Radio Amateurs of Manitoba

RAM Fall Flea Market 2026

2026-07-08T00:00:00+00:00

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Christmas Gathering 2026

2026-06-30T00:00:00+00:00

Christmas Gathering 2026 🎄

Join us for our annual Christmas gathering! Everyone involved with ham radio and their spouses are cordially invited to come out, enjoy the festive season, and socialize with your fellow radio operators. 🎅

Event Details

📅 Date: Monday, December 14, 2026
🕒 Time: 6:30 PM CST (00:30 UTC)
📍 Location: To be announced

Details on the venue, cost, and registration will be posted here once available. Check back soon!

We look forward to celebrating with you! 🎉

November 2026 Meeting – Space Weather

2026-06-29T00:00:00+00:00

November 2026 Meeting

Program

Space Weather
Presented by Dr. Robyn Fiori, Natural Resources Canada

Dr. Robyn Fiori is a research scientist for the Canadian Hazards Information Service of Natural Resources Canada, specializing in space weather. Her research is applied to the development and improvement of space weather tools and forecasts used by operators of critical infrastructure and technologies in Canada. Robyn focuses on the effects of space weather on the ionosphere and is an expert in the use of spherical cap harmonic analysis modelling techniques. She is also an editor for the Infrastructure Resilience Risk Reporter.

Event Details

📅 Date: Monday, November 9, 2026
🕒 Time: 7:00 PM CST (01:00 UTC)

📍 In-Person Location:
VE4WSC Clubhouse (Old Firehall)
598 St. Mary’s Road, Winnipeg, Manitoba
View on Google Maps

💻 Join via Zoom:
Zoom Link

We look forward to seeing you there! 📻

October 2026 Meeting – ISED and Amateur Radio

2026-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

October 2026 Meeting

Please note that this month’s meeting is on Tuesday, October 13 instead of our usual Monday.

Program

ISED and Amateur Radio: Regulation and Enforcement
Presented by Allan Pawluk, ISED

A representative from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) will present on how ISED interfaces with the amateur radio community. Topics will include:

How ISED interfaces with amateur radio — primary, secondary, and other spectrum designations, and the hierarchy of enforcement
Marketplace sales and programming of radios for amateur and commercial use — unauthorized equipment
Priority over unlicensed operations

Event Details

📅 Date: Tuesday, October 13, 2026
🕒 Time: 7:00 PM CDT (00:00 UTC)

📍 In-Person Location:
VE4WSC Clubhouse (Old Firehall)
598 St. Mary’s Road, Winnipeg, Manitoba
View on Google Maps

💻 Join via Zoom:
Zoom Link

We look forward to seeing you there! 📻

Cable Shop Pre-Orders for Manitoba Ham Fest

2026-06-22T00:00:00+00:00

Due to logistical complexities, RAM will not be bringing the complete Cable Shop inventory to the Manitoba Ham Fest in Austin this year. If there is something you would like to pick up at the fest, please get your pre-order in ahead of time and we will make sure it makes the trip down.

How to Order

Visit the RAM Cable Shop and place your order. During checkout, indicate “For pickup at Manitoba Ham Fest” and your order will be set aside and brought to Austin.

If you run into any trouble placing your order, feel free to reach out to shop@ramb.ca and we will be happy to help.

We look forward to seeing you at Ham Fest! 73, Radio Amateurs of Manitoba

Manitoba Ham Fest 2026 – August 8 in Austin

2026-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Brandon Amateur Radio Club is hosting the Manitoba Ham Fest at the Manitoba Agricultural Museum in Austin, Manitoba on Saturday, August 8, 2026. Doors open at 11:00 AM and close at 3:00 PM. There is no charge to enter the Museum grounds if attending the Ham Fest.

This year’s main corporate sponsor is Prairie Mobile Communications.

For full details, download the Ham Fest flyer.

Admission

Tickets: $5 per person, includes one entry into the door prizes
Entrance: Main entrance on the west side of the Pioneer Centre building

Flea Market Tables

Table fee: $10 (setup begins at 10:00 AM)
Vendor entrance: Overhead door on the east side of the Pioneer Centre
To reserve a table: Contact Flea Market Chairman Alex Broad, VE4ADJ at (204) 724-9036 or broad1rcha@hotmail.com

Door Prizes

Tickets will also be sold for Bag Draws and a 50/50 Draw (License #: LGCA-19335-SOR). Prize draws begin at 1:30 PM. Only your ticket needs to be present to win.

General Inquiries

Contact Stan Penner, VE4SJP at (204) 794-0817 or ve4sjp@gmail.com.

