Those that have been reviewing the minutes of the Board will know that RAC is offering a one year basic (i.e. eTCA) membership to newly certified hams. The purpose of this program is to increase RAC membership.
This activity is being enabled by Industry Canada through the Amateur Radio Service Centre in Sault Saint Marie Ontario. IC is providing to all persons that receive a certificate a letter from RAC that contains a “coupon” offering a one year free eTCA membership to a newly certified ham.
While this program is very new there has been an uptake of 125+ since December. We will not know until the renewal cycle how many will choose to renew their membership. There are roughly 2300 net new hams certified a year in Canada.
The only issue that has arisen is that IC does not discriminate between net new hams and those person receiving enhanced certification (eg. advanced) and so all hams receive our letter and coupon. Some hams other than new hams are attempting to access this offer. While the context of the letter is clear we will review the text of the letter for 2015.
Please refer all inquiries to the office.
There will be an article in the next Newsletters to Clubs on this offering. Clubs offering training to new hams may want to note this RAC activity as an additional inducement.
Geoff ve4baw