The Radio Amateur Society of Australia

Congratulations go out to the newly formed “Radio Amateur Society of Australia” (RASA).   
Their website (Click HERE) states that the organisation is made up of
active radio amateurs who want to see progress in their hobby, and that 
their primary efforts will be focused on improved education and 
awareness in the areas of regulation and administration, as well as
strong evidence based representation with their national
telecommunications regulator.

It’s great to see individuals standing up and making things right after years of abysmal performance by 

the Australian equivalent of RAC, the Wireless Institute of Australia (WIA).  From articles available on 

the web it’s clear to see that many clubs feel disenfranchised with the WIA and feel there is a great need 

for change.

Much like here in Canada, many clubs also feel very disenfranchised with RAC.  We have questions too, 

what is RAC actually doing for clubs and club members?  Other than the public liability insurance, what 

value does a club (or its members) receive by being a member of an affiliated club?  Why don’t the 

membership have the pleasure of personally being able to cast a vote the RAC presidents position?

I’m sorry, but I expect a hell of a lot more for my annual membership subscription, especially at its 

current price, than what is on offer.

But, the big issue is the fact that RAC refuses to represent ALL amateurs in Canada.  They insist that if 

you’re not a paid up RAC member they do not represent you at any level.  There needs to be a lot more 

openness, accountability and leadership at the Executive level than what we see these days.

So, perhaps we need to take a leaf out go the RASA play book and form a new national Canadian amateur 

radio society, one that is not an old boys clique, or one filled with cronyism, and one that truly represents 

ALL Canadian amateurs, paid members or not.

JOTA - 2011

It's that time of year, the annual Jamboree on the Air, sponsored by the World Organization of the Scout Movement.  This is the 54th year that JOTA has been held, always on the third weekend of October.

This weekend I'm off with Frontenac County ARES Group to Whispering Pines Scout Camp in support of the Valley Highlands District JOTA Camp.  This is the second year we have done this, and while the weather forecast is for rain, it will still be a fun weekend.

Last year I blogged about this event and complained about the fact that RAC did not seem to support this event.  In fact the Ontario ARES organization actually scheduled their annual SET on that date, which stopped ARES groups from giving a helping hand to local Scout groups.

Why would you miss out on an opportunity to showcase our hobby to thousands of Canadian youth? 

So, here we are twelve months later, and guess what?  Ontario ARES has once again scheduled their annual SET for this weekend - Saturday, the 15th to be precise.  Once again I complained to the Ontario Section Manager, the senior ARES member in Ontario, Allan Boyd, and once again was given a pile of "waffle"......including the beaut of a line that the choice of the date is not up to him............jeez Allan, you're the boss, you're the guy in charge, how 'bout making a command decision for once and change the SET date!! 

You would think that after 54 years of an event being held on the same weekend, RAC just might have been able to get its collective head out of its ass and get its crap together on it......but apparently not.  RAC has not even issued a bulletin on the event, that's how high youth involvement in our hobby is to this current executive. 

The World Scout Bureau reported that the 2010 JOTA had just over 700,000 Scout participants from nearly 6000 amateur radio stations.   

Oh, and did I mention that the theme of this years JOTA is "Peace, Environment and Natural Disasters", and did I also mention that this years JOTA actually has an emergency communications exercise built into it?  Kind of ironic isn't it?

Here's what IARU Region 1 secretary, Denis ZS4BS has to say about this years JOTA: 

"Within this year's JOTA, an emergency communications exercise will take place on Saturday, 15 October, 2011 in the afternoon (European time zone). This simulated emergency test will include the Headquarters station, HB9S, of the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM), which will be operated by hams from 5 different countries. WOSM has now published the details for the event on its web site with numerous links to related documents of IARU and other sources.

This year's JOTA theme offers an excellent opportunity to raise the awareness for the role of the Amateur Radio Service in disaster situations."

So just where is the RAC Field Service in all this? Where are the individuals who run the RAC Youth Education Program?  Why, nowhere to be found it seems.  There's nothing on the RAC website about this event, not a whisper. 

So once again I ask why would you miss out on an opportunity to showcase our hobby to thousands of Canadian youth?

