See You Next Year!!

More WSPR

Yesterday was a good day to hide and stay the heck out of the kitchen.  So I decided it would be a good time to go and do a couple of hours on WSPR.

The propagation conditions seems to be pretty good on 20m, so here's a look at what 500mW got me around 1700 UTC.

Here's the shot into Europe

Here's the shot into North America......not too many Canadian stations about....

Radio used was the IC-718 into my 148' Inverted L long wire antenna.

Merry Christmas

May peace, happiness and goodwill be with you and your family not only on Christmas, 
but throughout the year and beyond. 

From my house, to your house, 
here's wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a

Happy New Year for 2016.

RAC Winter Contest

Not a bad weekend on the bands for this years RAC Winter Contest.  For once the stars aligned and all my equipment and the propagation worked as advertised.

I should let you all know that my new 148' Inverted L long wire antenna worked exactly as advertised.  It also seems to give me a very strong signal into the heart of Europe on 15m and 20m.

The bands were very noisy on Friday night as the contest started, I had a noise floor of S7 here....which is very unusual for me.  This settled  down on Saturday and levelled out at about an S4.

Contacts were made on every band from 2m to 160m.  The only places I did not manage to get a single contact with was the NWT and Nova Scotia.   I also listened for Bob, VA3QV, but never heard a peep from him........Liz must have him in chains again....

The propagation numbers to start the weekend were: SFI=116.  SN=52.  A Index=5.  K Index=1.  These numbers stayed that way for just about the whole weekend, late Saturday saw the SN go down to 44, but that was the only change.

The big surprise for me this year was the large number of DX stations taking part.  I worked stations in Bermuda, Netherlands, Germany, Belize, Colombia, Italy, Spain, USA, and France, all of whom are giving out contact serial numbers.  It's nice to see this contest spread out around the world.

That's it for this year, no more contests and only two more club nets till next year......when we start it all over again.  Where does the time go??

WSPR

Over the last few weeks I have been dabbling in the digital modes and have been active on PSK31 and WSPR.   WSPR (which is pronounced "whisper") stands for "Weak Signal Propagation Reporter".

WSPR has been around since 2008, and is a computer program used for weak-signal radio communication between hams.  The program was initially written by Joe, K1JT.  The program is designed for sending and receiving low-power transmissions to test propagation paths on the MF and HF bands.

WSPR implements a protocol designed for probing potential propagation paths with low-power transmissions. Transmissions carry a station's callsign, four figure Maidenhead Grid locator, and transmitter power in dBm. The program can decode signals with S/N as low as -28 dB in a 2500 Hz bandwidth.

Stations with internet access can automatically upload their reception reports to a central database called WSPRnet, which includes a mapping facility, which is great as you can visually see where your signals are being heard, or what signals you are hearing.

While watching WSPR is about as exciting as watching paint dry, and it's definitely not for everyone, it is still very interesting to leave it running for a few hours and come back and see where your 5 watts have been heard.

The evening of Monday, December 7th, saw the following stations heard from this QTH, using my VE3FCT callsign:

And here's the European stations that I was hearing:

Not too bad for 5 watts and a 148' long wire antenna.

A New Antenna...

While I've been very happy with my 80m OCF Dipole I have here at the QTH, I have long thought that a second HF antenna would be a good thing to have as a back up.  After messing about with several designs, including a 31' vertical, a 66' vertical, and a copy of the same antenna that VA3QV has, it was interestingly that none of them would work very well.

My FT-950 wouldn't tune any of them at all, on any band.  My IC-718 and the IT-100 Tuner worked OK, but on receive it was down 3 or 4 S units from the 80m OCF Dipole.  I was not sure what was going on there.

Tim, VA3TIC, came over to the QTH and we decided to put up a 148' inverted L antenna.  Tim has this same antenna and it works very well for him.  It didn't work at all for me as it would not tune on any band anywhere.  So, we started to investigate.  Eventually we discovered that the 100' of coax I had on the antenna had a bad connector.  Once the connectors were re-soldered things worked just fine.  No doubt bad coax was the issue with the other antennas I put up as well.

The new antenna is on average about 2 S Units down from the 80 OCF Dipole, which is strange as the new antenna is higher than the OCF.   Other than that it works very well and I've been very successful getting into Europe and South America with it.  It was also responsible for my many west coast contacts on 15m during last weekends ARRL Sweepstakes Contest.

I'm pretty happy with it.

Not quite a "Clean Sweep"......

Another contest is over, and what a weekend it was!!  Overall the bands were not in bad shape, and the propagation numbers stayed pretty stable for most of the weekend.  We started off with: SFI=121, SN=52, K Index=4 and the A Index=1, and ended up with pretty much the same.

No band police were heard at all, which is a nice change from the profane language and screams of "UP!! UP!! UP!!".  However, the "Tuner Upper" Lids were out in force again tuning up right over on-going QSO's.

It really was very nice having the second HF antenna ready for this contest, it meant I had 15m available.  However, it wasn't all smooth sailing this year.  For some reason both antennas gave me really bad RF in the shack on 80m.  All the other bands, on both antennas, were fine.  I've never had this happen before, so I'm not quite sure where to start looking for an answer.  I put extra beads on the coax, but they have done nothing at all.

Saturday afternoon was a feast of the west coast, and in short order I have all of the California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii sections in the log....all on 10m.   It wasn't until after dark and 40m came alive that I started getting the "close in" sections.  Sunday was a great day, all the bands seem to have been open, at least I made contacts on them all.  The workhorse band was 15m for me, it was open to just about everywhere.

