Our History

Early Days of the Mid Island Radio Association

A Selection of Interviews

by Keith Smith VA7TAF

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About This Document

As the historian of the Mid Island Radio Association, I undertook a project to document the history of the Association. I did this via tape-recorded interviews of members of MIRA who were present during MIRA’s early months of formation and growth. The interviews are based on a more or less chronological series of questions to capture memories in the member’s own words. The cassette tape recordings are preserved in the MIRA archives at the Qualicum Beach Historical Museum. What follows are the transcribed tapes of the interviews.

Keith Smith, VA7TAF

Gil Gilmore (silent key) formerly VE7AJZ

February 16, 2010 – “Radio has been a constant interest of mine.   I’ve had other hobbies; keeping cows, collecting watches, clocks and that sort of thing, but my interest in radio began, probably around 1930-31, when I was 6 or 7, with a crystal set.  It was the way to go then, the way of listening to the radio where you didn’t need expensive batteries.    It was a simple thing, you paid 25 cents for a cat’s whiskers and a bit of galena.     The big expenditure in those days was 75 cents for a pair of high-end impedance microphones!  

I played with radio in the 30’s.   In the 40’s I was in the army.  I started out as a bugler, then regimental signaler and was fortunate enough to transfer to the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals in which I served during most of the war, including service overseas.  

 I got involved in the radio club in Parksville when I moved here in 1992 but didn’t do much the first year – I was going to garage sales and I ran into a ham by the name of Mr Toy, VE7HE was his call.  I noticed his antenna and I said, “you’ve got to be a ham”, and he said “yes”, and he got me a club newsletter and I started going to meetings.   The meetings at that time were held in the basement of a building that doesn’t exist anymore, the old Community Centre in the Parksville waterside park. The club was going then, there were   approximately 250 hams in the area of which, as I remember, about 80-odd were in the club and 30 or 40 of them used to show up at the meetings.  

Rod Luck VE7CEB was still the chairman at that time and the hams got involved in events such as field days, both in the Park and in Wembley Mall.  I am not in a position talk about how the club was formed, but there are guys around, like Bill VE7EVS and others, and Rod Luck VE7CEB of course, who were among the founding members.    I’m not sure who the principal movers were but I suspect it was Bill VE7EVS and Rod Luck VE7CEB and also Ken Butler VE7AX, but I was not in on those early discussions.   I don’t remember the discussions at my first meetings, but it was to do with ham interests and about the repeater that had been installed by Ken Butler and friends.

 With regard to its formation a ham by the name of   Mr. Walker VE7KGW, who was also a lawyer, officiated and did the necessary legal work of incorporation as a private society.  A couple of active names do crop up:   Doug VE7DEE, Frank VE7DSN, and there are several other people I am familiar with who were involved.   I remember one of the guys Claude Saint-Amour VE7GMM, a big gentleman who I believe was active with the Coast Guard.   At that point in time the Coast Guard had a station with a ship that worked on propellers and was involved with hovercraft. The things I remember about Rod Luck VE7CEB were his enthusiasm, his buoyant and happy attitude and the things that he built, which were an eye-opener in terms of their look, their efficiency, their effectiveness and relative cost. It met the triple E test: efficiency, effectiveness and economy, and they were a delight to behold and stoked in me an interest in building things.

There were some technical committees formed.   I remember an early Christmas party in the building we had our meetings in.   It was a sort of potluck thing it was extremely successful; everybody was happy about the occasion and that must have been in 1993 or 1994.

I did not become really active in the club until later.    I participated in some of the runs.    I remember the Terry Fox run, the heart and stroke run, the bike run that we participated in for several years and that has been a continuing activity of the club.  

I don’t think the membership costs have changed much although it did go from $15 to $20 three or four years ago, and certainly it is a membership cost that is well worth the money invested in it.

The other thing I remember was that the coffee meetings on Saturday mornings at A&W had many more people attending than our monthly club meetings.

The other thing that I was involved in very early when they found out I was a new ham, I was invited to join the Seniors Repeater Group which was separate from MIRA.  The late John Gardner VE7ACQ and Ken Butler VE7AX and Len Hooper VE7XLH, Mr. Hoorwood VE7TKH and Ken Armstrong VE7KMA were all active in that group.   We met, and suddenly I found myself President of the group.   It was later decided that the separate association was a duplication of membership for the same people; we were all members of MIRA and a small group of us were members of the repeater group.   It was decided to conclude the business of a separate repeater group, which at that time was registered under the Society Act, and bring the repeaters under the general umbrella of MIRA and Syd Lee VE7PI was quite active in that part of the closing down of the repeater group.

The other thing is that along the way there was a group of members, including the late Dave Tague VA7DT and Bryan Bisley VE7FH and others who were very interested in being more active in emergency communications. For whatever reason they did not feel they were getting the support of MIRA, and so established ORCA, the Oceanside Radio Communications Association, primarily to proceed with separate funding and organization to establish an effective emergency communication organization and to have a base in the present emergency communications centre in the community building next to City Hall.   They went about putting in radios and started to build antennas and that sort of thing. They also asked if I would build a bunch of J poles and 2m antennas for installing on several buildings, like the Baptist Church on Pym Road and the Community Centre out by Red Gap, as these had been designated by the planning people as emergency reception centres, where they could billet, feed, register and do all those sorts of things in the event of a disaster, and of course, they needed communications.   I remember I got to build twelve antennas and the connections, and the major costs were for the plastic pipe to put the antennas in, and it all worked out to a total of $72 and change for which I was re-imbursed.

A great many of us, when ORCA was formed, decided that it was probably a good idea to support our emergency communications people and we became members of both, and I think I was the first of several who joined ORCA and continued to be a member of MIRA.  

One of the things we used to have that we don’t have any more is a “Home brew” contest.    I was fortunate to win a couple of years and then they decided that there weren’t enough of us doing it to compete; it was like getting first prize and I was the only entry, and a very practical decision was made to discontinue it.   My interest in home brewing still continues.   I can remember going to my first hamfest and there was a big array of books from, I think, Muir Communications from Victoria, including a bunch of amateur radio books some published by ARRL.   Two of them were “How to get started in packet radio” and “How to get started in QRP”.   QRP was a new concept to me – I knew about it but to actually build something to operate in 5 watts and conquer the world was kind of a challenge.   Once I read the QRP stuff and got building I never got around to reading the book on packet radio and I’m still ignorant of that process.

It’s been a great ride, a wonderful time, I’ve met some tremendous people, a lot of good friends that are now silent keys, but that goes with the territory when you are in your mid 80s   Ham radio has been a big and constant part of my life and the MIRA people have been the people that make it fun, make it meaningful and you can’t do better than good family, good friends and a good time.”

Bev Butler formerly VE7BEV (silent key) & Ken Butler (silent key) formerly VE7AX

March 17, 2010 – “I got involved with ham radio through my husband, Ken Butler VE7AX, who’s been a ham operator since the late forties; actually he was one of the first to have a ham radio in his own airplane.   He had a Stinson and he installed the ham radio in his Stinson and did a lot of flying between Calgary and Manitoba and around other areas in BC.   It was a kind of an exploratory thing for him and something unusual.  

I was actually trying to get my ham radio licence when we lived in Calgary, but unfortunately, I had too many other things on my plate and couldn’t get it done.   So, when we came to the Island in 1981, we met Doug Marceau VE7DEE and Marg Marceau VE7MRM through our radio interests, and instantly became very good friends and continued our friendship throughout the years.   From then on, I started studying ham radio again. I went to Nanaimo for classes but again I was too busy to finish my course.   Later I took the course again in Nanaimo and finally finished my exam and wrote it in Victoria and got high marks and came to Parksville, where I was tested for my morse code and passed that also and finally got my ham licence.

