Trusting that everyone is well and enjoying their summer, this is a reminder that the club season is quickly approaching. In the days following the Labour Day weekend, and only a couple of weeks before the club's first meeting of the year, we will be starting our 2016/2017 Net Season.

The club's long standing Pot Hole Net will recommence on Sunday the 11th of September at its regular time of 10am local on 3760kHz LSB. Last year the net enjoyed a regular and perhaps slowly growing number of participants. It's important to note that this is really the OVMRC's flagship net, given the classic 80m SSB mode of operation and its uninterrupted existence since the late 1950's. While the challenges are antenna size, the average ham's available space and varying qualities of local propagation, I encourage any ham to check in.

Since last net season, our repeater VE3TWO has undergone some exciting changes. These dramatic improvements should give the OVMRC 2 METER NET broader coverage and much improved reliability. Last year, the reinstitution of a club sponsored 2 meter net proved to be a success. With its mix of seasoned amateurs, newbies and everyone in between partaking in a loosely controlled, conversational style net, we enjoyed a growing number of participants which led to runtimes often in excess of an hour.

The OVMRC 2 METER NET will resume Thursday September 8th at 8pm on repeater VE3TWO. With the repeater now being analog FM as well as digital C4FM capable, it should be noted that this net will always be conducted in the analog mode to welcome all amateurs wishing to participate. VE3TWO operates on 147.300MHz positive offset with a 100Hz CTCSS tone.

Any ideas, comments or concerns regarding our nets can be sent to ve3ekn@gmail.com.

After what always seems like a short summer, it will be fun to get back to radio on a more regular basis and catch up with some of you I haven't heard from in a while.

73, and please enjoy the OVMRC's nets.

Ken Evans
VE3EKN