2011 Canada Day Contest

Thursday evening at 2000L I started scanning 40m for the start of the 2011 RAC Canada Day Contest.  First in the log was Greg-VA3KUG from Midland.  For the rest of the evening I bounced between 40m and 80m logging mainly Ontario stations. 

In recent past year the start of the Canada Day Contest aways yielded a feast of VE1's, VE9's, VO2' and VY2's.  Not this year.  Thursday night brought very slim pickin's.  I did manage to log Jean-Pierre-VA3SG, Polar Bear No. 121, an unusual sight on SSB.  J-P is normally on CW.....but with global warming the bears must be heading into new territory J

Saturday morning came pretty early and I drove out to the cottage of VE3MNE at Hay Bay, to use the same antennas we used for Field Day, namely the 160m and 80m OCF dipoles.  It's amazing how quiet those antennas are compared to my dipoles at home.

Both 40m and 20m started the day very long, and I had no problems getting contacts into the Maritimes and out to BC.  In fact all the provinces we had trouble making contact with on Field Day kept popping up all over the place!  How typical!

15m was a pretty big disappointment.  It never really opened all day.  I did make about 10 contacts there, but I worked hard for every one.  15m was also the only band I heard VA3RAC, and of course they never heard me answering them.

I made a good, solid, contact with Martin-JW/DG5NFF in Svalbard...which is an archipelago in the arctic, constituting the northernmost part of Norway.  Bless him, he was even calling "CQ Canada Day"!! 

Other DX for the day included the UK, Poland, Rumania and Spain.  However, the best catch of the day was Jose-KP4EIT in Ciales, Puerto Rico, who I caught on 6m mid-afternoon.

I ended up with only 75 contacts, but to make up for that I had a great day in the country, lots of sun and beautiful scenary.  Next year will be better.......right?