My husband helped me to understand the radio and how to operate it.    Of course, he was there all the time for my assistance, and I began to really enjoy ham radio at that point.

There was no club when we arrived in Parksville, but we joined the Nanaimo club and met a lot of other fine people in Nanaimo.   Eventually they got together a group and started the club here in 1991.   I’m not too sure how it all came about.    I was not one of the instigators of it but I was one of the charter members along with my husband.

Rod Luck VE7CEB was extremely active and enthusiastic, so we helped him out as much as possible to get things going.    He organized flea markets and field days and lots of activities.    It was actually a lot of fun.

The new club also included some of the women, which was very nice also. The idea of forming a club in the area was great, because it was hard to get back and forth to Nanaimo in the wintertime.    Even when I was taking my course it was very difficult sometimes to drive into Nanaimo in some of that snowy weather.

We had a lot of social functions and activities when the club first started and at Christmas time we had finger foods and parties at the old Community Hall in Parksville; and Awards Night at Smitty’s for our last meeting in June until they started to have them as a picnic in Rathtrevor.

After that they decided to become a society so that the group could be insured. I’m not sure who else was involved but I know Ken had a part in that.   The first executive was voted in and it was a good executive and lots of things took place.

I can’t remember how many members there were at that point.    Claude Saint-Amour VE7GMM and Rod Luck VE7CEB (VE7ESA) were two of the instigators but they had a lot of help from Doug Marceau VE7DEE and Tom Roynon VE7TWR and a lot of the older members.    They were just wonderful at getting things going.

The newsletter was a big help because everybody could keep on top of what was being done and where it was being done and the times they were being done; so if you wanted to participate you just had to check your newsletter to see when all these things were going on.

The coffee mornings had very good social activity, and I think a lot of times they had more members for coffee on Saturday mornings than they had at their meetings.      So, it became a very good social group.

They decided to install a local repeater; the Senior Repeater Group Association became active in 1993. Ken was a director and vice president of this group and Tom Roynon was also a very active member in that group.   I believe Ken and Tom installed the repeater itself and had others also helping out to make sure it was kept in proper running order.         

As far as ORCA and MIRA were concerned, they were going two different directions so there really wasn’t conflict of interest, but there was a little bit of animosity there. They all worked it out and everything is running smoothly.   Now we all work together.

In 1992 Ken got the President’s Award as he had done a lot of work on different projects and he was also on the air all the time. Unfortunately, he was not well for part of the time, but he was always by his radio and answered anyone who called.

Sue Chisholm VE7MUM was our first treasurer and our early executive was excellent.   We couldn’t have had better people to start up the group.   I followed Sue as the treasurer from 1992-94 and Nellie Semkiw VE7NSQ became our treasurer so the women were involved as well.    We had a YL conference here in Parksville.    It was very successful, and we had the help of our men as well.  Marg Marceau and I organized the convention and we had quite a good number of people attend.   We could have had more from the Island as we sent out invitations to everybody; but there was a lot who came over from the mainland as we had formed a group on the mainland, BCYL group.   We had conventions all over, in Vancouver at the Emergency Centre, in Kelowna and in other places. We were very active, and a wonderful group and I really miss them because we had to disband, but those were great years also.

In 1994 I received the Outstanding Club Member Award; I think that was just because I was helping out at some of the activities- I think they were just being nice to me.

Ken started the museum at the Craig Heritage Centre, and they were working on shelving.   They had a building given to them and they put in shelving and got everything ready for the display and then the Craig Heritage group must have seen what a good job they had done because they wanted their house back.  Unfortunately, they had to take all the equipment out of the museum, and it was then put into the Wembley Mall.    At that time the Overwaitea store had a display window and the radios were set up in there and they sometimes had operators on the weekend taking care of the display and showing people the ham radio equipment, etc, and how it operates.

One of the main projects of MIRA was to promote amateur radio and a lot of young people were extremely interested.  A lot of the members went into the schools and drummed up some interest.  Gil Gilmore VE7AJZ is now very involved in that at the Museum in Qualicum Beach and he’s also taking the children in and exposing them to ham radio. 

I designed the club logo badge.   Actually, my husband helped me a little bit there too.   We had the map of Vancouver Island with the radio signal coming from the Parksville area and made it the MIRA badge.  It was sometimes called “the snail”.

I remember one of the field days they had down in the Parksville Community Park where they set up tents and they were operating for 24 hours. They operated until quite late at night and slept in their tents and had the operators going all the time: some would sleep, and some would operate.   In the meantime, early in the morning, the sprinklers went on, right in the tents and got everybody wet; they threw things on to the equipment to try and save them.     That was quite an event that day!  But it did draw a lot of attention to amateur radio because the sign was right in the park! We’ve had a lot of picnics and a lot of fun and I hope it keeps going for many years to come.   Also it’s nice that the men really accept women as ham operators as well, though we may not be quite as active on radio but we are certainly willing to help, especially in an emergency, and that’s part of the MIRA obligations – to help in an emergency.”

Doug Marceau (silent key) formerly VE7DEE

March 17, 2010“My involvement with ham radio began about 1960.     I was living in Hinton, Alberta at the time and I had to study on my own, there was no club and there were no other operators.   But later we were able to get some people studying and we formed a club and from there it just continued on.  I’ve been on the air, off and on, since that time, but with moving and equipment breakdown it hasn’t been totally continuous.

Prior to 1991, before MIRA came into being, the local hams basically did not have an organization but were a group that met occasionally and talked on the air occasionally. There was no formal club before that.   We had no repeaters here in the 70s and 80s, so 2m was not very active, if at all.      As far as doing things collectively in those days we just occasionally met and talked on the air but really nothing was organized as I can remember.

 MIRA was first organized in the early 90s and our first president was Rodney Luck VE7CEB.   We held a meeting down at the old Community Centre by the tennis courts on the beach with a fairly good attendance.    I think that we got hold of other hams by phoning around and I’m not sure if there wasn’t an ad put on Channel 4 on the TV.   

Who were the principal movers of this idea?   Well it involved several people: Rodney, me and some of the old-timers like Hans Meyer VE7FCH, Ian Anderson VE7CSI, Ken Armstrong VE7KMA, Claude Saint-Amour VE7GMM and Ken Walker VE7KGW; so, there were quite a few there in the early days.   I’m almost certain that Ken Butler VE7AX also attended our first meeting.   They were some of the principal people involved who helped get the club going.  

What was my initial impression of the idea of forming an association in Parksville and area?   Well I thought it was very good because prior to that some of us belonged to the Nanaimo club and we had to travel there for the meetings, which was a bit of a hassle during the winter time, so a local club was a good idea and most people were in favour of it.

I was one of the charter members and I remember that we had a good-sized crowd down at the centre that evening when we got up and running.   

What I recall about the discussion at the meeting that took place then was that Rodney indicated that he’d like to do it formally; that we have some structure.    He wanted the club to be registered as a non profit society,  he wanted a proper name for it and that all  matters relating to the club were properly done He had some organizational skills which came in really handy   So that was what was discussed at the first  meeting before  becoming a society.

Early in 1991 the club was formed and incorporated.   I think the reason for the incorporation was primarily for insurance purposes, so that the Board of Directors wouldn’t be held responsible and for other related matters.

