Radio Amateurs of Canada Day @ RadioWorld

Saturday May 24, 2014 was RAC day at Radioworld.

Many thanks to Jack Summers and the whole RadioWorld team for hosting this event. While it was a great social event, it demonstrated to me the value of including presentations on technical topics.  We need to get back to this at Hamfests. 

My personal thanks to all the presenters ! 

 /rod

Other Coverage and photos at 

http://blog.radioworld.ca/2014/05/r-a-c-day-at-radioworld-a-huge-success/

http://west-photography.smugmug.com/RAC-DAY-AT-RADIOWORLD/

Lex Parsimoniae

Sometimes you just have to go back to basics. 

Ockham's Razor, devised by William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347), states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. Other, more complicated solutions may ultimately prove correct, but—in the absence of certainty—the fewer assumptions that are made, the better.

This is how I feel about the crisis in confidence many Amateurs are experiencing when it comes to our National Organization and how to "fix" this uncomfortable feeling many of us have about RAC. There - I said it - as a national director, representing Ontario South, I don't feel very good about where we are with Radio Amateurs of Canada. 

I'm not completely sure how to label what is wrong, and I sure as hell don't know how to fix it if I can't diagnose the ailment. So, after months of discussions with my constituency here in Southern Ontario, Lex Parsimoniae,  I'm going back to basics with a principle, three priorities and a project.

First, the Principle - that RAC exists as a national organization to serve all current and future amateur radio operators.  let's break down the important words ALL, SERVE and FUTURE.

ALL radio amateurs, dues paying or not. (Don't misunderstand - I hope you will join RAC to make your needs known and to participate) Regardless RAC can only claim to represent amateurs if they actually take on that stewardship role. Which brings us to 

SERVE - anyone with the smallest leadership experience (leadership, not management) knows that the leader role is really a leader/servant role. Looking for glamour, power, a cool uniform? You came to the wrong place. Leaders get this. The reward for a leader is accomplishing a vision WITH their constituency. We need more leaders.

FUTURE - serving not just the current members, but setting up to grow he hobby with newly licenced Hams. Without new Hams the hobby dies, that simple. We need put our marketing hats to evolve with our new markets, and grow our market share. Take a page from Darwin, adapt or become extinct.

Three Priorities ( I've mentioned these before)

     Grow the hobby

     Protect the resources

     Serve our communities

These simple priorities seem to be reflecting the needs of southern Ontario hams, so I'm sticking with them. The most important, if I have to choose one, is Grow the Hobby. Which brings us to an important project supporting the first priority.

Amateur Radio College  (ARC)

We need a national infrastructure to support the education of new hams of all ages. (We have built out enemic youth education programs before, this is not my suggestion.)  We need to build out a self funding, remotely accessible Adult Education system complete with a club and Elmer matching system to initially deliver "Basic" level content. This infrastructure can be quickly extended to deliver "Advanced", CW,  ARES and even D-STAR content.

I envision this project  built on a rentable software as a service (SaaS) infrastructure, including virtual classroom, messaging, discussion forums, content management and whiteboard technologies. I have a basic design document which I will post shortly, and I have a bold goal - to have it operational for the fall of 2014.

If your are reading this and thinking "there is NO WAY we can possibly deliver this!", then please stay at home - we don't need your negative thinking. Let's be honest, you were not going to help anyways. You are a spectator, waiting to be entertained in the circus of cynicism. 

ON THE OTHER HAND, if you are thinking "Wow that looks tough, but we do need this to grow the hobby, to build a healthier Amateur Radio Community in Canada... Maybe I could help in some small way" THEN you are exactly they type of person we need - some one willing to contribute their skills in some small way. Small contributions from talented people quickly add up to great achievements. Like space programs - "moon shots", if you will. 

Stay in touch, we are going to do great things together. 

Support the Joint ARES / 31 Combat Engineer Regt. exercise May 8, 7-9pm eastern.

Worth Chisholm, VE3BTC EC Elgin / St. Thomas, wrote to let me know of an
important joint exercise being held in support of Emergency Preparedness Week (May 5-8) and awareness of the Amateur Radio Emergency Service in South Western Ontario.

The Elgin Amateur Radio Society is conducting a joint exercise with 31
Combat Engineer Regiment on May 8th, 2014 from 7:00PM to 9:00PM. The
Regiment is supplying accommodations (tents) for two simulated emergency
auxiliary radio stations, emergency power generation as well as a training
room for DVD and presentation purposes. They also expect we will have local CEMCs in attendance, as well as other dignitaries and media representatives.

