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The City of Yellowknife has released the Final Report on the 2023 North Slave Complex Wildfires event. The report is available from the City's website at:
The Final Report was prepared by KPMG for the City. KPMG did not interview the Yellowknife Amateur Radio Society. Recommendations 15-26 (pp. 71-75) are of particular interest. Pages 96-97 (Appendix G) of the Final Report describe the the Northwest Territories Emergency Management System.
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[2024-06-17] From about May to October 2023 a series of wildfires occurred across the Northwest Territories. The wildfires were wide-spread geographically and coincided with abnormally high temperatures and a major drought. Significant loss of forests occurred as did loss to private property including homes and infrastructure (roads, fibre optic cables, hydro-electrical transmission lines etc.). The community of Enterprise was consumed. Fort Smith, Hay River, Enterprise, Kátł'odeeche First Nation, Yellowknife, Behchokǫ̀ etc. were all evacuated amongst other locations. Fortunately there was no direct loss of life.
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This web page is aimed at providing some information about the wildfire situation in the Northwest Territories etc. for 2024.
Northwest Territories
- GNWT Evacuee Registration Form
- NWT Wildfire Update (ECC)
- NWT Public Safety (MACA)
- NWT Alert Page (Lists all alerts in the Northwest Territories)
- NWT Fire Facebook Page
- GNWT Facebook Page
- Air Quality - updates (NWT Alert)
- NWT Highway Map
- NWT Status of Highways (INF)
- NWT Emergency Plan (2018)
- Yellowknife Emergency Plan
- Hay River website
- Hay River Facebook Page
- Kátł'odeeche First Nation Facebook Page
- Fort Smith Facebook Page
- Emergency Management Act, SNWT 2018, c.17
- Continental Smoke Plume (Environment Canada)
- Continental Wildfire Situation (NASA)
- Public Safety Canada
YARS Repeater Frequencies.
The Yellowknife Amateur Radio Society runs two VHF 2 m repeaters in the Northwest Territories:
- VE8YK/R (146.940 MHz with -600 kHz offset with a 100 Hz sub-audible tone) based in Yellowknife (IRLP was verified as functional as of 2023-08-02 by VE8IR and M0XWS and VE8RT); and
- VE8RAE/R (145.150 MHz with -600 kHz offset) based in Behchokǫ̀ (formerly Rae).
There is also a Yellowknife Amateur Radio Society test repeater in operation on the 70 cm band:
- VE8YK/R-2 (440.000 MHz with +5 MHz offset) based in Yellowknife.
YARS Simplex Frequency
The Yellowknife Amateur Radio Society also has traditionally used a simplex frequency to fall back on should any repeaters fail - 146.520 MHz .
Members of the Yellowknife Amateur Radio Society and all amateur radio operators in the area are asked to monitor the VE8YK and VE8RAE repeaters when they can for emergency traffic that needs to be relayed.
Other Amateur Repeaters in Yellowknife
Unknown
National HF Emergency Communications Frequencies for the Amateur Radio Service
| Single Sideband | CW | Digital | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Band | Frequency | Tactical | Frequency | Tactical | Frequency | Tactical |
| 80 m | 3.675 MHz LSB | Alfa | 3.535 MHz | Golf | 3.596 MHz | Mike |
| 40 m | 7.135 MHz LSB | Bravo | 7.035 MHz | Hotel | 7.096 MHz | November |
| 20 m | 14.135 MHz USB | Charlie | 14.035 MHz | India | 14.096 MHz | Oscar |
| 17 m | 18.135 MHz USB | Delta | 18.075 MHz | Juliet | 18.096 MHz | Papa |
| 15 m | 21.235 MHz USB | Echo | 21.035 MHz | Kilo | 21.096 MHz | Quebec |
| 10 m | 28.235 MHz USB | Foxtrot | 28.035 MHz | Lima | 28.096 MHz | Romeo |
https://www.rac.ca/national-hf-emergency-communications-frequencies/
For more information see:
- NWT Wildfire Alert page
- Repeaters
- 2017 Images (Images of 2017 Refurbishment of the VE8RAE repeater)
- https://www.repeaterbook.com/repeaters/location_search.php?state_id=CA13&type=city&loc=Yellowknife
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- Category: Technical Notes
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Retrofuturism - Anachronistic Technology and HAM Radio
The figure above may seem rather silly. It shows WordPerfect 8.0 for UNIX running - roughly the equivalent of WordPerfect 4.2 for MSDOS - mid to late 1980s. WordPerfect 6.0 for MSDOS is shown running in the DOSBOX, an emulator for MSDOS - late 1990s). Finally WordPerfect X.13 is shown running in a virtual machine that is running Windows 7. All of these are running under Linux Mint 21.x. The laptop on which they are running is an old ASUS X55U, with motherboard manufactured in 2013.
