The weather and subsequent hydro outages over the past couple of weeks show us that being prepared for an emergency is vital. Thousands of citizens in York Region, including many members of our club, lost hydro for a number of days. Our primary 2M repeater, VE3YRC, went down because of a lack of backup power. Fortunately our other 2M repeater, VE3YRA, remained available for emergency communications.
One of the purposes of Field Day is emergency preparedness. But we also have a great time - so you might call it serious fun. And while our emergency communications trailer is now operational, our club has another piece of equipment that is not usable in an emergency, our tower trailer. This tower is a very important part of our annual Field Day deployment, so we need to get moving very soon to get our new tower installed on our trailer.
The plans for FD at this time are to stick with the successful formula that has worked so well for the past few years. I am pleased to report that enthusiasm appears to be high, based upon feedback at the January club meeting. Of course, we love new ideas, so please let me know if you'd like to try something different. One suggestion that was made at the meeting was to relocate to a new site not too far from where we have been holding it for a number of years. It is a public location which is
desirable because it achieves one of Field Day's other objectives - publicizing our hobby to the general public.
We already have lots of volunteers for Band Captains already and this includes: Bob VE3WY (6 and 160 metre bands), Chris VA3DZX (20 metre phone), Doug VE3VS (40 metre CW), Geoff VA3GS (Get-On-The-Air station), Chris VE3NRT (Digital). I'm sure there are other members who were not at the last meeting who are willing to help out with 80 metre phone and kitchen. Please let me know at yrarc-field-day@hotmail.com. As always we will be looking for lots of help with setup and tear down on Friday and Sunday so please let me know if you are willing to help out.
If you can contribute to the tower trailer rebuild, I would like to hear from you as well. The rebuild is subject to board approval of course but a good work crew would be a good start to this project. June will be here before you know it and we need to be ready for North America's number one ham radio event of the year, Field Day!
73
Steve VE3UT
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