The first Executive was elected by nomination as you normally do.    People were asked if they would stand or not that’s how our Executive came into being.

How many members at the time?    I can’t give you a definite number but I do recall that  the small room off the kitchen  centre was basically full, so I would say in the neighbourhood of 35 to 40,  I see from the newsletter there were 47, well I would agree with that.

 I remember that Rod started the meeting and was elected the President and I think Claude was the Vice-President.  

I remember quite distinctly that Rodney was quite enthused about forming the club and he worked very hard towards that end.    Other members elected were Tom Roynon VE7TWR looked after RFI., Frank Gibbons VE7DSN was elected for emergency, the membership was Hans Meyers VE7FCH, health and welfare Nick Parker VE7NJP and Rodney Luck looked after social activities at that time.

 The club started up several activities and the first two that I recall were the newsletter which was circulated to members by mail, which became rather expensive; and there were the coffee meetings at the cafe on Saturday mornings at the Island Hall.   Among the early activities we also had several bunny hunts I recall.   Each of our earliest members was issued a commemorative certificate of the inauguration.

 In late 1991 some of the older members formed a committee to apply for funding to install our local repeater under the Seniors’ New Horizon grant. The group was incorporated in Parksville as the Parksville Qualicum Senior Repeater Group Association in 1993. There was quite a bit of work done by Ken Butler VE7AX and by Tom Roynon.   In that group was Mike KelseyVE7AHU and John Gardner VE7ACQ, I recall, and I believe Gil VE7AJZ was the president of that group.

The local ham fraternity used the repeater and it became quite an asset to the local group as a whole.   There was some discussion on having a bylaw which separated over 65 members from those under 65 in voting and repeater use rights, but they decided to include all, and the age barrier was removed.

We used to have awards at our annual club meeting and later on that was moved to our summertime picnic and there were several awards that were given out.    One year I received an award for the Most Active Member.   I later sat on an awards committee and it was difficult in a lot of instances to try to determine who was most deserving of it.   A list was made, and it was short listed then I think some of those names were moved to the next year as they equally deserved an award, but you could only pick one person for each category.

I think any animosity that there may have been between ORCA and MIRA is gone and the members seem to be working well together.  Actually, there is one group presently within the organization that is interested in emergency communications and this works well so there are no longer any problems with having two groups.

MIRA has been here for 18 years and there have been a lot of events they were all good and the club did very well through that time.  

What will MIRA look like in another 18 years?    Well I hope I’m here to see.

I think we are getting new members; we’ve graduated quite a few members over the years and as long as we can get new members coming in to replace the older ones, I think it will flourish and do quite well. At least that’s my hope.”

Len Hooper VE7XLH

March 23, 2010“I guess I got involved with amateur radio first of all in about 1956 or so when I was going to the Calgary Tech, taking the radio operator course at the time.

They had an amateur radio station set up there and they encouraged us to take part and get on the amateur bands when we could during the class time.   That was probably the very first time that I got involved.  Shortly after that I went to work as a commercial radio operator and really didn’t do too much with ham radio until much later in my career. However amateur radio was never very far away, since we were working with fellows in the radio business and a number of them were radio amateurs.

It was probably not that long before I retired when I really got interested enough to buy a radio myself and get it set up at home.   At that time, we were in Fort Smith, just on the Northwest Territories border.

One of the things that got me interested at that time was, if you recall, that there was a number of radio amateurs from Russia and Canada who skied across the north from Russia to the North Pole, and they were supported by amateur radio operators in Russia and Canada. One of the members of that ski team from Canada happened to be from Fort Smith so that there was a huge interest in Fort Smith.    We handled some messages to and from the team while they were skiing across the tundra.   So that was one of my most interesting things that happened as far as amateur radio went.

In 1990 I retired from the Department of Communications in Fort Smith and we moved to Qualicum Beach. I don’t recall exactly how I got involved with the ham radio people that were here, but I think I probably heard about a meeting they were having and attended it.   That would have been in 1991, and at that time I guess, they were talking about organizing a new amateur radio club here, but I think that most of the organization and organizational meetings had already been done before I got involved.   I don’t have too many ideas about how and why there was a need for a club here, although I understand from some of the people that the nearest club was in Nanaimo and some of the fellows thought that maybe it was time to have a club that was closer to home.    I think some of the main people involved with organizing the club were Rodney Luck VE7ESA, who was here at the time, and Tom Roynan VE7TWR and Ken Butler VE7AX.    I think they were probably the principal people behind the idea to form a club.

So, they decided to form a new club here in 1991 and being new to the area it sounded like an excellent idea to me and nice to have a new radio club handy to the area we were living in.   I know Rod Luck and Claude Saint-Amour VE7GMM were the first President and Vice-President of the club and a number of the other people we have mentioned, Ken Butler and others also took on the president’s job.

In 1992 I took on the job of putting out the newsletter for the club and did that for a number of years; I happened to have an Apple computer at the time that my son gave me, so I used that to produce some of the first newsletters.

I do have one of the membership certificates that were given to members who were there in the first year the club was formed. I still have this certificate, which is actually a surprise to me as I did find it in an envelope among some other certificates I gained over the years.  

I guess the newsletter and the regular coffee meeting were some of the first things to happen and the coffee sessions particularly have continued to this day and are probably one of the more important things that the club does.   The general get together on a Saturday morning is quite enjoyable and we probably get as many people out to that as we do to a meeting these days.

One of the things that happened early with the club was that some of the members thought we should have a repeater.     At that time there was a federal government grant that was available to people who were over 65.   Some of the members, who were over 65 at the time, got together and formed the Parksville Qualicum Seniors Repeater Group Association in 1993 and applied for a grant.   They were successful in getting a grant and proceeded to purchase the equipment and set up the repeater at Trillium Lodge where it still is operating today, and, in fact, right now is in the process of being overhauled.   After 17 years of operation probably it is time for it to have an overhaul, but it is still operating today.   The group that was formed to get the grant for that repeater, as I said they had to be over 65 to do it.   I don’t think this caused any particular problems and later on it was decided to disband and to turn the equipment over to the Mid Island Radio Association, and we have continued to operate that today. I don’t think there were any particular difficulties that I recall between the repeater group and MIRA.  There was probably some because you had to be 65 and the people who set it up set the voting rights.    As I said I don’t recall any particular problems that this caused; we pretty well went along with it.    It was nice to have the repeater, which was the main thing.

Rod liked to recognize people in the club for what they did, so he set up a number of awards that were given out. I received one for sure but probably two or three, but for some reason those awards don’t seem to be around the house any more… probably Yvonne sent then to SOS or something.    It was something that Rod particularly liked to do and probably we should still be doing more of it today than what we are.   

I don’t recall exactly the year that ORCA was formed, but this definitely caused some major disruptions in MIRA and caused a lot of hard feelings, some of which remain, although ORCA has now disbanded and disappeared.   I know at least one person who doesn’t even want ORCA mentioned because he still has some deep feelings about why that group was formed.   I tried to get the two groups back together for a number of years and finally it did happen, but it took a while.

What are the most significant events over the years in MIRA?   Gee that’s a tough one!  We have already mentioned one of the significant events over the past years was the first repeater.   It was one of the major ones and is still going today. The other one was the disruption and whatnot that happened when ORCA was formed.    It probably ended up with a small active group who are still around doing the things ORCA did, but inside the club.   Now we have a club that’s a little bit more together and moved on from some of those disruptions.