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The AI working group has now been established. For an introduction into what is AI see the Wikipedia entry on this at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence . Simple AI is not the focus of this working group. That is more inline with the Linux working group or computing in general. Computing and telecommunications have long been associated with one another at least since the Second World War (Bletchley Park)
Learning About Artificial Intelligence
There is no getting around this, one will have to start learning Python. Python is a programming language that is very common at the present. It is derived from the programming language C. Specifically Python 3.x is to be used. We need to be careful about resources out there in that some are oriented towards Python 2.x and there are significant differences with Python 3.x. Generally anything released after 2008 should be a good source. Python 2.x has been discontinued since 2020 (Python 2.7.18 was the last release). At the moment I am running Python 3.11.0. I encourage you to read the Wikipedia entry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language) ) and look at its sources. The Python official website is at https://www.python.org/ .
Python is open source (which means it is free). Options:
- Take an old Laptop and install a Linux operating system (see: Linux project). For installation assistance of the operating system, make use of the Internet and YouTube. Most Linux distributions come with Python installed. When installed, check the version. If necessary you may need to update it (especially if it is not version 3.x). You may also consider installing an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) such as shown in Figure 2. A simple editor could work, however that is probably for more experienced users and users who veer towards minimalism (some amateur radio applications go in that direction). One can also access python directly from the console or terminal in Linux. Our recommendation is to go with the Linux installation on an old obsolete laptop (perhaps one of those ones not capable of running Windows 10 or 11). This will give you a chance to experiment or "play" with the system at minimal expense, breathe new life into a laptop that is heading for "silicon heaven" - and show-off how nerdy you might be but at the same time saving the environment (by not generating e-waste gratuitously.
- Install a Python IDE into your current computer. This may offend your computer's security system. Details for Windows can be found at: https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/ . Details for the Mac OS can be found at: https://www.python.org/downloads/macos/ . There are some commercial vendors out there too. Although I have been using Windows for years, I find that as I explore Linux, I am learning a great deal about Windows systems. As a user, I have never really bothered to look into how Windows is set up or configured. I think that is probably quite common. For this reason we recommend against this approach unless you really know what you are doing in Windows or MAC - in case you "break" them. I tried to install Python IDE in Windows but I halted when security warnings came up.
- Work Online. I am a beginner in all of this and it is increasingly evident there is a great deal of information online regarding AI and how to learn about what is AI (i.e. what is under the hood/bonnet). Google Colab provides a resource that includes instruction sheets and an online working terminal for python. It is based on Jupyter notebooks. On YouTube there are many instructional videos on Python, AI and computer science. PyTorch is an important resource and many of the online lessons are derived from its documentation. PyTorch is particularly focused on Large Language Models (LLMs), whatever those might be... Google Colab has the processing power of a high-end computer and it can be augmented (for a subscription). The free version is apparently suitable for early learners. Another source of information is the GitHub repository. This is the approach I am taking as I work through one of the videos on YouTube (it is 24 hours long...) that is based on Colab, PyTorch and GitHub.
Conclusion
This page is a work in progress. How is generative AI important to the amateur radio service? (we are always speaking of generative AI rather than simple AI such as FT-8) I put that to ChatGPT 3.5 (i.e. AI). Then I put this to ChatGPT: "Generate an MP3 file that simulates auroral flutter of a CW amateur radio QSO". It took a while to respond. The record, including the link to the MP3 file is at:
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This is just a selection of our QSL Cards. We have quite a few...
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This page is devoted to not-for-profit tools that can be used by any not-for-profit (or anyone else). It is a listing of tools that are in the public domain and freely available.
Accounting Software
- GNUCASH - This is an opensource small business financial accounting software. It has double-entry accounting amongst other features.
Office Software
- LIBREOFFICE - This is an opensource office suite of programs including a word processor, spreadsheet program, a slide presentation program and a database program.
- SCRIBUS - This is a full featured desktop publishing program.
- LATEX - This is a high quality typesetting program specifically designed for technical and scientific documentation. It is not a word processor but rather a type-setting program. It handles mathematical equations really well and there is quite a bit of user support online. It saves the master file as a text file and then from that it can generate a ghostscript or PDF file all type-setted. (https://www.latex-project.org/ )
- Project Jupyter - This allows for notebooks to be made using a markdown feature. These can then be used to generate a LaTex document. In addition it includes a Python shell and can support other programming languages. It is the basis of online systems such as Amazon SageMaker Notebooks, Google Colaboratory (Colab) and Microsoft's Azure Notebook. This is probably the future of scientific publishing and it is well beyond Mathematica. Colab for instance also uses generative AI. YARS will probably start using this and LaTex in the near future.
- Internet Archive: - If old software is your thing, the Internet Archive has a collection of abandoned-ware. Consider WordPerfect on Linux and the whole retrofuturism/steampunk movement. Your old computers may be old and unable to use new software, but maybe that is not really a problem and you can use old software. For an NPO this is definitely an option and very economical.
Amateur Radio
- Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine - This link takes one to various publications re: amateur radio.
