Kenora's 2000
CAMP 807 Hamfest
Review

The 21st Annual Camp 807 Hamfest was held at Kenora's Municipal campground, Anicinabe (a-NISH-a-NOB-ee) Park. The event took place August 4th, 5th and 6th, and was hosted by The Lake of the Woods Amateur Radio Society.

The Club's emergency communications trailer was set up at Anicinabe Park during the Hamfest. Members used the facilities to monitor area frequencies in order to provide directions and assistance to those travelling to the event. The trailer also functioned as a coffee room and gathering place for Hamfest participants.

LWARS volunteers were on-hand to accept registrations throughout the weekend. Tickets were available for the raffle. Participants received a bag of complimentary goodies from local merchants, arranged by Woody-VE3JJA.

Photo Left: Marlene-VE3ZIA oversees the registration/raffle table at the park's pavillion (barbecue and picnic shelter).

Photo Right: John-VE4OL [seated] brushes a year's worth of cobwebs off of his wallet for this year's chance at the grand prize. LWARS host Bruce-VA3BCR [right] smiles at the opportunity of adding to the club's coffers.

Saturday morning featured a free flea market located at the park's pavillion, and Hamfest participants were welcome to display any radio or electronic equipment, crafts, or other items they wished to sell.

Photo-left: Bill-VA3ZA [left] and Garfield-VE3GKS [right] with some books and hardware.

Photo-right: Albert-VE4AJB awaits his first vict... uh, I mean customer.

Early Saturday afternoon featured a demonstration of RDF (radio direction finding) techniques, hosted by Dale-VE3EFY a member of LOWSAR (Lake of the Woods Search and Rescue). An aircraft ELT (emergency locator transmitter) was set up on a test frequency in the air band, and various direction finding methoods including doppler RDF were used during the exercise. Participants were invited to use their hand-held radios to search for the ELT that was operated by Woody-VE3JJA.

The Camp 807 Hamfest coincided with Kenora's annual Harbourfest celebration, and LWARS had volunteered to provide communications for a triathalon taking place in the community. Hamfest participants were invited to attend either of these events, or spend some time socializing with the other participants at the pavillion.

Camp 807's perennial chef Steve-W9DNI [photo left] gives the thumbs up sign to another successful effort at the grill. Steve received assistance this year from the very capable Mike-VE4QI [photo right].

Saturday evening featured an auction of various donated bric-a-brac, with proceeds going to LWARS. The role of auctioneer was undertaken by Woody-VE3JJA. Most of the items were purchased by the participants for Hams who weren't present ...or that weren't paying close enough attention.

Jim-VE3YJM [left] of the Rainy Lake Amateur Radio Club accepts the Camp 807 banner from host Bruce-VA3BCR [right] of LWARS for display at next year's Camp 807 in Fort Frances.

Sunday morning featured a presentation by Woody-VE3JJA on PSK31, a new HF narrow-band digital communications mode. An ICOM HF tranceiver mounted in W9DNI's motor home provided the radio link, and Woody ran the PSK31 software on a laptop. The robustness of this digital mode was demonstated when during the presentation the laptop's internal microphone was used to pick up the audio from the HF rig's speaker. Despite this coupling methood and the ambient nose from the surrounding area, the laptop displayed excellent copy from the received signal.

Here are the results from Camp 807's annual raffle. Tickets were available for a price of $5 each, or three for $10.

Grand Prize: The Kenwood TM-261a 2-Metre tranceiver was won by Steve-W9DNI.

Second Prize: Dianna-VE4DIA won an MFJ Quartz Clock donated by 40 Channels Communications in Winnipeg, MB.

Special thanks to for taking the photos presented here in this year's review, and for making them available to this web site.

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This "unofficial" Camp 807 web site is created and maintained by . Comments, queries and suggestions concerning this web site may be directed to him.