Am I surprised?  Nope, not at all.  This is typical of the RAC.  They have bleated on for a number of years about falling membership, and the lack of youth involvement, but what are they doing about it?  Apparently nothing!

Will the last RAC member please turn out the light!

The RAC Kerfuffle

By now most of you will have read, or heard, of the kerfuffle going on between RAC and the Emergency Communications Ontario Association (ECOA).

The birth of ECOA was brought about by the recent change to the RAC
national liability insurance policy whereby non-affiliated clubs are no longer eligible to gain access to the RAC insurance policy, and the individual members of those non-affiliated clubs are also no longer eligible to access the RAC insurance policy. So ECOA was setup in order to allow for individuals and non-affiliated groups to access the RAC insurance program by having ECOA become a RAC affiliated club.

I must point out that gaining access to RAC insurance was not the only reason ECOA was formed.  They have managed to bring together, in a remarkably short time period, many emergency organizations in Ontario, such as the Salvation Army, Red Cross, and the St. John Ambulance.  In fact if you look at who ECOA's Directors are you will note that they come from these organizations, including a Director appointed from the EMO.  What a great thing to see, the very people who will need our emergency communications support serving as directors.  Ever see that happen in RAC?

One must ask the question that if the restriction being enforced that a club must be a RAC affiliate to gain insurance coverage, and that an individual must belong to an affiliated club to gain insurance coverage, has been imposed by the insurer, why would RAC agree to such a stupid requirement?

Anyway, you've probably guessed by now that RAC has thrown a hissy fit and has refused to accept ECOA as an affiliate, and has refused them insurance coverage as well. Nice one eh? And here I thought RAC was supposed to be encouraging new membership!

Just think about how many clubs across this country are not incorporated
and therefore not able to be a "RAC affiliated club" and therefore are
not eligible to have club insurance? Incorporation costs money and a
lot of clubs can't afford it, nor do they have the membership base to
support it. What about them? Why are they being disenfranchised?

How many hams are members of clubs who are not RAC affiliated clubs and
are now not eligible to have RAC insurance coverage? The other side of
the coin is not every ham wishes to belong to a club, affiliated or not,
so why should they be penalized?

In my ARES District we have four ARES groups. Two of those groups are
not incorporated, and are no longer eligible to get RAC insurance either
for their group or for their individual members. Is it fair to ask ARES members to react to an emergency, yet allow RAC to deny them insurance coverage to do so? 

The big question here is does RAC have a legal duty to protect us when we are called out?  If they have already authorised the formation of an ARES group, and that group is not incorporated.....as that is not a requirement to form a new group, surely we should be grandfathered under the new rules?  Because let me tell you, if I'm called out and I get injured, the first two people I intend to sue is the President of RAC and the VP Field Services for voting to deny me RAC insurance coverage, even though I'm operating in a RAC authorized ARES group.

RAC touts itself as the "Canadian National Organization" and that it "represents Canadian amateurs".  It doesn't.  RAC actually represents ALL Canadian amateurs, RAC members or not, and if it will not do that, or accept that fact, then they cannot be the national representative for amateur radio in this country.  Think about it - you represent everyone or nobody, you can't pick or chose - does Industry Canada only ask them questions about hams who are RAC members, or are the actual issues being discussed of national interest and ones that effect every ham in this country?

RAC needs to get its collective head out of its ass and get with the program.  Because sooner or later a group of hams will get together and decide enough is enough, and form a new national association, that WILL represent ALL Canadian amateurs........what a novel thought!

JOTA 2010

Friday afternoon saw Dave-VE3DZE, George-VE3SIQ, and myself head north on Hwy 15 to the Whispering Pines Scout Camp, on Otty Lake, to set up their Jamboree on the Air stations.
It was pouring rain with winds 30 kph gusting to 60 kph when we arrived, and that situation didn't change until well after midnight.  It was, as they write...."A dark and stormy night..."

