The VE6HRB hub repeater upgrade was completed July 25.

The upgrade brings some improvements to the network, most notably better receive sensitivity, and higher transmit power for better link performance to all VHF repeaters. We also have better voice announcements and remote manageability.

Another round of small enhancements is planned, but with minimal service interruptions.

Many thanks to the technical members who assisted on site:
VE6QLT, VA6IAB, VE6LK, VE6AZX, VE6TD 

The FARS Technical Team will be performing an upgrade to the UHF hub repeater on Sunday July 25 between 10AM and 4PM.

This will affect the entire network where all repeater links will be disabled.
There will be an outage to the VE6HRB VHF repeater.

All other FARS VHF repeaters will continue to operate in standalone mode.

The node no longer has internet connectivity over the AREDN mesh network to reach the Winlink CMS servers, so it returns a “no CMS available” error when connecting. The RF portion remains functional, but it can not be used to send or receive messages.

The VE6FAR-10 node in Calgary remains fully operational.

FARS’ IRLP Node 1483 is in the process of being moved to its new home at the VA6CTV repeater site.

Along with the move comes a new frequency assignment and an improved coverage area.

It is presently off the air – stay tuned to this page for updates.

FARS’ UHF repeater VE6FIL has been upgraded with new hardware, and now includes the Wires-X capability locally. 

The repeater remains in C4FM (Fusion) mode exclusively. 
Users are able to connect the repeater to various rooms and other Wires-X nodes using the Wires-X key on their radios. These connections time out after 1 hour if there is no local RF traffic.

FARS wishes to thank Greg and the team at GPS Central for the donation of the Wires-X HRI-200 interface that made this part of the project possible. We want to further acknowledge Steven, VA6DWF, who has provided Wires-X connectivity on this repeater in the past.

Hi All,
A quick note of appreciation to those of you that participated and dropped into our Zoom call (which kept those of us that were contesting spurred along nicely thank you) over the past couple of days.

We had participants and visitors from Ontario, Alberta, Texas, California, North Carolina, Tennessee and Pennsylvania. One intrepid Ontarian bundled up and worked off his back deck with his KX3 in the -8C and 70% humidity weather (brrrrr) while the other had firmware issues 🙁 with his KX3 and then discovered a bad PL259. One Californian tested out his IC-705. Our friend from North Carolina was hooting and hollering at his large run of over 100 QSOs in under an hour on 40m voice last evening. The Texan had fun with a quick run in CQ. The four Okotokians were hampered by very challenging conditions with customary high noise conditions, and we all dealt with low SFI and A indicators and, sadly, no sunspots throughout the contest.

We worked a whole lot of single-operator at home (1 Hotel) class stations and, for me, a surprising number of Outdoor stations in cold climates. While you almost expect to hear of the guy in Texas or Arizona on their deck in January, you don’t usually expect it in Ontario or Minnesota!

Fun was had by all, even if we did let out the occasional bad word in frustration during a momentary challenge placed in front of us. Like the guy in RI who was only working stations by the number “any number twos? ok now number three…” as if he were rare DX, hmph, half an hour later he was working sixes. [I’m over it already – and I got my RI multiplier elsewhere!]

We are all eager to see the final score total when results are released. For those of you who have completed your logging and already told us you’ve submitted to the group – thank you. If you have not yet submitted your log, please do not forget to enter the Club Name exactly as VE6FAR Cycle25 in your logging software, and to verify it is there before you submit it.

FARS is participating in the Winter Field Day contest this weekend. We will be socially distanced and operating from our homes however we will be aggregating our scores together. Members have been sent an email with directions + a Zoom link to drop in and visit. If guests wish to participate please contact the Secretary and request the info packet by 9pm on January 29th.

FARS now has a Winlink node in High River, co-located with the VA6HRH repeater.

This relay node interfaces with the Winlink CMS nodes on the Internet using the AREDN mesh network, relaying your messages originating over RF to the Winlink servers.

Node ID : VE6OKT-10
Freq: 431.000 MHz
Baud: 1200
Protocol: Connect via Packet Winlink

The radio and TNC part of the system is battery powered, and the server is powered by a monitored UPS.

Thanks to Dale, Gerry and Dann for restoring the VA6CTV machine back to normal operations. Kindly contact us if you notice anything amiss.