Winnipeg Digital Repeater Group Inc.
VE4WDR - D-Star – VE4DMR - DMR
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What's New - Winnipeg Digital Repeater Group - VE4WDR
AGM, October 30, 2023 The Winnipeg Digital Repeater Group Inc. held it's 12th Annual General meeting in-person. The executives elected/ re-elected (Positions were assigned at November 4, 2023, executive meeting) A vote was held in favor of the WAN group leaving our group. Some of the reasons why is that on or about the 23 April 2023, the WAN group wanted the WDRG board of directors to sign a new lease agreement between Manitoba Housing/Renewal and WDRG. This lease agreement was so that the Manitoba Repeater Society could install repeaters and other radio equipment on the rooftops at 101 Marion Street and 53-55 Stadacona Street in Winnipeg. The WDRG board of directors reviewed the lease conditions and decided not to sign the new lease agreement as our group could not abide by the conditions and liability requirements. Some of the reasons is that the WDRG would be responsible for all liability and all costs such as to require guardrails or fall protection as required for safety, WDRG shall ensure that the structural integrity and load bearing capability of the roof of the buildings, WDRG shall pay for a third-party consultant retained by MB Housing to review plans and installation of the equipment to ensure conditions of the lease are protected, WDRG agrees to repair or refinish any surface of the building that is damaged by or during the installation of the equipment or caused by anyone, Upon expiration of the lease or termination of the lease, WDRG is fully responsible for all costs to repair to the MB Housings satisfaction, return the site and any other affected portions of the building to their original conditions prior to the installation of the equipment. One of the WAN members stated that he would not sign the lease agreement because of the lease liability and lease conditions. As a result of the liability and lease conditions, the WDRG board of directors voted not to sign the agreement for the Marion and Stadacona Street locations for MRS. Further investigation revealed that the WAN group had previously acquired other Manitoba Housing and Renewal locations that were only signed by the Vice-President of WDRG at the time and no documentation can be found that there was any discussion or approval by the WDRG board of directors for the following locations: 529 Country Club Road in Winnipeg Article 8 of the WDRG bylaws which states: Deeds, transfers, licenses, contracts and engagements on behalf of Winnipeg Digital Repeater Group Inc. shall be signed by the President or the Vice-President and by the Secretary. The minutes of the 2023 AGM will be emailed to all Winnipeg Digital Group members as of October 30, 2023. The minutes of the October 30, 2023, AGM can also be downloaded in PDF format - Click Here The minutes of the April 23, 2023, Board of Directors meeting can be downloaded in PDF format - Click Here The minutes of the June 8, 2023, Board of Directors meeting can be downloaded in PDF format - Click Here The minutes of the November 4, 2023, Board of Directors meeting can be downloaded in PDF format - Click Here Winnipeg Digital Repeater Group Inc. AGM, August 9, 2022 The Winnipeg Digital Repeater Group Inc. held it's 11th Annual General meeting on-line. The executives elected/ re-elected... Founding member Mark VE4MAB became Past-President
January 29, 2022 The Winnipeg Digital Repeater Group conducted a membership drive and all members, new and those who have renewed their memberships, had their name added to a draw for two (2) prizes. The draw was held on-line via Zoom on January 29, 2022. VE4CCR, Chance, won the First Prize !! VA4AFK, Derek, won Second Prize !! For more information on the DMR System - Click Here October 23, 2021 We expanded our DMR system with the installation of DMR repeater, in Portage Pa Prairie on October 23, 2021. VE4DMP went on the air thanks to the generous donations and hard work that made this happen. For more information on the DMR System - Click Here AGM, August 10, 2021 The Winnipeg Digital Repeater Group Inc. held it's 10th Annual General meeting in person and on-line. The executives elected/ re-elected... July 2021 The Winnipeg Digital Repeater Group Inc expanded and after a successful fundraiser installed a DMR repeater in Selkirk, Manitoba, July 2021. The Call sign is VE4DMS with a frequency of 443.725+ using color code 4. November 2, 2020 The Winnipeg Digital Repeater Group Inc. held it's 9th Annual General meeting on-line. The executives elected/ re-elected... Mark, VE4MAB - President, Garth VE4GWB - Vice-President, Derek VE4HAY - Treasurer, Dan VE4DRK - Membership, Garth VE4GWB - Secretary New DMR Repeater VE4DMR