WICEN NSW is a communications support squad of the NSW Volunteer Rescue Association.

Members are asked to remain prepared for activation, as summer has traditionally been the time things have gone figuratively, or occasionally literally, wobbly, with a 3.0 tremor under your Publicity Officer's QTH at Oberon the most recent example.

WICEN and the St. George Amateur Radio Society are jointly conducting a test, using a 70cm FM repeater at Mt. Bindo on the Great Dividing Range. VK2RAH is on 439.875 MHz, with the standard negative 5.0 MHz offset. No CTCSS tone is required or sent. Coverage appears to be very good, so give it a go, and let callback@sgars.org know what you think.

A remote training exercise will be conducted on January 9th and 10th, 2021. This will be conducted in small physically distributed teams, and includes practicing field operations.

Members have been experimenting with WINLINK and JS8CALL to pass text messages, on Monday evenings, supported by a Google Meeting.

WICEN has a weekly net, each Sunday evening. The main net is at 1800, and a secondary digital voice check-in net at 1830. Today's uses the Berowra / Kurrajong linked system on 70cm, followed by the Amateur DMARC system, talk-group 3810.

Members are also encouraged to take advantage of the free courses offered by OEM at: https://www.emtraining.nsw.gov.au/

WICEN hopess to be at the CCARC Field Day at Wyong on February 28th, 2021.

Members are asked to regularly use their vrarescue.org email address. As of January 1st, 2021 all WICEN emails will only be sent to the member's VRA email address.

For Facebook users, there is an official WICEN NSW page; and an informal national WICEN group.

WICEN ACT is part of the Canberra Region ARC. Their website includes WICEN and general Club information; with details of FM, DMR and D-Star repeaters on the Services pages. Visit: http://www.crarc.org.au

WICEN Victoria's weekly net is Tuesdays at 8:30 pm, on 3.6 MHz. Their website, which includes a couple of cool HF prediction widgets, is: http://vic.wicen.org.au

Finally, WICEN wishes members and listeners, a Happy and Safe Christmas.

Submitted by Julian Sortland VK2YJS & AG6LE, on behalf of the WICEN State Management Committee.️