The club’s recent net with our Australian sister club has garnered some international media attention with an article on the Amateur Radio Newsline. The article was published in their Friday May 15th edition. It can currently be heard by connecting on IRLP to the newsline, or by downloading that edition of their news here.
A full copy of the news article is below:
**
RADIO FRIENDSHIP REKINDLED FROM CANADA TO AUSTRALIA
DON/ANCHOR: Our next story isn’t about social distancing. It’s about social DXing, something very different in the world of amateur radio. Here’s John Williams VK4JJW with that story.
JOHN: A friendly connection formed in 2011 between the Maple Ridge Amateur Radio Club and the Ipswich and District Radio Club in Australia, could have remained a forgotten sisterhood of clubs but that apparently was not destined to be. Though the relationship had faded over time and distance, Maple Ridge webmaster Dave VA7DBJ found it was still being mentioned on the club’s website. He pursued a reawakening of the friendship by contacting Greg VK4GJW, secretary of the Ipswich club in Australia. The two agreed to try to connect the clubs again.
In early April, the British Columbia, Canada hams reconnected with their mates in the Ipswich club Down Under with each group utilising their own IRLP-linked repeater. It was a net of some 26 amateurs with Paul VA7XQ as net control. Two and a half hours later, the friendship was rekindled.
Dave and Greg said that lockdown from the pandemic surely helped to rejuvenate the bonds between the clubs and the connections have been going strong since then. Ipswich hams now check in to the Maple Ridge club’s weekly Net on IRLP and there are ongoing contacts during the week between individuals hams — and new friendships are being formed.
For Amateur Radio Newsline I’m John Williams VK4JJW.
**