Jan 07 2012 Added some information regarding the Chinese Wouxun line of hand held radios to the "Gear For New Hams" page. http://www.ldsradio.ca/gear_for_new_hams.html
Oct 11 2011 Listed a ham course happening October 28 and 29.
Sept 28 2011 Changed the simplex net freq for the Victoria chapter (Greater Victoria including western communities) of Mercury NW because of interference on the previous frequency. The frequency is now 146.595 MHz.
June 25 2011 Check out the Field Day page. We had a great time in Magrath Alberta at the annual field day held by the Fish Pond, the Magrath ctown camp ground facility. A good time had by all.
Jun 6 2011 Chilean Volcano. Not that much different a situation from what we have here in SW BC or NW Washington. We are rype for the same sort of event. Good thing to have some supplies in stock such as dust masks, water, food, and shovels and ladders to clear off a roof if required.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1394503/Chile-volcano-causes-ash-cloud-lightning-tears-sky-apart.html
Mar 23 2011 Added an email from Japan talking about the earthquake and all the problems that has caused to the "Emergency Preparedness" page. Very interesting.
Mar 6 2011 Added a Youth In Radio page to honour the kids who have taken the challenge to earn their amateur radio certification. This is also to honour those who have helped those kids to achieve their accomplishment and how it was done. Embedded in that page is a challenge to others who are educators or who work with youth to get involved. The more kids learn in these areas at an early age the more chance they will make a positive impact when they get older. A worthwhile cause for retired people with appropriate skills.
Dec 5 2010 Added information to the Instructor page. Made many changes to other pages too numerous to bother with here.
Nov 25 2010 Added a blog section to the site. The link is at the bottom of the web page link column. LDSRADIO BLOG Give it a try!
http://ldsradio.ca/weblog.html?blog_id=147
Nov 20 2010 Congratulations to the 20+ member group of students who just took their Basic Amateur Radio Certification Course at Duncan and who then wrote the exam and 100% of them passed. Good work.
Nov 8 2010 Members and friends signing up to take the Basic Certification course from the Mercury Amateur Radio Association (BC) will be charged $20 each or $30 per family to take the course. Membership in the Mercury Amateur Radio Association (BC) will be part of that fee. Yearly membership ($10) help will pay for ham radio upgrading classes, materials used by Mercury, and donations to amateur radio repeater clubs who provide members with repeater facilities to run their nets and whatever uses may come from the availability of a small treasury.
Sept 16 2010 Congratulations to all of the participants, students and instructors, who were involoved in the amateur radio courses in Surrey Stake last weekend. Several more people past their exam and have earned the right to operate legally on air once Industry Canada/ Spectrum Branch has signed off. Be sure to do your follow up courses to learn skills and be proficient. if you can find the time join your local amateur radio clubs and local municipal EOC's (emergency operations centres - communication). The Municipal EOC's are always on the look-out for volunteers. They will give you additional training including courses certified by the Justice Institute.
June 28 2010 Added more information to the solar energy page. See the information on nickle iron batteries. Excellent product that was invented by Swedish inventor Waldemar Jungner in Europe around 1903, and Thomas Edison in the USA about 1906. It turns out to be a really reliable product, very robust, suitable for photovoltaic systems. Some batteries have been in use for over 50 years.
May 18 2010 Added a link to the Emergency Management Office in Guangdong Province, China. It's all in English and is well done and a good example to other countries wanting to post something similar. Some good suggestions, there, how to prepare for disaster and then after a disaster how to react. Another good feature is the listing of responsibilities as to who is in charge of what.
May 11 2010 Added a link to Complete Solar Cooking on the Emergency Preparedness Page, thanks to input from a young teacher named Crystal. Crystal was using LDSRADIO.CA as a resource for a paper. Thanks for sharing that Crystal.
Had yet another class of new hams get certified this last Saturday and yet more new hams certified by VE7TES on the BC mainland.. Wow, he must have close to 1,000 hams certified over the past year between here in BC and Alberta. Good going Tim, you're our hero for all the fine work you do mostly at your own expense. The various emergency preparedness groups and their municipal EOC's truly appreciate your efforts. An amazing effort. Thanks from all of us.
Mar 26 2010 Something many have been waiting for - some material to help you train for your ADVANCED CERTIFICATION. Wahoo eh! You can find a link to the Exhaminer via the RAC WEB site on our Training page. You may have used the Exhaminer to study the Basic Question Bank. That has been upgraded and improved and now a section on the Advanced Question Bank has been added. You would download the Exhaminer program and then download the Advanced Data file and when you run Exhaminer it will pull up questions for you. The alternative to that is to run something like MS Word or even notepad and load the Advanced QB provided. It is, after all, a text file and is easy for most note pad programs or word processors to deal. Anyway, you will see the questions, the answers, and most importantly - an explanation of why the selected answer is the correct one and sometimes why the others are wrong. Pretty helpful.
A new course is coming up to the LDS Stake Centre in Victoria on May 7th and 8th (2010) and you will find that on the courses page. Bring a friend, bring a spouse, if your kids are old enough to understand the material then bring them (after you convince them that its cool - and or its a nerd thing to do and nerds rule, whatever works). A good time for some of you to use the course as a refresher
Jan 28 2010 Added information on bike antennas to help you enjoy radio while cycling.
Jan 12 2010 Addition of a do-it-yourself Solar Power Page. Especially interesting and helpful to those involved with emergency preparedness and living on a shoe-string budget. Like everything else on this site the material will be evolving as I get new and better information.