 It’s been a social club: we maybe do more on the social side than we do on the radio side. Ever since we started, we had summer picnics and Christmas parties and we always try to take part in field day to some extent, but a lot of those field day excursions were more social than radio.    We’ve always enjoyed the social part of it; it’s what MIRA has been all about and I see it continuing that way as long as we old folks are still around.   MIRA will continue pretty much the way it has for the past 18 years. Unfortunately, I don’t see us attracting a large number of young folk.   That is one of the problems we have today with amateur radio.   Fortunately, we have in the last couple of years had a couple of new radio training groups and gained a few amateurs. Hopefully some of them will end up as MIRA members.”                                                

Frank Gibbons VE7DSN

March 23, 2010“You asked me how I got involved with ham radio:   as with many in my generation in the 50’s ham radio was pretty high tech and I was interested in high tech.    As it happened, my uncle VE7VL Val Lavender had moved to Canada from South Africa and I learned that he was a ham and that made me somewhat interested.   Unfortunately, girls got in the way so I didn’t actually acquire my licence until 1975 or thereabouts; after I had settled, started a family, bought a house; those sorts of things.

We moved from our home in Prince George to the Oceanside area in 1990 and at that time, because we were setting up our pottery business, I didn’t follow up too much on my ham radio interests beyond setting up the station in the first month or so.

One day I heard somebody come on the air and say something to the effect “Hey you’re blocking my QSO” and it was very loud and very close. This was my introduction to Rod Luck VE7ESA. It turned out that he was at the home of another ham about a kilometer away and probably I was blocking his signal because our homes were quite close.

So, of course, being a ham, you always have to invite another ham over to see your station, so I invited Rod over, and he filled me in on the status of ham radio in the area. He explained that one of the problems was that the hams were ageing, and most were members of the Nanaimo Amateur Radio Association, NARA.   They were now starting to have troubles driving to the meetings and would like to have a club closer to home.   So, we thought, right:  maybe we’d better do something.  Rod, me, Ken Butler, VE7AX, Ken Walker, VE7KGW and Claude Saint- Amour, VE7GMM, and others, met in my living room in the fall of 1990 and from those meetings sprang up the Mid Island Radio Association

To the question of what hams were doing about the time I arrived; I honestly really don’t know, other than NARA was a very comprehensive amateur radio club and would have kept them quite busy.    Thanks to two people, in particular, Rod Luck and Ken Walker, progress was rapid.   Ken Walker was a lawyer familiar with setting up a constitution for organizations.    Rod Luck was a salesperson for BC Hydro and very good at giving presentations and organizing events.   Rod got the club going in a practical sense and Ken came along and gave us a constitution that has stood us well through to today.

In the 90’s we met in the old Parksville Community Hall until the city demolished it to make a parking lot.   Since then we have met in a variety of venues, but usually, in a rented school classroom.                  

 Of course, we needed a repeater.   There was an interest in the club in acquiring a repeater and in those days, before cell phones were common, we had to have a phone patch on the repeater, so there was pressure to develop the repeater.

In addition, we played around with traditional ham radio activities, such as field days and so on.    The tech sorts were doing a little bit of operating.  However, it became clear there were two groups in the club: those who were basically social hams who were interested in getting together and socializing, and there were the more technical hams who were interested in operating and ‘getting stuff done.’

I noticed that the things that were happening in this club were the same as happened in Prince George where you had a similar dichotomy of social and technical.  Now in the case of Prince George the club activities coexisted quite happily but, in the case, locally things were not quite so good.

But I get ahead of myself.

Our first thought, once the club got rolling, was to get ourselves a repeater.   I was in favour of doing repeaters in what I called “home brewed style”, which is basically you find yourself an old repeater, put it together, rig it all up and get it going.

Others felt they wanted a state-of-the-art repeater.    We had access to New Horizons grants for seniors from the Federal Government.    If we get a collection of senior citizens together, we could put together a grant application and get a brand-new repeater with all the latest gizmos.  So, the thought was, “right, that’s what we’ll do.” So, a group of senior citizen members got together to form the New Horizons Repeater group.  They went through the process of acquiring a repeater and they installed it at Trillium Lodge.  

I had seen this spin-off of this New Horizons group as strictly a means to an end, where MIRA was using the New Horizons group as a means of acquiring a repeater. As it worked out the people in the New Horizons group appeared to see it as, ‘this was their repeater’, MIRA was somewhere on the fringe of the thing.    So, a degree of friction developed over the repeater, which lasted a couple of years, until gradually, things got sorted out and the repeater came directly under the wing of the Mid Island Radio Association.   

Other things caused frictions later on.   There was the easy-going social group that had amateur radio as part of their lifestyles and then there was a group that wanted “to do stuff”.   Particularly, they wanted to set up an emergency operations centre.  They split away from the club and formed the Oceanside Radio Communication Association, ORCA, which came to meet in Parksville Community Hall.  It worked quite well for a while.  They were very successful in forming relationships with City Hall staff and were able to set up an emergency communications room and the beginnings of a very good emergency communications program.

However, as virtually all of us in this club are now senior citizens, the deaths of various individuals within the ORCA group caused them to have relatively few members and they finally had to say: ‘gee, we are down below five members now, we have to do something about it!”  An agreement was made that MIRA would assume the assets of ORCA and now we run the operation as Mid Island Radio Association – Emergency communications Team.

The question arises what did Frank Gibbons ever do for MIRA?   Well MIRA was established as a very traditional sort of club.    There were lots of models of ham radio clubs: we had the repeater group; we had the newsletter; and we had the Emergency group, and so on.  My particular role was two-fold. First of all, unrelated to MIRA I was the Emergency Co-coordinator for the town of Qualicum Beach   It just so happened that Qualicum Beach was looking for a co-coordinator when I first arrived.    I took on the job because there was no one else around.    I don’t think I had met Len Hooper at that time, so I was the natural guy to take on the emergency committee, and did that for a number of years, and I’m still involved in that aspect of ham radio. The other major thing that I did in conjunction with Len was that we had amateur radio training courses which ran biennially or thereabouts, and I have been involved with those since the beginning.   I have helped with every course except one when I was travelling in New Zealand.

So, the organization was a classic mixed-interest group /organization in ham radio, and you can see this in many ham radio clubs across the country.

I guess I’ve collected a few awards in my time.  Intellectually I oppose awards; I’m not in favour of them.    I think they can be quite divisive, but I have garnered several, generally through peripheral involvement in many areas, particularly the ham course. I’m an individual not comfortable in an executive position, so I’ve never accepted the presidency, for instance, like Len Hooper, who has had the presidency five times.   So I’ve always taken a peripheral position and my opposition to awards is that my friend Len, who has probably done more for the organization than anyone that I can think of, has a shortage of awards of which I seem to have garnered more than my fair share.

I have been asked: what are the most important things that have happened in the 18 years of the club.    In my view there are two things.  One is the acquisition of the repeater in the first place, which gave the opportunity for people to get together and talk, because typically they were not very active on HF.    Now, of course, as you may be aware there are four or five repeaters in the place, rather more than we ever use.

The other key thing was the implementation of the coffee clache. When I was in Prince George in the 1980s, we instituted a coffee clache there.  In the case of Prince George, the coffee klache was at 9 am on a Saturday morning.   We met there until 11 a.m.    By that time, we had decided whose tower to fix or whose radio to fix and we would all go out and work on people’s radio stuff until 5 o’clock and then go home and apologize to our wives.   The idea of a coffee clache was developed commonly in the late 70s, and it just seemed the normal thing to do down here, and for retired people the coffee clache has probably been our best single method of keeping everybody together.

