1 pm – John Langille, VE1CWJ
“Amateur Satellites and My Ham Radio Journey”
John has been an Amateur since 2018 and is a member of the WestCumb & Truro Amateur Radio Clubs.
On the radio, he is most often found chasing DX & new grids on the amateur satellites or the magic band. In the real world, John works as a power engineer at Dalhousie University.
He and his wife Jessica have three children and live in Folly Mountain, Nova Scotia.
Presentation:
John will share how his fascination with space led to working the satellites and became his big breakthrough to the Amateur Radio hobby.
He hopes to encourage others to try the satellites and will show how you can get on the “birds” to reach Satellite VUCC with the equipment you already have or take it even further by building a portable satellite station to chase GridMaster & Satellite DXCC.
2 pm – Paul Mower, VA6MPM
“Summits On The Air (SOTA) in the Canadian Rockies”
Paul provided the following bio:
“My interest in radio began in my younger years growing up in Kenya, listening to the BBC on the shortwave radio. It has expanded in later years to fulfill a need to provide reliable communication in the backcountry.
My work with the Alpine Club of Canada often takes me to remote locations where Amateur Radio is often the only means of communication. This combination of radio and backcountry travel led to the obvious activity of Summits On The Air (SOTA) which has become the focus of my radio hobby.
Living near the most beautiful place on earth, the Canadian Rockies gives me the ability to participate in activating summits on a regular basis.
A lifetime of mountaineering, beginning on Mount Kenya and the rock formations of the Rift Valley to the Tetons, and finally to the Canadian Rockies where the addition of radio communications from mountain summits provides an additional challenge and sense of satisfaction that makes my excursions into the outdoors more abundant.
3 pm – Dana Shtun, VE3DS
“50 Years of Amateur Radio and Onwards…”
First licensed in 1969 as VE3DSS, Dana was very active on HF using a 2-element cubical quad and DX 60, and was working diligently toward HF DXCC, and learning about contesting on HF.
He got interested in VHF DX, after getting on 144 MHz and making his first Aurora contact with K2RTH on Long Island using a modified aircraft Transmitter on CW. Dana then fell in with a bunch of wayward Toronto VHFers, in 1971 and it was all downhill from there, including doing multi multi from VE3DMF’s farm in Claremont as VE3ONT placing Canadians in the Top 5 for the first time in the ARRL June VHF Contests, then setting a new record in 1982 which stands for the pre-grid square Canadian record. VE3ONT also holds the existing multi record set in 1992.
Contesting activity was capped with the VE3ONT EME DXpedition from the Algonquin Radio Observatory where as part of the team, smashed the existing records for EME and worked the planet on 144/432/1296 and 10 GHz moonbounce using the 50 metre dish.
Dana is one of the Founding Fathers of Radio Amateurs of Canada, having been the President of the Canadian Radio Relay League (CRRL). He was part of the RAC Merger Team and was the First Vice-President of the new organization. He has a long history of interest in preserving our access to spectrum, particularly above 1000 MHz.
Dana is currently active on 50 through 5760 MHz as well as on HF including 160 metres, and holds mixed, CW and digital HF DXCC’s, 50 MHz DXCC with 150 countries confirmed, VUCC, WAC, WAS and WAZ all on 6 metres and 38 States, and VUCC on 144 MHz including a Canadian overland Tropo distance record of 2690 kilometres on 144 MHz.
He is Chairman of the Ontario VHF Association and has been the “Six Metres and Down” columnist in The Canadian Amateur magazine since its conception in 1993 with the creation of Radio Amateurs of Canada, and was a columnist in QST Canada from 1988 to 1993.