The Victoria-Haliburton Amateur Radio Association serves the amateur radio needs of it's members and the City of Kawartha Lakes as well as Haliburton County.
The Association is open to all Amateur Radio operators and SWL's interested in promoting the Ham Radio hobby.
The Association owns and operates three 2 meter FM voice repeaters, VE3LNZ and VE3LNZ Fusion (located in Grasshill) and VA3MIN (located in Eagle Lake). In addition we offer a Packet Radio Node (VE3LNZ), APRS Station (VE3LNZ-3) and an IRLP Node. General meetings are held once a month on the last Tuesday of the month (excluding July and August) at the City of Kawartha Lakes Police Department Building, Community Services Room, in Lindsay. Meetings start at 7:30 PM. Guests are always welcome so drop by for one of our meetings and see what we're all about!
Social events are held throughout the year including Field Day, Fox Hunts and picnics. In the past, some of our community service events have included Talk To Santa By Ham Radio Day (in the Lindsay Square Mall), participation in the Lindsay Santa Clause parade, JOTA (Boy Scouts Jamboree On The Air) and school presentations to all ages on the hobby of Amateur Radio.
Note! Please use the official web page address, vhara.ca , to type in the address bar of your web browser, to bring up the correct vhara web page.
Do not depend on using a bookmark/favourite from your browser, to get to the correct web page.
We host our own club web page and because of outages at the physical site, the vhara web page has to be served from an alternate site, until the outage at the main physical site has been restored.
Repeaters:
VE3LNZ ( 147.195 MHz + ) With optional Linked Access to the COARC system
VE3LNZ Fusion ( 146.925 MHz - ), CTCSS Tone 156.7
VA3MIN (145.210 MHz -) With optional Linked Access to VE3LNZ
Packet Node:
VE3LNZ (145.050 MHz S) 1200 BAUD User Port linked to 19.2 Kb Back-Bone
APRS Station:
VE3LNZ-3
IRLP Node:
2870
EchoLink:
VE3LNZ-R Node 748673
Event Call Signs:
VA3LNZ
VA3VHA
Next VHARA meeting CANCELLED, Tuesday evening, April 28, 2020, 7:30 pm
Due to the COVID-19 virus spreading, the April meeting has been cancelled. The police Community room booking, has been cancelled by the Lindsay Police Services.
We will try and have a Net on the VE3LNZ repeater, on that evening, at 7:30 pm
Meeting Topic - none
VHARA Amateur Of The Year, 2019 - Tom VE3KZJ. Congratulations Tom! The voting was held at the Nov 2019 VHARA meeting and the result announced at the Jan 2020 VHARA Meeting.
Fox Hunt - TBD
Fox Hunt winners for the October Hunt were Len VE3VSR and Stephen VE3PC (VA3KXP). Congratulations!
VHARA, ARRL Field Day June 2020 - To be determined, depending on the Ontario COVID-19 emergency status being removed.
At the February VHARA meeting it was established that Field Day would again be held at the Grasshill repeater site. Planning will commence at the nest few VHARA monthly meetings.
There will not be a VHARA Swap Meet for 2020 - at the October VHARA meeting it was decided by those in attemdance, that the Club will not host a Swap Meet for 2020. Due to lower number of Vendors present at the 2019 Swap Meet. Perhaps the Club will determine in the future, if there might be enough interested Vendors, wanting to have a Swap Meet, at a future date.
VHARA Swap Meet 2019 Saturday September 14, Bobcageon Legion.
A very successful Swap Meet was had on Saturday. We generated a good sum of money to help with the expenses in operating the VHARA Club.
Thanks very much to all the volunteers who helped with this years Swap Meet!
click this link for the flyer. Pat VE3PGN is the Swap Meet co-ordinator for this years Swap Meet.
Donations for the Swap Meet Draw prizes have been very generously provided from the following businesses:
RadioWorld, Toronto, ON - gift cards, ball caps, special limited time discounts
Neabors Restaurant, Lindsay, ON (Lindsay Mall) - gift certificate
Food Basics, Lindsay, ON - gift certificate
BTW Electronics, Lindsay, ON
Home Hardware, Lindsay - Solar Light set
Swiss Chalet, Lindsay - vouchers for meals
Canadian Tire, Lindsay - a lawn game for kids (a $40 item)
$100 Gift Certificate for Chiropractic services - courtesy Grant VE3GBJ
Numerous prizes for the Free Door prizes - courtesy Pat VE3PGN and Ross VE3RQN
2019 VHARA Swap Meet Photos
Indoor Vendors
Outdoor Tailgaters
Free Door Prizes
Paid Draw Prizes
RadioWorld Gift Cards, Canadian Tire Lindsay, Home Hardware Lindsay
Food Basics Lindsay gift card, Neabors Restaurant Lindsay Mall meal certificate, Swiss Chalet Lindsay food cards, etc.
ARRL Field Day, VHARA at the Grasshill Reapeter site - June 22-23
A very successful Field Day was had and the club operators made a record number of contacts as reported by Ron VE3ZNQ. The club ran a 5 Alpha operation with a 20 and 40 and 80 Metre vertical antannas, plus a few other Bands and antennas. Phone and Digital modes were used.
The weather was great and the burgers & hot dogs (courtesy of Doug VE3ATP) and also salads and deserts from other VHARA members were gobbled up.
On Sunday, Lil SWL provided us with her very tasty spaghetti dinner!
Photos will be posted shortly.
CONTESTS AHEAD
New ARRL portal website for contests - http://contests.arrl.org/
VHARA Radio Net - every Thursday at 8 pm, on repeater VE3LNZ
School Boys Who Cracked The Soviet Secret - an excellent Nova episode, found on YouTube, that shows how, in the 1960's, a British science school teacher and another teacher who was an Amateur Radio operator and their students, found out the Soviet space satellites were spying on North America by taking satellite photos.
The teachers and students cobbled together, amateur radio receivers to listen in on the radio signals from the Soviet satellites. From the charcteristics of these radio signals, the group was able to deduce that the Soviet satellites were probably taking photos of the United States and also that the Soviets had begun using a new launch site for their satellites.
Copy and paste the following into your computer browser, address bar, to see the video on YouTube -
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQFmF9Gnp0A
Remote HF Vertical Antenna - A new remote hf vertical antennae has been installed at the Grasshill repeater site.
Thank you to Doug VE3ATP and Vic VE3JAR for providing the antenna and doing the install!!!
VE3LNZ Antenna Change Out, Grasshill Repeater Site, Sept. 24, 2016 - Tower climbers, Martin VE3PWR and Doug VE3ATP. Ground crew, Mark VE3LJQ and Bill VE3WAH
Nuts and Volts - website/magazine for the electronics hobbyist. This is a terrific website/magazine
Link To VHARA Membership Registration
VHARA Contact Information:
Mailing Address:
VHARA
54 Elgin st.
Lindsay, Ontario
K9V3W5
Webmaster:
Bill   VE3WAH
email   ve3wah_at_hotmail.ca (replace _at_, with @ )
photos, information, etc, for posting on the vhara webpage, are always welcome
RAC Region:
Ontario East (ONE)