So, where do I think we are going?  I think that ham radio will fade from the scene.   Gradually Government will acquire most of our frequencies and they will use them for the digital interconnected world that we are already enjoying. I think we are a sunset avocation and that’s okay. The wireless world such as we are using right now to record this interview is the way of the future.”

Bill van Schouwen (silent key) formerly VE7EVS

April 20, 2010“How I got into ham radio is a rather long story.

At the age of 15 or 16 I started to work in radio in Holland.   I started out putting up antennas and delivering radios and stuff like that.   In those days you were an apprentice and I started by wiring up things, because shortly after the War there were no radios to contact.

There was a guy who bought up a whole bunch of radios that had been confiscated by the Germans and were in warehouses.   So, he took them apart and rebuilt them.   That is how I became more and more involved.   The technician he had was called up into the army and I had to do what he used to do.   So, I have been on the technical side of radio since 1946.  

From there I worked in about four places until 1954 when I came to Canada.   I started with Eaton’s in 1954 working in radios and TV.

I came to Oceanside in 1975 and to the best of my knowledge there was nothing going on at that time.   I did not relate to other hams at the time as I did not even have my licence.   I was still working with radio but not really interested in getting my licence.  

I got to know a guy by the name of Hans Meyer VE7FCH, now passed away, who lived in Coombs.   He was an amateur and for the life of me I do not recall how I got to know him.   I think it was through my wife somehow.   He took me to the club in Nanaimo, the Nanaimo Amateur Radio Association, NARA, and having been in radio nearly all my life I saw the possibility of becoming a ham operator.    But I never got around to do my exam until about 1990, give or take a year or so.   Incidentally I just recently I threw out my jacket with the NARA crest on it.

Through them I got to know Rodney Luck VE7CEB.   He became a regular at my place, he showed up every Friday night.   He was an amateur, of course, and was running his activities here in Parksville.    At the time he was living south of Nanaimo and moved to Parksville around 1990.   He was interested in setting up something here.   He is definitely the instigator of starting the club here in Parksville, even though I seem to recall there may have been a club here earlier, but in 1990 there was nothing going on, so he started it all up.

I was doing all kinds of radio stuff, but it wasn’t until I met Hans Meyer, who more or less talked me into going with him to Nanaimo.   My interest in ham radio had started in the War, but as I said, I never got around to getting my licence.

I got to know the guys in the Nanaimo club, and then once Rod started things, I got to know the guys who lived locally.

I do not recall much about how the Association got going, but Rod was the principal mover.   I don’t care what anybody else says if it wasn’t for Rod, we would still not have one.

My initial impression was that it was a great idea at the time.   For a number of years, I was active.   Rod wanted a hamfest and we were able to get the hall at the Bradley Centre and I was involved there.   I recall a field day at the old Island Hall.   There is a public piece of grass and he got permission from the City to set up a tent and stay overnight.   I remember one of the hams took the night shift and in the middle of the night, unknown to us there was a sprinkler head right in the tent and it went off and he got soaking wet.

I have no clue how MIRA was formed in 1991.   There wasn’t any great commotion.   Rod was very active and did a lot of yapping, he was good with the words and talking.   I have to give him credit for what happened.

I can see all the faces at the first meeting in the old community hall down in the park.   I would say there were about 30, quite a lot there.

Claude VE7GMM was very active; he worked for the Coast Guard.   I recall Ken Walker VE7KGW was also very active.   At that time packet started coming along. He had a station at his home in Qualicum.   I went there a number of times.   As a lawyer he was quite involved with the constitution of the club.

I was not involved in any of the technical committees when the club started.

I still have my inauguration certificate somewhere, but I can’t find it just now.   I got recognition from the club for organizing the hamfest.

I recall the coffee mornings at Smitty’s because we had a room off to one side and we could use it and we didn’t get charged for it.   They were well attended as social activities.

In 1991 the Parksville-Qualicum Senior Repeater Group Association was formed but I didn’t get involved.   They were after money from the government.   To get the money you had to be a senior and that’s why they formed the group so that they could apply.   I know Ken Butler VE7AX was involved.

Was there any friction between this group and MIRA over the repeater?   To the best of my knowledge there was always some friction with this group.   Typical with groups, there are always a few people who do most of the work.   In working group conflicts one section of the club wanted to do things their way and another section wanted to go their way, and of course, the section that was doing things would be more correct: they were the ones who had to fill out the forms and do the  paper work to get the money; typical of most groups.

About 1994-95 I got out of the club, not because I didn’t like the club, but I used to travel down south.   Most of the activities were in wintertime and I was never here. So, I felt I had to leave as I did not share in what was going on.   So, when I came back in 2003-4, I joined ORCA but not when the break was happening.   I was not in MIRA when ORCA got out of MIRA, but I recall that Dave Tague VA7DT got totally frustrated with MIRA just talking, talking, and not accomplishing a darned thing.   That is what I got from Dave himself.   That was why he started to form his own group: it was frustration on Dave’s part, and he was an outspoken guy: he called a spade a spade.   Dave technically wasn’t a great help, but he got people motivated and got things done.   I only remember Bryan Bisley VE7FH of ORCA by name.

How did people in MIRA feel about the ORCA group?   I would say the majority did not like Dave.   He was abrasive but he got things accomplished.   When I joined the ORCA group there were several things I noted.  One was that the repeater was active because Dave was 24/7 – there was always something going on.   Also, ORCA was very interested in packet.   I must say that as far as activities go ORCA did more than MIRA at that time.

MIRA is still not doing anything really.   Now again we have two groups, or a group within the main group.    They don’t call it ORCA, but they do the same thing, the emergency group.   They get together all in the one club: one little group does its own thing and is more active than the rest put together.

At the last meeting there were 20 or so guys and yet when Frank is on the net every Sunday morning at 9 a.m. the check-ins are painful, always the same guys; they come to the meetings but you never hear them on the radio.    I have to give Frank credit for holding the net.

And they want another repeater… why the hell do they want another repeater for we have 3 or 4 kicking around and not one is being well used?  Get the people involved and at least say “Hi”.   That’s one of my beefs!

For the next few years for MIRA I would like to see more activity.   Having said that I’m afraid it’s doomed to fail.   It’s very simple.   Take cell phones, kids are not interested, kids can go to the store and buy a cell phone and talk to anyone in the world.   Don’t have to do an exam and they get better communication than you and I get on the radio.   I see it dying.   New technologies are going to kill amateur radio.   The way I see amateur radio is you grab some materials, tubes, resistors, and when you have built something you try it out and go to the next project.

Nowadays you become an amateur and there’s hardly anything to it.   Go to the store, buy a radio, plug it in and you’re done.   To me that’s not being an amateur; anybody can do it.   You don’t need any brains for that, seriously!   So, I see it dying, just a dying hobby.   That’s how I see it.”

Syd Lee VE7PI

April 26, 2010 “My interest in amateur radio came from an early introduction to electricity in Junior High School in Vancouver, BC. Compulsory for boys in the 1950’s, the Grades 7 and 8 electricity courses provided an insight to the wonders of basic electrical theory. The emphasis was on practical circuits comprised of bell wire with cross-wrapped waxed cotton insulation, a 1.5 V ignition battery, door bells, switches, etc. all affixed to a small plywood board. Students worked in teams of two and the objective before the class ended was to have the assigned circuit completed and marked by the teacher. Extra marks were given for neatness of mounting the components on the plywood board.