Repeater in Winnipeg, Manitoba. After a successful fund-raising drive in 2019 the Winnipeg Digital Repeater Group purchased a Hytera RD-982 DMR repeater and VE4DMR went on the air providing another digital mode in Winnipeg. Wednesday, July 31, 2019 The Winnipeg Digital Repeater Group Inc. held it's 9th Annual General meeting at the WSCRC on July 31, 2019. Rob VE4RRB proposed DMR, members voted to fund-raise $ 2,500 for the system to be owned by WDRG The executives elected/ re-elected... Mark Blumm VE4MAB - President, Derek Hay VE4HAY Vice-President, Garth Blumm VE4GWB - Treasurer, Dan Keizer VE4DRK Membership. Joining the executive is Rick Franz VE4RF as Secretary. Sunday, June 16, 2019 William VE4VR, Colin VE4CST, and Mark VE4MAB removed the VE4WDR D-Star system and the VA4WAN system from CJNU's rack, reinstalled both systems a few feet away into the new cabinet. Followed by quite a bit of rerouting and reinstalling of all the coax and Ethernet cable, checking and testing, leaving the systems operational after midnight! And on Fathers Day too! Monday, June 10, 2019 To facilitate our move to our own footprint on the roof Derek VE4HAY obtained a cabinet to house the D-Star and WAN systems. Derek, William VE4VR, Jim Sutton VE4SIG and Mark VE4MAB hauled the cabinet up the elevator, up the stairs and installed in in place on the roof, ready for transferring all the equipment. Thursday, July 26, 2018 The Winnipeg Digital Repeater Group Inc. held it's 9th Annual General meeting at the WSCRC on Thursday, July 26, 2016. Update on the VA4WAN Project - 3/4 of the city is not covered with future plans to include Selkirk and Portage La Prairie. The executives elected/ re-elected... Mark Blumm VE4MAB - President, Derek Hay VE4HAY Vice-President, Garth Blumm VE4GWB - Treasurer, Dan Keizer VE4DRK Membership and Wyatt Zacharias VE4WDZ as Secretary Wednesday August 31, 2016 ... The Winnipeg Digital Repeater Group Inc. held it's 6th Annual General meeting at the Salisbury House on Leila on August 30, 2016. We reviewed the past year and discussed with the membership the issue with our UHF antenna mast snapping last March and the plans to upgrade the mounting brackets to allow the UHF antenna and 1.2 Gig antenna to be mounted slightly higher than before. After a year of using the Internet service provided by Les.Net and the HSMM project the D-Star Gateway has continued to provide excellent service. Derek VE4HAY updated the group on the progress of the HSMM project which is expanding acquiring new sites in St. Vital, at Prairie Mobile and the Inkster Park areas. The current executives were re-elected... Mark Blumm VE4MAB - President, Derek Hay VE4HAY Vice-President, Garth Blumm VE4GWB - Treasurer, Dan Keizer VE4DRK Membership. Joining the executive is Rob Iwacha VE4RAI as Secretary. Thursday, March 16, 2016 ... On Saturday, March 12, 2016, phone service from the HSMM project to the WSC was interrupted followed by a noticeable drop in sensitivity of our UHF antenna. William VE4VR attended the repeater site during the week and found the mast holding our UHF antenna and the HSMM antenna had snapped and was laying on the roof. A small screw hole that had gone unnoticed was found in the mast and it appeared that after 5 years of wind load it finally gave out. On Thursday, March 16, Garth VE4GWB, William VE4VR, and Mark VE4MAB attended the site and replaced the mast and mounting the UHF antenna at a slightly lower level while Colin VE4CTS worked on moving the HSMM antenna. The 1.2 G antenna was not re-installed while plans are being made to upgrade the mounting brackets to allow our UHF and 1.2 Gig antennas to be mounted slightly higher than before. VE4WDR port B was back on the air Thursday night. Monday, August 3, 2015 ... The Winnipeg Digital Repeater Group Inc. held it's 5th Annual General meeting at the Salisbury House on Leila on July 29, 2015. Following having computer problems last fall and a final failure this past spring the computer needed replacing. Thanks to William Franzin VE4VR for donating a replacement and to both he and Dan Keizer VE4DRK and Garth Blumm VE4GWB for getting it and the software installed. Thanks to Les Bester VA4LES of LES.NET in attendance at our meeting for donating a direct Internet connection right on the roof that the HSMM project is sharing with us. We are no longer connected to Shaw for our gateway access. Changes to our membership structure for the 2015 - 2016 membership year have been changed to include an additional $ 10 charge for members who are not members of RAC. This is to offset the additional costs of our insurance for members who are not RAC members. The second change to the membership application is a selection of your interest. That is to say simply check on the application (Or drop down menu on-line) which