LARC Special Event October 6 to 12, using the callsign VE3FIRE

Fire Prevention Week is an annual event throughout North America each year and is always the week in which October 9th falls. For several years, the Club has secured the special suffix, FIRE from ISED to run a special event along with ten stations in the US that span N0F through N9F, and the Wild Card station KF2IRE. VE3FIRE is the other Wild Card station. A nice downloadable certificate is available for working any ten of the twelve stations. This year's event ran from 8:00 a.m. local time on Sunday October 6th till 8:00 p.m. local time on Saturday October 12th.

The event's purpose, held during Fire Prevention Week across North America, is to pass on fire safety tips to those hams contacted. Each year there is a theme; this year the focus was on the protection that smoke alarms provide and why we need them, how to use them, and take care of them. I was surprised at how many hams I talked to were unaware that battery powered smoke alarms have a finite life; they slow down in sending a warning as they age beyond ten years. 

 The following radio operators participated:

Doug VE3IDT, Brian VA3ATB, Greg VA3CBN, Bogdan VE3YOB, Luke VA3ZLS, Rick VE3IMG, Dave VE3EI, Mike VE3ACW, Tom VA3TFH, Alison VE3ZAH, Ruth VE3RBO, and David  VE3KGK. John VA3MSV kindly set up his page we could use to monitor our progress.

 Doug, Brian, Greg, Dave EI, Tom and David (KGK) operated from their home stations, while Bogdan, Luke, Mike, Alison and Ruth operated from the LARC station when it was open. Greg, Rick, Mike, and David (KGK) also operated from the club station on Sunday 6th, Monday 7th, and Saturday 12th.

Bogdan and Luke opened the Club station on Monday through Friday evenings from 5:00 p.m. to whenever things slowed down, but no later than 10:00 p.m. and Ruth joined them to do some HF SSB operation. My heartfelt thanks to Bogdan for making it possible that any ham or student who wanted to avail themselves of an opportunity to operate or even just observe and learn, could show up and get on the air. Without his giving of his time in the evenings by opening the station and making contacts along with Luke and Ruth, the event would not have been as successful as it was.

A thank you to Ruth RBO and Alison ZAH for putting in stints operating the Club station with Mike logging on Saturday for Alison. 

On Sunday, Monday and Saturday, Greg CBN, Rick IMG, and Mike ACW along with David KGK, put in several hours at the Club station putting VE3FIRE on the air.

All logs have been submitted and we made a total of 1089 contacts. Good job!

Mother Nature threw another one of her hissy fits during the event which meant those operators with morning stints on 20m had a rough time with QSB. This might have resulted in less contacts than would have been the case had Mother Nature not intervened. That said, as we say in Jamaica, "Every likkle mikkle mek mukkle"  which translates to "each contact you made, however few they may have been, added to our total number of 1089 QSO's". I had hoped for 1000 and we surpassed that. A big THANK YOU to all.

I was asked by the President to coordinate special callsign events for LARC and at present we do two events; VC3/VB3EMS for EMS Week and VA3/VE3FIRE for Fire Prevention Week. I would like to extend it to a third event, Police Services Week. I did that event this year (VB3COPS) using help from Club and non Club members. I would like to extend it in 2025, but I have to know in advance how many LARC members are willing to assist with this event and with EMS Week, since they run consecutively, PSWeek from May 12 to 18, 2025 and EMS Week May 19 to 25, 2025. Please think about this from now. Our First Responders, Ambulance personnel, Doctors and Nurses, Police Officers, Firefighters all provide essential services, often at great risk to themselves and these special events give us a chance to thank these First Responders for what they do, frequently without those they help being able to thank them. Please think about giving a couple of hours of your time either with your home station if you have one or using the two radios at the Club station at the Wing. You will have some fun, it will only cost you gas money to come out to the Wing, and who knows, you might just have a lot of fun!

A huge sincere thank you to all who helped with VE3FIRE this time. Your contribution made this a great event. See you next year!

73,

David VE3KGK

Special Callsign Event Coordinator