Upcoming Public Service Events
HRECT member group Oakville REACT has two upcoming events in May. The MS Mandarin Walk takes place from 8 am till noon on Sunday, May 1st. The Oakville Lion’s Club dog walk fundraising event in support of the guide dog school in Oakville takes place on May 28th from 8 am till 1 pm.
Both events will make use of REACT’s commercial VHF frequency and various amateur radio repeaters. REACT is looking for a few volunteers to help with radio communications for both events. If you can assist please contact us at ve3hal@gmail.com and we’ll pass the info along to REACT.
CANWARN 2016
Upcoming Training Dates
Once again this year the Region of Halton will be holding a CANWARN training session. It will take place on Thursday, May 26th at 7 pm in the Glen Orchy/Dakota rooms at 1151 Bronte Road, Oakville. If you wish to attend please RSVP to tim.lindsay@halton.ca
If you have scheduling problems with the above, one of these other sessions might work for you.
Saturday, May 7 – 9 am at Environment Canada HQ, 4905 Dufferin Street, Toronto, ON.
Or
Tuesday, May 10 – 7 pm at Environment Canada HQ, 4905 Dufferin Street, Toronto, ON.
For the past year or so CANWARN activities in Halton Region have been sponsored by HRECT. Rob Hagley, VA3WXR, is the coordinator. Rob has created a Halton CANWARN blog. It may be found at:
https://haltoncanwarn.wordpress.com/
This is a newly created work in progress. As a result there will be updates and changes going on until the final format is decided upon. Please be patient. Meanwhile, keep an eye on the site for updated Halton CANWARN information.
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RAC GTA Section Local Spring SET
GTA ARES will be holding a Simulated Emergency Test on Saturday, May 28th from 8 am until 1 pm. ARES teams from Halton, Peel, York and Durham Regions and Toronto ARES will take part.
As HRECT has several ARES teams as member groups, HRECT will also take part in the SET. In support of this the Region’s EOC emcomm station will be on the air for the duration of the event. No local scenario has been decided upon yet. The GTA Section Emergency Coordinator will have several tests that participating groups will be expected to complete as well.
In the previous RAC SET the use of 40 meters SSB with NVIS antennas was tested. As the GTA Section is geographically rather small it was always thought that HF, which is normally used for long range communications, would be ineffective. Turns out that 40m SSB and NVIS antennas work quite well around the Section and also allow for longer range communications. At least that was the take away from the last SET. It’s understood that further HF testing on 40m will take place during this SET. It’s also rumoured that 60 meter USB and NVIS antenna use may be explored during the May 28th SET.
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Winter Field Day 2016
Amateur radio’s Winter Field Day took place on the January 30/31st weekend this year. Once again HRECT was involved as the South Halton ARES group activated for the event. Although the weather was a bit better than it has been in previous years the wind made it somewhat difficult to set up antennas.
SHARES operated two stations, one in their still under renovation communications trailer and one operating from Janusz’s (VE3OKZ) van.
Power for the radios was supplied by generators. Heaters kept the trailer quite warm and comfortable (shirt sleeve temperature).
Operations took place on 80 meters, 40 meters, 20 meters and 2 meters. HF band conditions were quite strange on the Saturday afternoon, fading in and out every few minutes for several hours. Despite that contacts were made with stations as far away as Florida, Texas, and Japan.
The following operators took part: VE3OGP, VA3PRE, VE3SR, VE3CEZ, VA3NV, VA3CQC, VE3OKZ, Hank
hrect 