This was the first time we had done the JOTA from the Whispering Pines Scout Camp, so it was all new terrain for us.  The camp is a beautiful spot, all wilderness, and no buildings allowed there at all.  In fact once you are there you would not guess for a moment that you are actually only 6 Km south of the Town of Perth.  The camp has many large trees....all waiting to be strung with dipole antennas, and it is also very well looked after by their Camp Warden - Stan.

The JOTA Campsite

Friday evening saw us simply set up our camp and the screen tents we were to operate from.  It's a good job we brought as many large tarps as we did, because we used them all to keep everything dry.

After we finished setting up we drove into Perth and had supper at Michael's restaurant.  The food there was excellent.  It was also a great opportunity for us to take our time and dry out.

We used wire dipoles for 80m and 20m, and the Buddipole for 40m and 6m dipole.  All the antennas worked exceptionally well, and even though they were not that high off the ground, we did get a fair bit of DX from them.

Saturday morning came and the rain had given way to a beautiful blue sky, and the winds dropped to nothing around noon.  One of the Scout leaders lent us his 5000Kw generator, which was a stroke of good luck as I doubt our batteries would have lasted as long as we ended up needing them.

Dave-VE3DZE hard at work

Dave-VE3DZE and I shared one screen tent to operate from.  It wasn't that bad as we used our field day coax notch filter set, and that took out any interference we would have had being so close.  Dave made some good contacts on 20m during the day, but while we had hoped to work some European stations doing JOTA, we never heard any at all, and none responded to our CQ's.

For most of the day we stayed put on 7.169 and worked N2Y, who was working the JOTA from a scout camp near Constantia, NY.  It was interesting to listen to the American scouts describe their scouting system to our Canadian scouts.  Of course it was the fact that Canada has Coed scout troops, with real live girls, these days that really peaked the American scout's attention!

George VE3SIQ.....surrounded

George-VE3SIQ worked the 80m band for most of the day.  There were only a few signals on 80m, so a few of the net controllers for the ONTARS net on 3.755 helped us out by talking to the scouts. Thanks for doing that guys, you really brought big smiles to the faces of dozens of kids!

I managed to work a good number of stations on 40m, but it wasn't until late in the afternoon that I discovered that the power had been turned down to 10w all day!  Of course, before I discovered that I was operating QRP, I worked DR1A and DR1L, both in Germany.  Not too bad for QRP into a Buddipole dipole at 18 feet off the ground.

JOTA is an excellent method of introducing young people to our hobby.  We had several of the scouts hang around the radios all day.  In fact one young lad, Alex, was so interested in ham radio I sat him down and allowed him to work a few contest stations, under his own steam (and my supervision), during the NY QSO Party that was also going on that day.  The kid is a natural!  Larry Palmer-VE3LFP, who is a scout leader in that area is going to try and find the young fella a local Elmer so he can continue with the hobby.

JOTA and ARES are a natural fit.  It provides a good scenario that allows ARES to deploy to the field and set up and operate under realistic conditions.  It also gives excellent exposure of our great hobby to the youth of this country, which we all know we sorely need given the age of most of us "Olde Farts". 

So, given this natural fit of JOTA and ARES, one must ask why the RAC Field Service decided to hold the Canadian National ARES SET on the same weekend?  And while we're on this subject, why was there not a RAC Bulletin issued to advise hams of the fact that JOTA was taking place.  At least then we could have possibly had more hams on the air for the youth to talk to.

Once again, RAC proves to us all that they are not paying attention on how to attract younger hams....or do they really care about attracting youth members?  JOTA happens every year guys....on the same weekend in October....and has done for 53 years. 

The hams from Kingston provided operators for two JOTA scout camps, for about 300 youth combined between the two, and Bill-VE3CRU, operating from Mossport Raceway, had 300 scouts at that location go through his portable shack alone last weekend! 

How many more youth across the country could have had good exposure to the hobby if our ARES groups were not tied up with an ineffectual exercise?  RAC wasted a wonderful opportunity last weekend to showcase our ham radio hobby to the youth of this country.  ARES exercises can be held any weekend of the year, but there's only one JOTA per year. 

So please RAC executive and directors, don't cry to us about the lack of youth in our hobby.  We're trying our best to get them interested, but once again you greatly let us down!