At this time, crystal radio sets were popular with some young boys and I was no exception. The first set I built came in kit form from Philmore Corp. It was fun trying different homebrew antennas and ground systems to get the strongest signals. Time was spent changing the position the ‘cat whisker’ on the germanium crystal to peak the signal. Being in Vancouver, there were several strong AM radio stations; CKMO at 1410 kilocycles was one of them. Signal strength was so strong that I could the audio from the signal earphone several feet away! A second crystal set built from scratch followed.

Then came the small electrical motors, generators and Jacob’s ladder; the latter a high voltage spark that would climb a pair of copper rods with a made scientist zapping sound!

A good friend’s older brother, Don VE7YQ, was a keen ham operator. It was fun to listen to him work distant stations with large pieces of radio equipment that generated hums and a lot of heat. This was my first introduction to around the world communications.

Much later, two of my teacher colleagues, who were into Ham radio, encouraged me to get involved. So, I joined the Burnaby ARC in 1975 and obtained the call sign VE7CJO. After a year of working CW stations, I qualified for a ten metre phone endorsement. Then, with an advanced certificate and ten years required waiting, I received the two letter call VE7PI.

Upon moving from Vancouver to the Island, I joined the Nanaimo ARC and, in 1992, MIRA. Soon after, I became a member of the Parksville-Qualicum Senior Repeater Group Association, PQSRGA. After becoming vice-president and then president of this group, it was my task to arrange the dissolution of PQSRGA. This came about as a result of the difficulty in finding members who would stand for executive positions. A vote was taken and, with only two dissenters; Ken VE7AX and Tom VE7TWR, the motion was passed to transfer the assets of PQSRGA to MIRA. This included the Kendicom repeater, antenna and associated equipment.

In 1998 I became president of MIRA with Al, VE7NAN, as vice president. The focus of attention at this time was to improve the coverage of the repeater VE7RPQ, 147.350. Various tests were conducted, including those done on mountain ridges near Mount Arrowsmith. Signals were excellent and we had the opportunity to set up a remote link at the Ski Lodge located near Mount Cokley. But, for reasons of difficult winter access and the threat of vandalizing, the site was not chosen.

Instead, a remote link was set up on the Qualicum Beach water tower located on Village Way. There were a number of us at that time who had the energy to climb up 100 feet of vertical ladder to access the roof of the tower. Richard VE7BMX, Frank VE7DSN, Al VE7NAN, Tony VE7AJN and I were the climbers. A grounds team arranged for attaching ropes to the packages that were hauled up to the top of the tower. The replacement steel enclosure weighted in at nearly one hundred pounds and had to be hauled to the top using an elaborate block and tackle pulley system.

In 1999 I received the MIRA President’s Award and Certificate of Appreciation for the work I had done in constructing the two water tower enclosures as well as the dustproof enclosure for the equipment housed in the workshop behind Trillium Lodge in Parksville.

About this time, MIRA member Bryan VE7FH was pressing for more involvement with emergency communications. He felt that MIRA was not working hard enough in this regard and this led to the formation of the Oceanside Radio Communications Association, ORCA. This was a time of considerable discontent in MIRA and a number of members left MIRA to join ORCA. There were some hot meetings over this issue!

More recently, ORCA merged into MIRA with the name MIRA still standing. Emergency communications remain at the forefront of MIRA’s activities.

Club information was sent to members by way of regular postal mail in the form of a monthly newsletter. Len VE7XLH, Susan VE7SGM, Larry VE7LNH and I and others worked on providing an attractive and informative Newsletter. As more members had access to the internet, there was no longer a need for a paper newsletter. I have many of these newsletters dating back to December 1992.

The significant events that have taken place over the years that I have been a member are: (1) the setting up of an excellent emergency communications plan spearheaded by Len VE7XLH, Frank VE7DSN, Tony VE7AJN and others, and (2) ensuring that our District has a reliable and broad coverage repeater. Work continues to this date to fine tune this system.

The social events play an important role in MIRA activities. The Field Day operation, summer picnics, Christmas party and the Saturday Coffee gathering are enjoyable events for many members.

What is the future of MIRA? The average age of a MIRA member is in the 60’s (as of April 26, 2010) and unless we get more members, young and old, the number of members will likely diminish due to attrition. The amateur radio classes have been a good source of new members. The challenge seems to be in attracting them to become long term MIRA members who are willing to stand for office.”

Claude Saint-Amour VE7GMM

April 27, 2010“I have been a ham since 1989.   I grew up in Lachine, Quebec, just outside Montreal.   One of my friends I was growing up with ended up getting into CB radio and I got a taste of radio.   I learned what “skip” was when he talked to Monterey, New Mexico once, and it seemed to be like the other end of the world.

Then I joined the Coast Guard and through the Coast Guard I had a lot to do with programs on communication.

 One item for our licence was to be able to do six words a minute morse code on the Aldis lamp which is very different using light.   The light doesn’t sing like sound does with morse code.   Throughout my career I have been involved with communications.  

I remember going to the Arctic on a couple of 4-month patrols where my best friend was a senior radio operator and I spent a lot of time in his radio shack.   Everything was morse code in the 70s, 500 kilocycles, no voice and very isolated.   I would watch him listen with one ear to our conversation and also listening to morse coming over the radio from other ships in the Arctic, such as the operators having a conversation, laughing and joking around so I got more and more interested.  

When I came to Parksville and got married in 1982, my father-in-law, Tom Edwards VE7FMM told me I would be even more interested in getting my licence if I committed myself and purchased a radio.   So, at the ham flea market in Nanaimo I ended up buying a Yaesu FT102 as an incentive to getting my licence.  I studied from this yellow binder of a self-study guide from a guy out east in Ontario.   Then I got my licence in 1989. I did the technical part of the advanced and they grandfathered us for the advanced before I did the code.

Here in Parksville the Coast Guard opened a hovercraft base in 1982.   We had an agreement with the City that we had to be part of the community, so that is why the base had no fence around it and was part of the Park.   We worked closely with Ambulance, RCMP and Fire Department.   We were very involved in communications and had the leading edge in communications equipment for the Coast Guard and we tested a lot of equipment…we were the test bed.

I remember getting a programmable radio, a Wolfsburg radio, where you could put in any selectable frequencies, any sub audible tone that you wanted.   So, I could talk to RCMP dispatch, RCMP cars, both side of the Straits of Georgia, fire departments and Fisheries.   You could talk to everybody who had a radio.

The City people came down to our base for coffee quite often. In 1991 the City Emergency Coordinator came down to the base to see me and asked me if I was interested in taking over the job of emergency communications co-ordinator, because whoever was doing that before had left.   I told him about amateur radio in other communities and how emergency communications were taken care of by amateur radio people.

I said there were a lot of them in Parksville-Qualicum, retired and if we would organize them, we would need a place to meet and get some funding from the City.   He said there was no problem; we could have the Community Centre and whatever we wanted, just ask.   So, after he left, I phoned Rod Luck VE7CEB, who used to live by the Parksville Dairy Queen.   He came down and told him about this plan.   Everybody had been going to meetings in Nanaimo.   A lot of the older hams couldn’t drive in the winter when it was too dark, and it was a real pain.   I couldn’t go to most of the meetings as I couldn’t go beyond Nanoose and as I was on call in Parksville having everything in Parksville would be great.

So, after sitting there talking with Rod about having a facility, we decided to go ahead and do this.

Rod said” OK, you be the President.”   I said, “No. I’ve never chaired a meeting in my life.   You be the President.”   He said, “OK. You be the Vice-President and next year you’ll be the President.”   So, in succeeding years this is how the President would be elected; whoever was Vice-President would move up next year.