On Site

Food: Austin Café and Grill will be on site
Camping: Available at Three Creeks Campground

RAM Cable Shop at Ham Fest

RAM will have a presence at Ham Fest! Due to logistical constraints we won’t be bringing complete inventory, so if there’s something you’d like to pick up in Austin, get your pre-order in ahead of time. See the Cable Shop pre-order announcement for details.

Hope to see you there!

Welcome Back! September 2026 Meeting

2026-06-09T00:00:00+00:00

September 2026 Meeting - Welcome Back! 🍂

Welcome back from the summer break! Join us for our first meeting of the new season. This is a great opportunity to reconnect with fellow hams, share your summer activities, and hear what’s planned for the year ahead.

Event Details

📅 Date: Monday, September 14, 2026
🕒 Time: 7:00 PM CDT (00:00 UTC)

📍 In-Person Location:
VE4WSC Clubhouse (Old Firehall)
598 St. Mary’s Road, Winnipeg, Manitoba
View on Google Maps

💻 Join via Zoom:
Zoom Link

Program

Frequency Coordination in Manitoba
Presented by Ed Richardson VE4EAR

Ed Richardson VE4EAR, the Manitoba Frequency Coordinator for the Manitoba Amateur Radio Coordination Council (MARCC), will present on frequency coordination. Come learn how repeater and other frequency coordination works in our province.

We look forward to seeing you there! 📻

June 2026 Meeting - POTA BBQ at Assiniboine Park

2026-05-12T00:00:00+00:00

June 2026 Meeting — POTA BBQ

Our June meeting is taking place outdoors this year! We’re heading to Assiniboine Park for a Parks on the Air (POTA) activation and club BBQ.

For full event details, see the POTA BBQ announcement.

Event Details

📅 Date: Monday, June 8, 2026
🕓 Setup: ~4:30 PM CDT
🍔 Food served: 5:30–6:30 PM CDT
📍 Location: Picnic Site 8, Assiniboine Park, Winnipeg

Note: This is an outdoor event — no clubhouse or Zoom this month.

We look forward to seeing you there! 73

VE4WPG Output Tone Changing to 88.5 Hz

2026-05-12T00:00:00+00:00

The RAM Technical Committee is changing the VE4WPG output CTCSS tone from 127.3 Hz to 88.5 Hz to mitigate an intermittent noise issue at Richardson Centre. The input tone you transmit to access the repeater remains 127.3 Hz. Depending on how your radio is currently programmed, you may need to make a small change.

This is the same configuration already in use on VE4ACX, VE4CNR and VE4GIM.

What Is Changing

	Before	After
Input tone (you transmit)	127.3 Hz	127.3 Hz, unchanged
Output tone (repeater transmits)	127.3 Hz	88.5 Hz

What You Need to Do

If you transmit 127.3 Hz and receive on carrier squelch (no tone decode today): Your transmit setting is still correct. No change is needed.

If you receive on tone squelch with 127.3 Hz decode today: Update your radio’s receive decode tone to 88.5 Hz. Leave your transmit tone at 127.3 Hz. If your radio supports split tones (separate encode and decode), program encode at 127.3 Hz and decode at 88.5 Hz.

If your radio cannot store separate transmit and receive tones: Most such radios still support tone encode only. Set your transmit to 127.3 Hz and switch your receive to carrier squelch. Having 88.5 Hz on the repeater output does not prevent carrier squelch reception. The sub-audible tone is filtered out by your radio’s audio circuits and you will not hear it.

The technical committee has updated the club CHIRP file as of May 14, 2026 with a tone-encode-only configuration for VE4WPG. Loading the current file is the simplest path to a working setup.

Why We Are Making This Change

The site at Richardson Centre is a difficult RF environment. A new FM broadcast station was approved and installed at the site within the past year, joining an existing co-located broadcaster. Other land mobile radio (LMR) systems on the roof contribute further noise and intermodulation products to the environment.

The specific issue we are addressing is intermodulation between VE4WPG’s own transmit signal and the two co-sited FM broadcast stations. The two broadcasters are spaced 600 kHz apart in frequency. Because 2 m amateur repeaters use a 600 kHz offset between input and output, a third-order intermodulation product of these three signals lands directly on the repeater’s own receive frequency.

That intermod product carries the same 127.3 Hz CTCSS tone the repeater is transmitting. The repeater’s receiver, listening for 127.3 Hz on its input, accepts the intermod as a valid signal, opens its squelch, and retransmits the noise.

By changing the repeater’s transmit tone to 88.5 Hz while leaving the input decode at 127.3 Hz, the intermod product derived from the repeater’s own signal no longer carries the tone the receiver is listening for.

For background, see also Continuous Tone-Coded Squelch System (CTCSS) on Wikipedia.