you wish your membership to support - D-star, the HSMM project or Both. This will help direct funds to the projects that are of interest to you. The current executives were re-elected... Mark Blumm VE4MAB - President, Dennis Hurt VE4XE as Secretary, Garth Blumm VE4GWB - Treasurer, and joining the executive are Derek Hay VE4HAY - Vice-President and Dan Keiser VE4DRK as Membership. Monday, June 15, 2015 ... Some radio programming changes AGIAN for Free Star... For Programming the link commands for connecting to Free Star systems has changed again. In the UR Field the “O” to link and “T” to unlink (in the eight space). Sunday, April 5, 2015 ... Some radio programming changes... For Programming the link commands for connecting to DPlus and Free Star systems are now the same. In the UR Field the “L” to link and “U” to unlink (in the eight space) for both systems. Also for the echo test and link status the “E” and “I” are in the eight space in the UR field without needing to add the repeater call sign. You will notice the Dashboard has changed at .. https://ve4wdr.dstargateway.org/ The Dashboard will now show when Ports A B or C are connected to DPlus or Free Star systems. Previously only DPlus systems showed on the Dashboard when the system was linked. Sunday, March 29, 2015 ... Thanks to William VE4VR for donating an updated computer to replace our existing computer that was failing and to Dan VE4DRK for configuring the new unit Garth VE4GWB and Mark VE4MAB attended the repeater site with Dan, William and Robert VE4RLK to replace the computer. VE4WDR was reconnected with the D-Star gateway! Garth will install the software to enable connectivity with the Freestar system. Wednesday, September 3, 2014 ... The Winnipeg Digital Repeater Group Inc. held it's 4th Annual General meeting at the Salisbury House on Leila. The progress of the past year was reviewed. William Franzin gave a brief presentation on the HSMM (High Speed Multi-Media) project he is working on with Derek, VE4HAY, with the support of WDRG and CJNU. Sunday, September 29, 2013 ... On Sunday, September 29, 2013, VE4WDR was off the air from 12:25 pm to 3:38 pm while Garth VE4GWB and Mark VE4MAB moved the D-Star System from it’s current location a few feet to it’s new home below the new CJNU transmitter with the help of Roy VE4EN. The process was a “one piece at a time” scenario and required moving some of the excess feed line from the antenna structure into the equipment room. plus adding a length of Cat 5 cable to re-connect to the router. While we moved the D-Star system Derek VE4HAY and William VE4VR arrived and began installing antennas and cables for their HSMM project. Antennas we installed on the old CJNU antenna support covering north, east and west, and more were installed on the antenna structure below the VE4WDR antennas to face south. William will be posting information regarding their HSMM system at http://hsmm.ve4wdr.org Wednesday, September 4, 2013 ... The Winnipeg Digital Repeater Group Inc. held it's Annual General meeting at the Salisbury House on Leila. Saturday, March 16, 2013 ... The Winnipeg Digital Repeater Group presented a D-Star Seminar on Saturday, March 16 from 11am – 3pm at the WSC 598 St. Mary’s Road. An introduction to D-Star for those who have yet to see and hear the VE4WDR system in action, and for those with D-Star radios will have demos and hands on how to on programming your radios, linking to repeaters and reflectors, also demos using the DV Dongle & DV Access Point and more. Download the Powerpoint Presentation - Click Here February 2 , 2013 Garth VE4GWB, Dennis VE4XE and Mark VE4MAB braved the cold Winnipeg winter winds high above Winnipeg and visited the VE4WDR D-Star repeater site. An inspection of the antenna system found it to be as we left it last October. Garth installed a USB thumb drive into the computer for back up purposes. October 14, 2012 Thanks to Rosi, VE4YYL, for obtaining a 4 bay folded dipole antenna we have upgraded Port “B” the UHF side of the VE4WDR D-Star system! With the help of Roy VE4EN, Glen VE4GWN and Rosi VE4YYL, Garth VE4GWB, Richard VE4KAZ, Dennis VE4XE, Johnathan and friend, we removed the existing UHF Omni and installed the 4 bay UHF dipole! Following the installation Glen had a QSO with Tedd VE4VID at his QTH east of Winnipeg and signal tests showed a great improvement on the input as Glen and Rosi traveled west and Garth and I traveled east. August 28, 2012 The Winnipeg Digital Repeater Group Inc. held it's Annual General meeting, reviewed the progress in the course of the first year and planned for the next. The current executives were re-elected... Mark Blumm VE4MAB - President, Garth Blumm VE4GWB - Vice - President and Dennis Hurt VE4XE as Secretary. June 3, 2012 Thanks to Garth's hunting and Darrell's