Shortly after the meeting with the City Emergency Coordinator in 1991 word got around and we picked a day that wouldn’t be in conflict with the meeting in Nanaimo, as a lot of hams still wanted to go there.   I can’t remember how many came to the first meeting but on average 30-40 would be at each meeting.   It was all looked very good right off the bat.  

Things happened very quickly after that.   Once we had this first meeting we started to think about a name.   I was looking at where we were and for something that would represent our area as it wasn’t really Qualicum and it wasn’t really Parksville.   We talked to the Emergency Coordinator and agreed it would not be for just the City of Parksville but this initiative must cover School District 69, now Oceanside, because the hams were all over the district and they would want to do it for the whole area. So that was fine even though Frank Gibbons VE7DSN, was doing the Qualicum Beach  coordination and I was coordinating Parksville, and neither of us was living in either of the two  communities.

So, looking at the mid Island (MI) and Radio (R) and Rod tacked on the A as the Mid Island Radio Association.   I was thinking of getting it a call for the club MIR.   We wondered at first if there would be a bit of conflict as the Russian space station MIR had a call sign was MIR and they were working ham and stuff.   We thought it would be a good link and bring attention to the club.  So, the club call MIR was fine.

When we had our first meeting Rod had a better working relationship with the hams, as he knew them from Nanaimo.    As a regular attendee he knew people’s backgrounds, for example, who wouldn’t mind teaching technical classes.   We found that people just volunteered for one thing or another, for example, getting up antennas and towers; you didn’t have to ask people they just volunteered.   Ken Walker VETKGW volunteered as our first secretary

Now you can’t have a club without a repeater. Someone had a radio we could use as a repeater.   They talked to some people who ran the Co-op gas station up on Church Road and they could set it up there.    So, it was a matter of getting a frequency.   I sat down with a printout of all the repeaters in BC.   I thought frequency pairs should not be a problem.   After looking at the list of their positions, Lat-long, distances from here,  it came down to just one pair, one frequency with a repeater in North Washington State and that was it.   I made an application with the BC Frequency co-ordinator, Alan Muir; we did all the requirements and everything and it was mailed, and then it came to the crunch: he put it across to the Americans who were using that frequency and they said “NO WAY!” They would not permit us.

Alan said “Look, down here in Victoria I can’t force you. Maybe you should phone and talk to the Americans about this,” and he gave me a name and phone number.   I phoned that number and they were adamant and were not very nice on the phone.   We had done some testing on the radio and it worked very nice.   They said we were causing interference and the dates and times were not when we had conducted the tests.   We weren’t going to put it on a hill as we wanted it just for District 69.

I filled out the form and sent it to Industry Canada and put in a request for a frequency and the call sign RPQ.   So, we set it up and it went fine.   Alan had also mentioned tone, but I knew that the guys had old equipment so that suggestion wouldn’t fly.

An engineer I’d worked with back east moved to the hovercraft unit in Vancouver and he belonged to a ham club in Surrey which had just bought a new repeater.   It had all the “bells and whistles” and he sent me all the information and price on the Kendecom repeater that we ended up purchasing.

So, we needed the money and unfortunately the City would not pay for something like that.   We had a suggestion to get the money from the BC Lottery.   It would give money for seniors.   When we looked at the application form it had to represent a majority of seniors.   It covered a whole bunch of things for seniors, things like the well-being of seniors, communications, and a hobby.   From our membership list the majority percentage was over the requirement for BC Lottery:  They were quite pleased with that.

Because I was not a senior, I could not be part of the discussion, so I asked Ken Butler VE7AX if he would take the project in hand.   With a few of the other members they formed a separate entity for the repeater as it had to be owned by the seniors; nothing to do with the club.   Others could use it, but the money would come if it was only for the seniors.   In other words, it would be the seniors’ repeater, but MIRA would be using it.   They had a meeting in the Island Hall and Ken asked me to sit in on it out of courtesy, although I couldn’t say anything.   The money came and we got the repeater.   It was quite an investment.

We didn’t want to put it up at the Co-op as there was no security at night and they had had a few break-ins for cigarettes.   We had a look at City Hall (on Memorial Ave.) but there were so many antennas and it looked like City Hall was going to move so this was not a good location.

Jim Banks was a City councilor and the administrator of Trillium Lodge and he suggested putting it at Trillium Lodge.   He said we would have security and Trillium would give free power; so that’s where the repeater went.

With all the work of Ken and the group to put it together, it was still a bit of a learning curve on how to use it.   We were quite pleased with it and its location.   It was not as high as the Co-op site, but it hit everywhere except a few lows in Qualicum.

We were thinking of putting a digipeater on the water tank and that worked well.   So, we had our repeater!

We got involved with hamfest at the community centre.   The City bought an isopole, a mobile antenna, mobile 2 m and they made us a case for it: I think the cabinet maker for the City made a beautiful box. I hope the club still has it.

We had a Halloween event where we set up the radio in the detachment and members would split up the area and patrol.

When they closed our base, I was unable to continue as part of the club.

Len Hooper VE7XLH and Frank VE7DSN took over what I was doing for the City of Parksville as emergency communications co-ordinator.   I can see today from their progress that things are going well there.

I still have my inauguration certificate, framed and sits on my bookshelf in my ham station, alongside the photo of my father and it’s been there ever since.   I still have my gavel for being the President in 1992.

The early years’ activities included a hamfest and field day.   We had the morning coffee clache at A&W or Island Hall every Saturday morning.   The newsletters were done by Len Hooper VE7XLH and Ken Armstrong VE7KMA.   Then we had a weekly net on the repeater.

One funny incident happened on a field day down by the beach access by Island Hall.   I got a couple of batteries from work and a solar panel from lighthouses and beacons from Victoria.   We put up a tent and the radios were all set up and it was going well.   Ken Walker VE7KGW was down there at 3 a.m. on the morning shift all alone.   He had brought down his HF radio when all of a sudden, the sprinklers came on and poor Ken couldn’t move the radio gear and just had to protect it, standing on the sprinklers for 20 minutes through the cycle.   There was no-one he could phone.   With the waters coming up and he had to stand on the pop-up sprinklers, the water shooting up his pant legs.

It would have been a riot to just be there and watch this.

We did another one up at Little Qualicum River Park.   We did a few Fox hunts (DX- hiding a transmitter and hunting for it).   I built a little handheld DX antenna, and a little quad that Mohan VE7FM helped me tune up and it worked quite well.   I think sometimes putting the antenna between you and the transmitter worked just as well.

Leaving at the end of April 1993 I wasn’t able to follow what was going on.   At the time we were merging all the civilian fleets of the federal Government, Fisheries and Coast Guard into one entity and I went to the Regional Operations Centre in Victoria.   I built the centre for Y2K, including all the communications satellites, RCMP, Immigration, Navy, with all the protocols and scramblers.

It went well and that’s where I was from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. that night waiting for the shoe to drop and nothing happened!

For Oceanside amateur radio the biggest events were separating from the Nanaimo radio club and forming our own club; I have a membership list from that time in October 1992 and it lists 81 people.   Not everyone came to the meetings and not everyone was active on the air.

Then getting the repeaters set up and getting the community into the right directions for emergency communications I think were also most significant events from the community aspect and it continues to grow, so the foundations were well established in 1991.

As for the future, it was enlightening to see a recent email from the States that amateur radio growth there was up 60% and they attribute it to the removal of the morse code.    It seems in the States it is growing and maybe it’s similar in Canada, then that’s good.

