On Sunday May 26th, the British Columbia Amateur Rado Coordination Council (BCARCC) held its annual AGM. The club sent VE7RG and VE7RBE as delegates. BCARCC was generous as they sent VE7QC to pick VE7RG and VE7RBE up at the Horseshoe bay ferry terminal.

The AGM was hosted at North Shore Emergency Management. The host club was the North Shore Amateur Radio Club.

The AGM was attended in person by about 22 people and via conference by more than ten people. The audio visual equipment employed by NSEM is impressive.

Welcome speeches were given by Mike Andrews - VE7MPA, the Director of North Shore Emergency Management and Nick Massey - VA7NRM, the President of the North Shore Amateur Radio Club. VE7MPA detailed what they are doing at NSEM with respect to technology and emergency drills.

The first half of the meeting involved approving past minutes, reports from various Directors, and new business. The AARL has stopped providing the funds they used to to coordination councils for their repeater databases as they have stopped selling their repeater book. The BCARCC is now 100% funded by their members. It was decided at the meeting that in following years, membership would be raised to \$25.00 per delegate to help cover the shortfall. A committee was started to look at ways to reduce technology costs.

The most interesting report was the Chief Coordinator's report. Highlights:

• analog repeater use is declining
• most new coordinations are digital
• most new requests for coordination are from small special interest groups
• in Western Washington, some frequencies we consider to be simplex frequencies are being used for digital repeaters
• 1.2GHz does not have a band plan. BCARCC wants to follow the Western Washington Amateur Relay Association band plan
• BCRACC wants to find coordinated by unused repeater frequencies for new coordinations

ISED has a renewed focus on innovation as well as enforcement and compliance. The ISED report can be seen here: Report On that note VE7CDB is putting together SDR/Doppler units to triangulate jammers and interfering radios. He will be looking for people to host the hardware. VE7RBE has emailed him to find out more information. VE7RBE will provide further information as he gets it.

Elections for Directors went quickly but some regions did not have representation so the Secretary VE7EF will canvas for Directors from the unrepresented areas. VE7RBE was voted in as a Director for the Lower Mainland and voted in as Vice-President.

The BCARCC is funded by its members and benefits all amateur radio clubs. It would be great to see more clubs sending delegates to future AGMs.