAN. They may be activating from a former WW2 air base or another location of significance to tie in with the event.

 

Radio Amateurs of Canada published an article about MANNA@80 in the March-April issue of The Canadian Amateur, as did the Radio Society of Great Britain in their national magazine RADCOM.

~

The RF Communications course continues...

 

 

~

Canadian Amateur Radio Hall of Fame Presentation

At the Surrey Amateur Radio Communications March general meeting, Hitoshi Takahashi VE7LET, the Radio Amateurs of Canada Director for BC & Yukon, presented John Schouten VE7TI with a plaque commemorating his appointment to the Canadian Amateur Radio Hall of Fame for 2024.

John Schouten [left] and Hitoshi Takahashi [right]

[left to right] Hiroshi Takahashi, John Schouten
and retiring RAC BC-Yukon Director Keith Witney

Radio Amateurs of Canada recognizes deserving Amateurs by appointments to the Canadian Amateur Radio Hall of Fame. The Constitution for the Hall specifies that the appointment as Member of the Hall is made for “outstanding achievement and excellence of the highest degree, for serious and sustained service to Amateur Radio in Canada, or to Amateur Radio at large”. The Trustees of the Hall have interpreted the Constitution to mean that the person has performed significant service over many years to enhance the well-being of Amateur Radio. Radio Amateurs of Canada and the Board of Trustees of CARHOF sincerely congratulates John Schouten VE7TI, on his appointment to the Hall of Fame.

A detailed account of his achievements will be presented in an upcoming edition of The Canadian Amateur magazine.

For more information on the Canadian Amateur Radio Hall of Fame please visit: https://wp.rac.ca/carhof/

Frank Davis, VO1HP
Chair, Board of Trustees
Canadian Amateur Radio Hall of Fame

~

 

 

The Communicator March - April 2025

Lots happening...

You will find some great articles in this issue, along with our regular columnists.

Now read in over 165 countries, this issue brings you 115+ pages of Amateur Radio content from the Southwest corner of Canada and around the globe. With less fluff and ads than other Amateur Radio publications, you will find Amateur Radio related articles, projects, profiles, news, tips and how-to's for all levels of the hobby.

Download the January - February Communicator in 
LARGE or SMALL format, or read it on-line like a magazine

Previous Communicator issues:

Search for past Communicator issues

We are working on providing you with a comprehensive searchable index,
but in the meantime a searchable topic index is HERE.  

As always, thank you to our contributors, and your feedback is always welcome. 

The deadline for the next edition is April 15th.

If you have news or events from your club or photos, stories, projects or other items of interest from BC or elsewhere, please contact us at communicator@ve7sar.net

73,

John VE7TI
'The Communicator' Editor

The Table of Contents for the March - April 2025 Communicator issue:

• The Rest of the Story - Alfred Lewis Vail 4
• Bob King G3ASE: World War II RSS Monitor 8
• World Amateur Radio Day 10
• News You Can’t Lose - BandOpticon 12
• Page13—News You Can Lose 13
• Radio Ramblings: Passive Radar Update, BladeRF SDR, $5 Yagi 14
• The Wobbulator 25
• Rubber Coating Removal 28
• Dealing With Leaking Dry Cells 29
• An affordable and easy PCB vise solution for electronics hobbyists 30
• The ‘7300’ User Group - The spectrum scope and waterfall 31
• Remote control and operation 34
• Do you own an Alinco DR/135/235/435T or TYT9000? 37
• The Background Noise on the HF Amateur Bands 38
• BCQP 2025 — Initial Thoughts 44
• From the ATV Journal - An Impressive, Low Cost LNA 46
• Pi Pico Makes SSTV Reception a Snap 49
• ISED Releases New Canadian Basic Amateur Radio Question Bank 50
• Forget the Coax, Use Cat 6 52
• Ohm’s Law: Look what you can do with it 53
• Stranded: An Unlikely Friendship 55
• A satellite primer 58
• A DMR Primer 59
• Those Darn Wall-Wart Power Supplies! 60
• Operation Manna @ 80: Honouring the legacy through amateur radio 63
• Ham Radio Gizmos Platform  Launches Documentary Series 66
• Ham Radio Outside the Box: An Off-Center Fed Sleeve Dipole 67
• Are You a Rag Chewer or a “59 73” Operator? 70
• 2 Meters: Another Slacker DXpedition 71
• KB6NU: How do we encourage more experimentation in amateur radio? 74
• What CAD software do you use? 75
• SARC on 24 GHz! 76
• The Solar Max: Is a second peak coming? 77
• Foundations of Amateur Radio 78
• No-ham Recipes: Toad-in-the-hole 81
• Back to Basics: Understanding Ohm's Law 82
• Profiles of SARC members 88
• Index of Past Profiles of SARC members 90
• Winter Field Day 95
• A Review of Distracted Driving Regulations in BC 109
• QRT: The Crucial Role of Amateur Radio 110

Special Event Station PA80OV

Radio Club Limburg

 

announces

Special Event Station

PA80OV

Next week, members of Radio Club Limburg (https://rclb.nl) in the North Limburg region of  The Netherlands, will activate:

 

PA80OV is a special event station to commemorate Operation Veritable, celebrating 80 years of freedom.  Operation Veritable, namesake of the station, and the successor of Operation Market Garden, was the northern part of an Allied pincer movement in the Second World War.

We are back in 2025 for the third consecutive time with this special event station; having added another 5 years to our callsign.

Members of Radio Club Limburg will activate the callsign PA80OV from February 13 to 28, 2025, to work as many amateur radio operators across the world as possible. If you're in the area,  you can visit our station in the old town hall in the city of Gennep, The Netherlands between February14 and 16.

Whether you are an amateur radio operator, hoping to contact a new country, a new callsign, or you're a casual visitor, you're welcome to our website:

 https://rclb.nl/pa80ov

We hope to hear and work you.

On behalf of the PA80OV team. 

Jan, PA2P
https://rclb.nl/pa80ov