 The Communication system for the fleet of the Pacific fisheries joined together. We had in our operations centre communications facilities to talk to RCMP, CSIS, encrypted, all the systems we had put in, and at my request a programmable HF radio with a HF antenna mounted on a tower outside the office.   There was a lot of resentment from people about being an eyesore, comments like ‘you don’t need that, we have many options you can talk to.’    All of these are linked to a landline.  The Navy for example, thinks landlines are not secure and the intercom systems again not secure, not 100% reliable.

Hopefully we won’t lose the HF bands because there is less use.

HF is still what we would fall back on if all those other systems failed.   As a good example, when that plane went down in the Hudson River in New York, there were no usable cell phones because everyone called in and it killed the cell phone system.

Some feel that amateur radio is on the way out.  

Technology is fine but you still go back to the basics as your back-up.   It works; it will always remain because new technology is subject to failures.   To those who think that amateur radio is on the way out I say “NO”.   It may get smaller, but it will still be the backbone of emergency systems in the whole planet

That is all I’ve got to say on that.”

Sue Mohan (silent key) formerly VE7SMB & Man Mohan (silent key) formerly VE7FM & VE7IZM

June 26, 2010 “We came to this area, Oceanside, in 1990.

My husband had been a ham for approximately 20 years before that and was very involved in ham radio.

When we came to this area, we heard of a radio club which Mohan joined.   It was a very new club and he seemed to enjoy it although it was quite small at the time.   I got involved with him because I got fed up with listening to him talking about it and my not knowing anything about it,  so I chatted with him a lot and found I learned more than I thought I had about ham radio.

I took my test in Parksville in a class of 14 in 1992.  I think I was the only female in the class, and I had competition because most of the men thought I wasn’t going to be able to do it.   As it turned out I was “STUDENT OF THE YEAR” and got the highest marks and aced the whole thing!

I didn’t go for my morse code right away but when I did, I was doing quite well with it.   But I got a little unnerved by this “young thing” down in Victoria who had decided that he didn’t want this old lady to pass morse code, so I never went back to it again.

I became an active ham even though I was very new.  I hadn’t passed my advanced license, so I used to operate with Mohan’s station.     I discovered that the female voice comes over above all the male ones on the air so when we were on 20 metres, when the whole world used to try to get in touch with a rare station, my voice would soar over everybody else’s and make the connection.

I enjoyed being a ham.   At the club I was involved with the social committee and with health and welfare, but I can’t remember too many details about those things.   We had field days and social events like the Christmas party and hot dogs and stuff in the summer.

I put out a column in the club regular monthly newsletter.   It was called “On the lighter side”, which was, at first, aimed at the ladies of the club, because at that point we were not really taken very seriously.   So, I started the column to more or less give my view on what I thought was going on in the club.   It went over like a house on fire and was an instant success with the rest of the club.   The ladies of the club, and there weren’t that many, would go for coffee on Saturday mornings with the men, but the women would sit at one table and the men would sit at other tables.   Well, I had a “thing” about that and didn’t really approve, so I would go and sit with my husband among the men and then be totally ignored anyway because the other three at the table would carry on their conversation as if I wasn’t there!   I think the women at the club are now taken much more seriously.

We did start a program with the BCYL; a lady came over from Vancouver and started this YL club, and we became quite involved with that program.   I don’t know if it’s still in operation or not.

Another thing about the newsletter; it was always mailed out to the male of the household even when the female had a call sign.   So that had to change, so that women hams would be acknowledged, even though there are still not that many women Hams around.

I would like to comment on my husband, Man Mohan’s involvement in ham radio.   Mohan was an amazing man.   He’d been involved with ham radio since about 1970 but his interest in radio goes back well beyond that.   I think it was probably due to his interest in short wave radio.   Many is the time he would pick up second-hand radios that were often huge, up to 3 feet long and haul them home, fix them up with giant vacuum tubes and so on.   He was interested in taking them apart and putting them back together, and probably this led to his involvement with amateur radio.

He got his ham licence in the early 1970’s and by the time we came to BC he had his advanced licence.   Not only did he get involved with the club but he had an incredible variety of involvements in which he was one of the forerunners in this area.

First there was slow scan TV with pictures appearing a line at a time to complete the whole picture.   Not many people were doing this before the computer age, but later he moved on to the computer programs from the RAC and was one of the first to do this.

He also did his “bike in motion”.   He took his recumbent bike and fitted it with all kinds of gadgets and antennas and he would cycle to the beach and set up his station.   Quite a few people would come and listen to him on the beach as he made so many contacts on the air.   He got Frank Gibbons VE7DSN involved in it.   Frank had a bad back at the time, so he tried Mohan’s bike, found it extremely comfortable, and promptly was given a recumbent bike by his son.   Frank has also got it set up with antennas and various other things attached to it.

Mohan was also very active in the area of antennas.   He built his own and always said that height was not important, you didn’t need a 100 feet tower to get a good contact.   In fact, none of his antennas were extremely high even though on our acreage we had various and sundry types of antenna from 2 metres all the way through the whole spectrum.  

Mohan was one of the first people to contact the space station when they were up there orbiting.   He would adjust his antenna as he was speaking to them to keep in contact with the station in its orbits of the Earth.

As I said, all of Mohan’s antennas were home-made.   He would scrounge about for long pieces of aluminum and all sorts of other stuff to make his antennas, so they were all basically made out of odd things, but they all worked, often a lot better than most other peoples’ antennas.

He was very good with home-brewed projects, too.   He would put things together.   He loved to build wooden container boxes.   The boxes were incredible.   He would assemble his rig, his battery and anything else he needed and make a box to fit all these things in.   The boxes were not that big, but they were very effective.   When he did not have anything else to do, he would make a box for something!   Even just before he died, he was making boxes to carry his art supplies, and these boxes were exquisite.

We left MIRA just about the time it split into two parts: MIRA and ORCA.   Just at that time I think Mohan was a little bored that all the club was interested in was 2 metres and Mohan was just not into 2 metres.   He loved to go further afield and make his contacts all over the world.   I still have thousands of his QSL cards.

We did use 2 metres when we went out and would always keep in touch through radio.   We would often say things like: “I’m at such-and-such a place and I’m heading this way or that way”, or “there’s a lot of traffic tonight”   We would be interrupted by local hams who would say our conversations were more interesting than the usual conversations about the weather, and they took an interest in our comings and goings.

Mohan was invited back to the club after the split and invited to speak on various projects, especially on QRP which was his current interest.   He was one of the first to be involved in QRP.   But he didn’t think there was much interest among club members.   He felt he was not speaking to his right audience.

Looking back on MIRA’s 18 years I think it came to a bit of a stand-still in the middle years because there were no, or very few, computers with club members.   I remember I put out the newsletter but had to send out hard copies because few had printers, or they couldn’t open pdf files.   Mohan had his own that he used for slow-scan and other activities, but few others did.   I think some thought if you sent anything through a computer it would all disappear into thin air from the computer and nothing would be retained.   So, even if I sent anything out by computer I still had to make copies.

I think now, after the last ten years, we are in a computer age and computers have a huge following among ham radio people, that it’s picked up and become of interest to younger people.   Ham radio has been considered an old person’s occupation and boring to the young.   Now that computers are involved and there are so many things you can do with computers and radio, I think ham radio is going to go on for many years; I don’t think it’s going to stop.   I’m not sure about morse code though, but maybe something else will replace it when there are no more morse coders.”

Updated Nov. 2024 by Don T.