Trucking we obtained a 4 bay VHF folded dipole antenna. Since it would not fit in the elevator we waited for the building maintenance crews hoisted it to the roof! Garth, Glen, Roy, Mark and supervisor Rosi removed the existing VHF antenna and mounted the new antenna to the structure greatly improving VHF "Port C" coverage on the system. April 15 , 2012 The Winnipeg Digital Repeater Group had a table at WARC's Spring Flea Market and raffled off an Icom T70A Dual Bank FM hand held. The lucky winner was Betty, VE4BTY! March 18, 2012 Jim, VE4SIG, installed a UPS system for the VE4WDR system. February 13, 2012 The Winnipeg Digital Repeater Group made a presentation on using the VE4WDR system to the Winnipeg Amateur Radio Club explaining how to program D-Star capable radios for accessing the local repeaters and repeaters/reflectors on the Gateway. For a demonstration Garth, VE4GWB, using WARC's Club Call VE4BB made contact through the D-Star Gateway using "Call Sign Routing" with RAC President Geoff, VE4BAW. Geoff was in Texas was using Port "C" on the ND5N D-Star repeater in McAllen. Download the Powerpoint - Click Here December 4 , 2011 Garth VE4GWB & Roy VE4EN installed the ID RP-2000V VHF Digital Voice Repeater and Duplexer while Glen VE4GWN and Mark VE4MAB installed the VHF omni directional antenna on the antenna structure and ran the feed line. Module "C", the VHF side of the VE4WDR D-Star repeater was turned on and confirmed operational making contacts with Rosi VE4YYL and Dave VE4DJS. December 2 , 2011 The VE4WDR D-Star Gateway put Winnipeg and Manitoba on the map and filled a gap by joining the Trans Canada D-Star Friday Night Net with Net Controller Allan VE3AJB on Reflector XR021B linking Canada coast to coast! Of the 50 total check ins, 7 were from Manitoba! Garth VE4GWB, Glen VE4GWN, Rosi VE4YYL, Tedd VE4VID, Rob VE4TNT, Ed VE4OAK and Mark VE4MAB. November 24, 2011 To provide on-going information to the Amateur Radio community about the VE4WDR D-Star Gateway in Winnipeg we launched our web site VE4WDR.org November 22, 2011 Garth VE4GWB connected VE4WDR to Reflector 14 module "C" to test the system on the Gateway for the Tuesday night Ham Nation D-Star net at 9:15 pm Winnipeg time. Due to the US Thanksgiving holiday that week the formal net was not on however Joe, WX4ADX, was on hand to take check-ins anyway and both Garth and Rosi VE4YYL were logged! November 20, 2011 Thanks to the efforts of our "Tech Guys" George VE4GHR, Rob VE4TNT, and Garth VE4GWB, and Eric VE3EI, the VE4WDR D-Star repeater is connected to the D-Star Gateway via the Internet. November 17, 2011 To address the daytime interference on the input side of the UHF repeater Garth VE4GWB installed a per-amp and filter between the duplexer and the repeater. This eliminated the daytime interference and greatly improved the input by users with hand held radios. October 29, 2011 Garth VE4GWB, Roy VE4EN, Dennis VE4XE, and Mark VE4MAB, installed the 1.2 Gig data simplex omi directional antenna. October 22, 2011 We corrected the signal loss issue which turned out to be a loose connector on the feed line with the help of Garth VE4GWB, Glen VE4GWN and Mark VE4MAB. VE4WDR was "On The Air" in Winnipeg! The ID RP-2D 1.2 Ghz Local Data Repeater and computer were installed in the rack and George VE4GHR began setting up the computer system getting it up and running to a point where it could be accessed remotely. September 29, 2011 Garth VE4GWB, Roy VE4EN, and Mark VE4MAB installed the ID RP-4000V UHF Digital Voice Repeater & Duplexer, the ID 2C Repeater Controller, power supply and on-air testing of the VE4WDR UHF D-Star repeater began. September 24, 2011 Garth VE4GWB, Dennis VE4EX, Roy VE4EN, Glen VE4GWN, Tedd VE4VID and Mark VE4MAB installed the UHF omni directional antenna on the rooftop antenna structure and ran the feed line to the repeater rack. September 1, 2011 We received permission to install the VE4WDR repeater system and antennas atop 55 Nassau Street N with thanks to CJNU, Roy VE4EN, and the property management of 55 Nassau Street N. August 7, 2011 After exploring several options we visited a potential repeater site on the roof of 55 Nassau Street, some 1036 feet above sea level. August 2, 2011 The Winnipeg Digital Repeater Group was formed as a non-profit organization at a meeting of Winnipeg Hams on August 2, 2011, for the purpose of of improving Amateur Radio communications through the installation of a D-Star repeater(s) & Internet gateway in the City of Winnipeg. At our initial meeting our directors were chosen... Mark Blumm, VE4MAB - President, Garth Blumm VE4GWB - Vice-President, and Dennis Hurt VE4XE - Secretary. We began the process of incorporation, began searching for a repeater site and obtained the Call Sign VE4WDR (Winnipeg Digital Repeater). |