Soggycon 2015

A soggy day at Chillicon 2015

Well, Chillycon, or as we're calling it this year "Soggycon", is now over.

From 1400 local Friday to 11:00 local Sunday, we had 72mm (3 inches) of rain fall on us at the camp.  Needless to say attendance was way down, but not only did we have the weather to contend with we also had the Carp Flea Market on the Saturday as well.

The Big Bobster, VA3QV, was there.  Soaked to the skin at times, we had to come up with a new nickname for him.  He's now known as "SpongeBob".  I have a shocking story to report on Bob this year.  I have to tell you all that the first antenna he got in the air was his TV antenna on the RV, ham radio antennas came second!!  I couldn't believe it when he told us that, totally shocked we all were!

There was a lot of the regular attendees there, Ying VA3YH, Eric VA3AMX, Chris VE3CBK, Don VE3MNE, Bob VA3QV, and Richard VA3VDP.  We also had Matt VA3OZI attend this year as well. Both Tim VA3TIC and Derek VE3HRW dropped in on the their way home to Kingston from the ham flea market in Carp.  We also had a group of five hams from VE2-Land, but I must apologize as I did not manage to write down the callsigns.   They had attended the Carp Flea Market and brought the items they had bought to the Park to try them out. They stayed for the traditional Pizza Supper and we all had a great chat with them.

VE3MNE's operating spot

The bands sort of cooperated.  The ARRL VHF Contest, and the North America SOTA Day were also taking place as were a number of State QSO Parties, so the bands were busy but not in the best of shape.

The winner of this years Annual Chillycon DX Contest, and the winner of the Upper Canada Cup for DX Excellence, was Eric, VA3AMX, with a contact to Argentina.

Despite the very heavy downpour, we all managed to stay mostly dry for the two nights we were there - thanks to good tents and large tarps.  However, with all the tarps and tent parts hanging and drying in my garage, it's starting to look like a refugee camp out there.  I'll have to spend a few hours tomorrow cleaning all the cooking equipment and other gear.

Hopefully next year will see it a bit warmer and a lot dryer.  Once again Chillycon was a great, and a good time was had by all.