Why We Tried Filtering First

The committee installed additional filtering ahead of the VE4WPG receiver in earlier work this year. Filtering helped, but did not fully isolate the receiver from the intermod product. The broadcasters operate at high power at very close range, and the unwanted product remains strong enough to be a problem after the filtering we are able to apply.

Why Picking a Different Single Tone Would Not Help

A natural question is: why not just change VE4WPG to a different single CTCSS tone? The reason a single new tone does not fix the problem is that the intermod product always echoes back whatever tone the repeater is transmitting. If the repeater transmits 100 Hz, the intermod product carries 100 Hz, and the receiver (listening for 100 Hz to validate users) is fooled by its own intermod in exactly the same way as before.

The loop is only broken when the transmit tone differs from the input decode tone. That is what split tone gives us.

Why Swapping VE4WPG Onto Different Frequencies Would Not Help

Another natural question is whether VE4WPG could be moved onto a different frequency pair, for example by swapping with VE4WRS. The arithmetic that produces the intermod product is driven by the 600 kHz separation between the two broadcasters combined with the 600 kHz repeater offset used on the 2 m amateur band. No matter which 2 m frequency pair the repeater uses, the intermod product produced by mixing its transmit signal with the two broadcasters lands on a frequency 600 kHz away from the transmit, which is the receive frequency.

The only way to escape this relationship would be to change the repeater offset itself away from 600 kHz, which is not an option under the standard amateur 2 m band plan. Moving onto another 2 m pair simply moves the same problem to that pair, while requiring every user to reprogram.

Need Help Reprogramming?

We know radio programming is not everyone’s strong suit, and we want to make sure no one ends up off the network because of this change.

Wednesday evenings at the WSC Clubhouse: Bring your radio and, if you have it, your operating manual. Send a quick email to tech@ramb.ca ahead of time with your radio model so we know what to expect. The technical committee has programming cables for nearly all common radios and software for most.

If mobility is a barrier: Email tech@ramb.ca and we will do our best to find a volunteer to pick up your radio, get it programmed, and return it to you.

We Are Here to Help

We understand that changes like this are inconvenient, and we appreciate your patience as we work through an RF environment that is largely outside our direct control. We are a club that works together, and there are many members who want to help. If you are unsure about the programming, the concepts, or the logistics, please reach out. No question is too basic, and no one should be left off the network over a tone setting.

73, the RAM Technical Committee
tech@ramb.ca

POTA BBQ at Assiniboine Park, June 8 2026

2026-05-06T00:00:00+00:00

We’re heading outside this summer! Join the Radio Amateurs of Manitoba for a Parks on the Air (POTA) activation paired with a club BBQ at Assiniboine Park. Whether you’re chasing parks, operating HF, or just coming out for a burger, there’s something for everyone — and bring your family!

Event Details

📅 Date: Monday, June 8, 2026
🕖 Time: Setup ~4:30 PM CDT — Food served 5:30–6:30 PM — Cleanup by 8:30 PM
📍 Location: Picnic Site 8, Assiniboine Park, Winnipeg
👨‍👩‍👧 Family: All are welcome!

Food & Drinks

We’ll be firing up the grill with:

Burgers
Hot dogs
Salads
Drinks

RSVP

Please fill out the form below so we can gauge attendance and make sure we have enough food for everyone!

RSVP Here

Finding Us — Picnic Site 8

Use the map below to find Picnic Site 8. The site is circled for easy reference.

Picnic Site 8 is circled on the map above.

Parks on the Air Activation

Assiniboine Park (CA-1048) is a valid POTA location, and we’re making the most of it! The club will be supporting two HF stations operating on different bands, both activating under the club callsign VE4BB.

We also encourage members to bring their handhelds, tripods, and roll-up J-Poles — and this is where it gets really interesting for credits (see below)!

How Logging Works for Club Activations

Just like Field Day, the club callsign VE4BB is used over the air and recorded in the STATION_CALLSIGN field. The individual making the contact logs their own callsign in the OPERATOR field. Once uploaded to the VE4BB account, POTA awards credit to both the club callsign and the individual operator’s callsign. That means if you sit down at one of the HF stations as the control operator, your 10 contacts count toward activating Assiniboine Park for you personally — not just for VE4BB!

Note that the two club HF stations cannot work each other for contact credit, as POTA prevents a callsign from working itself.

The Handheld Angle — Your Own Mini Activation

Here’s where it gets even better for those bringing handhelds. If you operate under your personal callsign rather than VE4BB, you are essentially running your own mini-activation alongside the club’s. Make contacts with the club stations (or other members on simplex), submit your own separate log, and you can earn your own QSO, Park-to-Park, and activation credits for CA-1048!

If you want to understand the rules a bit more, you can read them over here.

We look forward to seeing you out there. 73, Radio Amateurs of Manitoba