Hi Bill,My 2008 dues are paid but I did not pay for the IRLP use. Will send the $ 10.00 asap as I use the facility. I will be happy to make a donation to the repeater fund if needed. I use it so at least I can support it.
I agree with your RAC comments. It is about time people realized that many people have paid out of their own pocket to keep Canadian Amateur radio going. I paid for all my meals and some travel when I was CARF President. It is not an individual exercise but a world wide effort and takes a lot of work to keep the hoby alive. I can only remind people of the great essay type exam fiasco we had . Graduate engineers were failing because the inspectors did not know what the candidate did and also there was no limit on the knowledge asked. The questions were designed by a non amateur. Art Blick and I were the people who went to Ottawa for that one. The Ravenscroft case almost put ham radio out of business. There are other examples like the wind profiler radar which was going to be put right in the middle of the 70 cm band, etc.
$ 50.00 per year is not much when you consider you no longer have to pay about $ 30.00 for your yearly licence fee. It surely would be at least $ 30 now. I plan to put a donation into the Defense of Amateur Radio Fund. I am a life member so believe I can do this for my hobby.
You can't get blood from a stone. If RAC has no fees coming in they can not do some things. The recent WARC rep. paid his own way overseas, to go on our behalf. That is one reason I did not stand for Director or executive again as I could not afford the cost of travel etc. I know John Iliffe, Geoff Smith, Dave Goodwin and others have paid a great deal out of their own pocket. The only paid employee is the office manager. By the way, I still miss calling the late Debbie Norman for info. If you want more regional representation then get some people to volunteer to run for office. New blood would be welcome I am sure. Remember we had one rep when we were on the ARRL board. Your free outgoing QSL Bureau takes funds to operate. As we know locally it takes a lot of work and all of it is by volunteer. Just ask Ollie about the time we ran the VE3 bureau here. Also ask those of us who volunteered in the office when it was in Kingston.
If you want to change RAC then join, get votes and push for policy .Take a post for RAC and see what it takes. More members and we can have a monthly magazine. Fixed costs for printing set up do not change with 1 or 5000 copies. Get an advertiser for TCA. Write for the magazine or even take on the technical editor job.
Kingston is where CARF and thus RAC started. Voice your opinion to the executive and suppoort your Amateur radio organization. You have many threats to your hobby which are coming such as BPL, VHF,UHF Frequency loss, new band allocations and more. We need representation to IC and believe me numbers count when you arae talking to government people.
Sorry to write so much but we all must realizw that our hobby takes a lot of work to keep it going. You can do three things to keep it strong. 1) Operate and use the spectrum we have. Use it or lose it is quite real and this underuse is often raised by other spectrum users. 2) Support and work for RAC. Let the executive know what your ideas are. They have to respect the wishes of members. 3) Promote your hobby and get new amateurs into the hobby. You can only do that by being seen, providing public service, and getting publicity for the hobby.
Ron VE3GO va3ol wrote:
Have you paid your 2008 dues? Are you a RAC member? I still need your RAC membership number.Membership forms are on VE3KBR.com. or I will take your dues at the next meeting. There are a few people who have paid and I haven't given out membership cards to.... why.... cuz I would rather give them in person... why cuz it saves the club the cost of mailing out the membership cards! We are on a tight budget since our membership dues haven't increased in many many years...... Please join; rejoin; or just donate some money to the club..... and remember the IRLP links are free to everyone but if you use it you should consider paying a $10 additional fee to help us keep the IRLP link on the air. The IRLP links are provided by a few volunteers who pay for it personally ! (not the club) But once in a while they too find that they need some help to keep the system up. [what the hell have you done for the club lately?] The repeaters and IRLP are free for you to use; to you the members or anyone traveling thro the area..... but the bottom line is they aren't free. They cost someone (all the unsung hero's) a few dollars in equipment, internet connections (and a lot of loving care in the case of the repeaters) or whatever. OK, pay your dues, pay for the IRLP, give me your RAC membership number...... One final note ...................... Our efforts to get RAC membership numbers has (if it all turns out ok) will reduce our insurance cost from ......486$ a year to...........................................200$ but that will be 150$ if we can find 5 more members who want to join RAC !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [Rob; shut up!] RAC ain't perfect; as near as I can tell they are doing the best that they can. [correct me if I am wrong but RAC has no paid employees and given the little support that they get and our diminishing numbers; they still represent us to the world and fight for our band width.] Comments appreciated. Flames are repelled by my flame suit. Bill, VA3OLTreasurer, KARC Inc. Kingston, ON
