On a chilly -10C Saturday morning, three brave souls set out to Kin Park in Vernon to set up for Winter Field Day 2026. At 9am, Howard PWF, Colin EEH and Warren WPX began the process of setting up the tents and arranging the radio equipment. Wilf OHM and Alex NOC arrived shortly after to erect the Cushcraft R5 which would be our main antenna. The new arrangement of putting two pop-up tents together and completely closing them in, then combined with a couple of heaters offered by Jerome JAR and Paul PDE, did the trick to keeping us warm and toasty. It wasn't long before all of us started peeling off our heavy winter coats allowing us to operate comfortably in hoodies and sweaters.
The turnout from our members was great with even a visit from the City of Vernon Councilor Teresa Ann Durning Harker who stopped in to see what NORAC was all about. The beautiful clear skies also brought out lots of passersby, many who stopped to ask what on earth are were doing!
Although band conditions started off poorly, they gradually improved as the day went on. Operating under VE7NOR, we managed to make 113 contacts.
NORAC member Peter VE7PAE did this year's Winter Field Day on his own and wrote a report to document the exercise.
Please check out the report published on Peter's other radio club's website: https://sarc.ca/winter-field-day-wfd-january-24-25-2026/
It's easy to think that things were always rosier in the "good old days". In fact the number of licensed amateurs in Canada is growing faster than the overall rate of population growth. A very healthy sign for the hobby in Canada.
Some statistics to ponder:
Annual growth rate in the number of Cdn. licensed hams: 2023 1.7%, 2024 2%, 2025 4.2%
Number of licensed hams in Canada in Aug 2025 = 78,819
Number of Canadian ham clubs in 2025 = 1,566. A decline of 7.5% from the previous year.
The growth rate of licensed amateur population 2024-25 in BC was 3.5%. The average growth rate across all provinces was was 2.6%, roughly double the population growth rate.
Conclusion: The service or hobby (depending how you want to look at it) of amateur radio in Canada is not mouldering away. It's healthy and growing!
Thanks to Dave Goodwin, VE3KG, of the Radio Amateurs of Canada (www.rac.ca) for publishing this information in the Nov/Dec 2025 edition of The Canadian Amateur.
On Saturday December 21, 2025, three brave souls set out to tackle the elements on the first day of winter to support the Nanaimo Amateur Radio Club (NARA)'s semi-annual NVIS propagation exercise. Fortunately, winter hadn't arrived yet and the day was sunny and seasonally warm. No heaters required!
Howard VA7PWF, Colin VA7EEH and Felix VA7VOL met up at the DND grounds in Vernon to set up a dipole resonant to 60m which was strung up between their trucks at a height of approximately 8ft. With one little adjustment, they got the SWR down to 1.7:1, good enough. When the radios (FT-710 and FT-891) were fired up, they immediately heard Jack VE7GDE, the exercise controller from Nanaimo loud and clear, a definite 5-7! The only problem was, they couldn't transmit on 60m. With a quick call to Lorne LWK, he suggested they do the unthinkable: read the manual! It explained how to tune into the channelized frequencies permitted on 60m. Who knew? With that, they all checked into the exercise with ease. Also checking in were Lorne VE7LWK and Paul VE7KWA.
This was a great learning exercise and a chance to operate on 60m, something that they had not done before.
Howard VA7PWF
