Next two weekends.......

There's a couple of busy weekends coming up in August.  Next Sunday, the 12th August, our club will be activating Brewers Mill Island, just south of Seeley's Bay on Hwy 15.  This Island has never been activated before, and is not listed on the Canadian Islands Award Site, so it doesn't have an official number yet.  We plan on having at least three stations up and running, all on battery power.  I'm going to assume two HF and one 2m/6m stations.

We have sent emails to the Canadian Islands Award website asking for this activation to be listed but as they have already ignored three requests so far for islands this summer.....we're not holding our breath.  You will be able to read about this activation on the US Islands Award Scheme website....along with other Canadian hams who have long since realized that sending activation notices to the Canadian website is a waste of time.

The weekend after that, the 18th & 19th August sees our club taking part in the International Lighthouse Lightship Weekend.  Once again we will be activating two lights, the first at Nine Mile Point on Simcoe Island, which is CA0031, and will be using the VE3FRG callsign. 

The second site is the light at Point Petre in South West Prince Edward County.  This is CA0026, and will be using VE3FCT as its call.  The Nine Mile Point light will be active on Sunday only, but we are hoping that the Point Petre light will be active on both days.

The event evolved from the Scottish Northern Lighthouses Award Weekend a biennial event which was first held in 1993 and became the ILLW in 1998. Over the years it has continued to grow and to date more than 450 lighthouses and Lightships in some 50 countries around the world are participating in the event each year.

The event is always held on the 3rd full weekend in August starting at 0001 UTC on Saturday and finishing at 2359 UTC on Sunday.

VE3FCT will be QRV on 7.250; 21.350; 14.250-14.260; and 50.125, for SSB depending on the band conditions.  All frequencies will be +/- 10 Kc or so.

Radios for VE3FCT, for both events, will be an FT-857D, and the antennas will be an 80m OCF Dipole and 31' homebrew vertical.  A Buddipole 6m antenna will also be used.

International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend - The Story

The International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend is over!!  The day started early with a meet up on the highway with Don VE3MNE and Ron VE3GO at 0630 hrs.  We travelled down Hwy 33 to the Glenora Ferry and easily made the 0730 crossing....in fact we were the first three cars on the ferry.

The weather was awful, with really heavy rain, thunder and lots of lightening crashing and booming around us as we made for the ferry.  In fact it was so bad we started to think we would not be able to activate Point Petre this year.  It was still very bad when we met up with Bill VA3WOW from Belleville as well as Matthew VE3OCC and Doug VE3ZDG from Picton.  We met up, appropriately at the Lighthouse Restaurant in Picton.  The food was great!!

Point Petre Lighthouse

After breakfast it was a mad run through the rain back to our vehicles and off we set through the back roads of Prince Edward County.  It took about 20 minutes to reach Point Petre Lighthouse, and just as we arrived.....the rain stopped.

Lots of changes to the area since we where there last year.  No grass cut this year, and the keepers house is now boarded up and looking a bit neglected.  A few minutes after we arrived one of the Environment Canada guys who look after the weather station there drove up and invited us in to see the lighthouse. 

While some of the guys went off to see the lighthouse, the rest of us started setting up, keeping one eye one the sky for signs of more bad weather.  We put up a 80m OCF dipole, a Buddipole as a 20m vertical, and a 6m hamstick dipole, all with no trouble.  We were on the air by 0930L, and the SFI for the day was sitting at 102, the A index at 3, and the K index at 0.

VE3MNE, VE3CLQ, VE3ZDG,
VA3WOW, and VE3OCC

Don VE3MNE ran the 40m station, using his FT-857D, and ended up on a couple of occasions being quite busy.  It's amazing how many hams where looking for the lighthouses.  Don ended up with 28 contacts for the day.  The 20m station, also using a FT-857D only made 10 contacts, but the band was not very good, the QSB on 20m was very bad.  We did make a couple of contacts with lighthouses in California and a DX contact to Germany.  No contacts were made on 6m, but that was probably due to the height of the antenna above ground.  Ron VE3GO made a couple of contacts on 15m CW as well.  We operated a VE3FCT.

Very large log periodic antenna

The lighthouse is right across the road from the CFB Trenton HF Transmitting site.  There are nine towers on the site as well as two log periodic antennas.  This site is used to talk to RCAF aircraft around the world, but luckily it isn't in use on Sundays.

Don - VE3MNE

At about 1345L we started to hear thunder crashes coming through on our rigs and the sky was starting to get pretty black, and we could hear the thunder off in the distance, so we decided to call it quits. We quickly dropped the antennas and loaded the gear up.  We were about three-quarters of the way loaded when the rain hit, and boy did it pour, and it poured down all the way home to Kingston.

All in all a great day.  Thanks to the Prince Edward Club for the use of their 2m repeater, and to Ron VE3GO for taking the photos. 

Many thanks to the Ayr Amateur Radio Group in Scotland for sponsoring this event, we really enjoy it.

Next year will also activate, hopefully for the whole weekend, we will start looking for a suitable candidate shortly......maybe Prince Edward Point Lighthouse, at the other side of the County.

For alook at what the other half of our group did at Nine Mile Point Lighthouse, click HERE.

All Photo's by Ron-VE3GO © 2011

International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend

This coming Sunday, the 21st of August, I'm off, with a few others from the Frontenac ARES Group, to Point Petre in Prince Edward County to activate the lighthouse there for the annual International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend (ILLW).  While this is a full weekend event, we will only be able to activate this light for about 6 hours.

Radios will be two FT-857D's and a FT-817, all on battery power.  Antennas will be an 80m OCF dipole, and various Buddipole antennas.

This event is not a contest.  The objective of ILLW is stated as "to promote public awareness of lighthouses and lightships and their need for preservation and restoration, to promote amateur radio and to foster International goodwill".  The rules can be found here.

The ILLW was started by a couple of guys who were members of the Ayr Amateur Radio Group in 1995 as the "Northern Lighthouse Activity Weekend", and they activated several Scottish lighthouses.  Since then it has grown and grown, and this year there will be 429 lighthouses and lightships activated over the weekend, in 49 countries.

VE3FCT will be QRV on 7.250; 21.350; 14.250-14.260; 28.450; and 50.125, for SSB, and on CW we will be on 7.040 & 7.110; 14.060; 21.060; 28.060; and 50.070.  All frequencies will be +/- 10 Kc or so.

You should also listen out for VE3FRG operating on Simcoe Island by the other half of the Frontenac County ARES group where they will be activating Nine Mile Lighthouse.

We plan on being there rain or shine.  Hope to see you on the bands.