The purpose of the exercise is to introduce amateur radio to the engineers,
conduct an exercise as part of emergency preparedness week and to test our
equipment in preparation for the upcoming 150th anniversary of the Elgin
Regiment in 2016. This is a relaxed event; They are not conducting an
exercise in terms of formal messages, but more to generate interest in
amateur radio and some of its emergency capabilities to the Combat
Engineers, CEMCs and other dignitaries.

The Elgin ARS is asking for your assistance by way of check ins to VE3RSE.

The frequencies, times are as follows:
Date: May 8th, 2014
Time: 7:10 - 9:00 PM Note: We may have a slight delay on start time given
introductions of presenters.
Call Sign: VE3RSE
Frequencies:
      80 meters: 3.755
      40 meters: 7.153

     2 meters:          VE3STR      TX 147.930 RX 147.330 T 114.8

     70cm alternate  VE3STR      TX 448.825 RX 443.825 T 114.8

"I congratulate the St Thomas team on putting together this important awareness exercise and doing so in a practical way that involves community players like The Elgins." said Rod Hardman, RAC Director, Ontario South "The London area ARES teams have been doing an outstanding job of linking up with various local agencies, EOCs and community groups in their section to promote ARES capabilities"

31 Combat Engineer Regiment (31 CER or "The Elgins") is a combat engineer
regiment of the The Canadian Armed Forces supporting 31 Canadian Brigade
Group based in London, Ontario. The Elgins existed before the Confederation
of Canada, tracing their origin to 1866 when the Militia Act officially
created the 25th, Elgin, Battalion of Infantry.

The London area is part of the Ontario-South Section, which last weekend
held its second annual ARES Leadership seminar.  'It's critical that local
ARES teams work with their community emergency response planner and support
agencies to gain a better understanding of the useful auxiliary
communication services that Amateurs can provide.” said Ontario-South Section Manager Ian Snow.  Local awareness, combined with trained members and clear roles, give planners the confidence to incorporate ARES teams into their local emergency plans'

I congratulate the Elgin team for developing and promoting this join exercise and encourage all members to check in with the team on May 8th.

Disney E.A.R.S.

Last month while on vacation with my family in Orlando, I managed to sneak in a visit with the Disney Emergency Amateur Radio Service (EARS, naturally!)

I soon discovered that this Disney sponsored club is anything but a laughing matter. The group is restricted to Disney current and retired “Cast Members” (Employees) and receives an operating budget from the corporation and well as impressive facilities at the local fire department. Their logo includes Mickey Mouse holding an HT - great fun - but significant in that the Disney corporation is very particular about the use of it’s personalities. Only one other Disney club is allowed to use Mickey!

I arrived at the Fire station 15 minutes early for the meeting only to discover, consistent with the Disney culture, I was the last one to arrive!  The Meeting started and ended exactly on time and the sense of purpose and group energy was nothing short of “Magic”. The Meeting included a video wall conference link with the club President, who was housebound that day. The group supports local Boy Scout events, Tour de Cure (American Diabetes Assn), Relay for Life and Field Day.

I was later offered a tour of the Disney shack and vehicles (they have their own News style van complete with hydraulic mast) and chatted about their FM and D-STAR capabilities. “Nothing bad ever happens at Disney World” one of the team members told me, “but we are ready.”

Read more at http://www.wd4wdw.org 

Grow the Hobby (part one): Benchmarking

To survive, and thrive, in Canada, Radio Amateurs are going to have to look seriously at how we grow the hobby.

The first thing we are going to have to muddle thru is "where are we?" - and that means we need to benchmark our numbers against other organizations such as the ARRL and the RSGB.

Folks get uptight when we compare RAC to the ARRL, mostly because it's intimidating to compare Canada to our mighty friend to the south. But you have to start somewhere!

US Population:   317,297,938,    700,000 licenced Amateurs.  161,000 ARRL members

The ARRL numbers translate to about 2,430 Amateurs per million population and  507 members per million population. You could also argue that ARRL has 23% market share.

So, for a Canadian population of 35,295,770,  we should expect about 85.700 licenced Amateurs and 18,000 RAC Members.

Not surprisingly, this is not true - in actuality we have (at best, refined guess, eliminating duplicate calls and a swag at silent keys) about 40,000 Licenced hams in Canada (Feel free to send me your math - I'm very interested). We have about 4,326 full members including life, electronic etc, so thats about  11% marketshare.

Clearly we have two big jobs here:

      1) Grow the Pie (Make more Amateurs= EDUCATION))

      2)  Gain their confidence and stimulate their desire to become part of the National Organization (RAC Value Proposition)

Bottom line, we have some work to do and it needs to have a scorecard. This may be a good start

I am ALWAYS interested in your thoughts on this

73,

Rod