- 101 Spy Gadgets For The Evil Genius : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
- Download & Streaming : The Internet Archive Software Collection : Internet Archive
- FLDIGI - a suite of digital mode software which includes ability to send pre-formatted ICS and RAC Radiogram message traffic
- WJST-X - a suite of weak signal digital mode software including FST4, FST4W, FT4, FT8, JT4, JT9, JT65, Q65, MSK144, and WSPR and ECHO for moon-bounce. Some of these modes are used for meteor-scatter. Local amateurs have been experimenting with that. These modes use a fair bit of processing power as they use algorithms that make use of Forward Error Correction (so that 8088 XT, without the math-coprocessor that you have, just will not cut it). We thank Joe Taylor, K1JT for putting these into the public domain.
- Project Jove - A NASA program to encourage STEM. One can build a radio telescope to observe the interaction of the solar wind and the aurora of Jupiter and some of its moons (Jovian decametric radio signals).
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free_electronics_circuit_simulators
Operating Systems (especially for older computers)
- https://linuxmint.com/
- https://puppylinux-woof-ce.github.io/
- https://sourceforge.net/directory/ham-radio/
- https://archive.org/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeDOS
The amateur radio service has a tradition of recycling old equipment for its purposes including ex-military equipment, obsolete computers and old electronics and other things that can be re-used. The tradition is in part due to economy but it also facilitates resourcefulness, inventiveness and adaptation. This ties into an underlying philosophy of the Society - that we are the masters of technology and that technology serves us - we do not serve technology. Think of what that last statement means...
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On February 2, 2023 North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) issued a press release indicating that NORAD and US Northern Command detected and is tracking a high altitude surveillance balloon over the continental United States. The NORAD commander, General VanHerk stated that the balloon does not present a threat to persons on the ground. The balloon is travelling well above commercial air traffic.
Read more: Military Applications of High Altitude Balloons in the 21st Century
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- Category: Training
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NOTE: Speak Slowly, Clearly, and into the microphone at all times.
QST, QST, QST.
This is <Name>, <Callsign>, serving as Net control for the Yellowknife Amateur Radio Society’s weekly information net. This net meets each Monday evening at 7:00PM and is open to all amateur radio operators in the coverage area of the 146.940 MHz VE8YK Repeater with a tone of 100 Hz.
Before beginning the net tonight, if there are any stations with emergency or priority traffic, please call now.
<Pause for 5 seconds>
The primary purpose of this radio net is to provide the opportunity for club members, and other amateur radio operators, to exchange traffic, news, opinions and information. Additional information and announcements are available on the Yellowknife Amateur Radio Society website, www.ykars.com .
- YARS has the following objects:
- to foster, encourage and assist on projects which, in the opinion of the members will promote Amateur Radio;
- to further the enjoyment and understanding of Amateur Radio;
- to provide assistance and support to Civil Authorities in times of an emergency.
YARS is engaged in a variety of activities throughout the year including contesting, VHF/UHF operations, antenna building and testing, DIY projects, ARRL Field Day, RAC Canada Day and Winter Contests, special operating events, and miscellaneous Public Service activities. Club meetings are held on the last Thursday of each month at 7:00 PM (local time). Please check the VE8YK web site for the posted meeting room location.
This is a directed net, which means all calls are to be made to the net control station unless you are instructed otherwise. All amateur radio operators are invited and encouraged to check into the net.
When checking into the net please announce your call sign slowly and phonetically followed by your name and whether or not you have traffic for the net. After a few check-ins the net control will pause and review the check-in list. If your check-in is not acknowledged, then please try again.
We will now begin taking check-ins to the Yellowknife Amateur Radio Society information net. Any stations wishing to check-in to the net tonight, please call now.
<Receive check-ins>
Thank you for these check-ins.
I have copied:
<Recite check-in’s received, “CALLSIGN, NAME, TRAFFIC/NO-TRAFFIC” >
Are there any corrections to this list? Please call now.
Are there any additional check-ins? Please call now.
...
That ends VE8YK traffic.
Are there any comments or questions on this traffic?
At this time we will now take in any additional check-ins. Any additional check-ins please call now.
<Receive check-ins>
Thank you for these check-ins.
I have copied:
<Recite check-in’s received, “CALLSIGN, NAME, TRAFFIC/NO-TRAFFIC” >
Are there any corrections to this list? Please call now.
Are there any additional check-ins? Please call now.
If late check-ins have traffic:
We shall now call on stations who have indicated they have traffic:
<Work down the list of Callsigns with traffic, one at a time>
Thank you. Does anyone have comments or questions on this traffic?
<Repeat until done >
Before we close the net for tonight, if there are any additional check-ins, please call now.
<Recite any late check-ins, and let them pass traffic, if any, as done above>
I wish to thank all stations for taking time out of their busy schedules to participate in tonight’s net. Be careful and have a good evening. Until next Tuesday night at 7:00PM local time, I now close the Yellowknife Amateur Radio Society net and return the VE8YK repeater to normal amateur radio use.
73 to all this is <callsign>, clear.