I managed to get 76 Sections of the available 83, the missing ones I never heard at all, on any band.  Now the wait till December 19th, when the RAC Winter Contest is starts.  Hopefully the bands will behave for that contest as well.

2015 Sweepstakes Worked Sections Map

November Sweepstakes

Coming up next weekend is the 2015 ARRL Sweepstakes SSB Contest, and I'm in a quandary whether to do it as a QRP station....or a QRO Station.  No doubt I'll make my mind up at the very last minute after checking the propagation.

This year the contest runs from 2100 UTC on November 21st till 0259 UTC on November 23rd.  The rules can be found on the ARRL website....HERE.

I'm looking forward to this contest so I can try out my brand new addition to my antenna arsenal, a 148' inverted L which runs across my backyard approximately South-West to North-East.  It's about 60' off of the ground up in my trees.  Over the past two months I have been experimenting with various wire antenna designs, and none of them have come close to my 80m OCF Dipole up at 50' from the ground.  Most signals have been 3 to 4 S units down from my dipole.  We will see how this antenna does and do a full report after the contest.

Get Ready..............

Get Ready, Winter Field Day is coming !!!!   January 30th & 31st, 1700Z to 1700Z.  

Don't be late !!

Check out the new Winter Field Day Association Website.....HERE.

In Remembrance

In Loving Memory of the

Officers, NCO's, and Men

of

2816 Squadron RAF Regiment

1941 - 1946

"PER ARDUA"

In Memory of

WO Derek Pilkington, BEM

Cpl Dave Crombe

United Kingdom Mobile Air Movements Squadron

"SWIFT TO MOVE"

CQ WW SSB Contest

What an outstanding weekend on the bands!!!!!  I think all the bands were full of DX signals, I know 20m, 15m, and 10m were rocking practically the whole contest, and 40m was hot at night.  It was really nice to have 10m wide open, I spent a lot of time there.

I managed to work 158 countries in a little over 12 hours operating.  All the usual suspects were on the bands, but I did get to work a new country, 4L0A from the Republic of Georgia, heard him on 20m and snagged him on the second call.  That's the first time I've ever heard Georgia on the air.

I also worked VU2CPL in Bangalore, India, on 20m Sunday afternoon on 20m.  How I broke that pileup I will never know, it was frightening!!

The downside of the weekend is that on Saturday afternoon, in the middle of a huge pileup, my antenna decided it would be a good time to come down.  Outside I went, man it was cold in the wind, I managed to get it back in the air and also put up a 31' vertical and some radials down as a spare in case I needed it during the night.  We had winds of 60 kph gusting to 75 kph all afternoon and over night.  So two hours of valuable operating time was lost.

Once again the "tuner uppers" were out in force, tuning up on top of active QSO's, and a few band police were heard, but not as many as usual.  There were tons of European stations between 7.040 and 7.124, and very few of them working split for a change.

Overall  the propagation wasn't bad, it certainly wasn't as bad as the numbers would have led us to believe.    We started with SFI=115, SN=91, A Index at 7, and the K Index at 1, and finished on Sunday with the SFI=106, SN=74, A Index at 11, and the K Index at 2.  The bands did get a bit noisy, but there was so many signals on them it was hard to tell what real affect the SFI had on them.

It's all over except submitting the log, and then it's getting things tuned up and sorted for the ARRL Sweepstakes on November 21st & 22nd.

Winter Field Day 2016

On January 13^th & 14^th, 2007, the airwaves came alive with the QSO’s of the very first ever SPAR Winter Field Day.

Winter Field Day came about because many hams realized that we needed a method of testing ourselves for winter emergencies.  It’s not only during the warm months that disasters and emergencies happen, so why don’t we practice in the cold months…….frigid winds, icy limbs and bitter cold simply replace the thunderstorms and blistering heat of summer.

Over the past four years SPAR has actually accomplished very little, the five members of the Board of Directors are all getting up there in age, and have admitted that they are not in the best of health.  The silly thing here is that when the SPAR Bylaws were first written they do not allow for new Board members to be elected, the current five members are it, and are “there for life”.

Just before Winter Field Day 2015, Walt, W5ALT, who had actually been doing all of the work and was the “face” of SPAR suffered a very big stroke.  Of course nobody in SPAR knew this until people started trying to upload their logs and the website wouldn't let them do it.

Around the end of February, Charlie, KY5U, another board member appeared on the website for the first time in a very long time, and advised everyone that Walt had had a major stroke, and asked everyone to re-submit their logs to him for scoring.  Well, the re-submitted logs have never been seen again and no results have ever been posted.  Most of us figured this was going to happen as SPAR has been operating by accident for a long time.

Several individuals decided that Winter Field Day just had to be saved, and given the current state of the SPAR Board members health wise, it would be prudent to form a new association to take over the running of Winter Field Day, and they have done just that.The new Winter Field Day Association website can be found HERE. And you can all pencil in January 30^th & 31^st 2016........that’s the next Winter Field Day.

There is also a Facebook page, available HERE.

JOTA

What a great weekend for JOTA!!  While the bands were not in the best of shape, I did manage to have nearly 100 QSO's with JOTA stations around the world......some more easily that others.

The propagation numbers at 1843 UTC Saturday were SFI=115, SN=68, A Index=8, and K Index=2.  One can really feel that the bands are now slipping away to the bottom of this cycle, and I wonder what the numbers will be for next years Field Day.

I did learn something this weekend, from a seven year old Brownie in Tennessee, she told me that she knew all about Canada because we all worked in Santa's Workshop making the toys for the Children, and she was very happy we all did that............who was I to argue !!

It was great to hear so many youth on the air, perhaps there's hope for this hobby after all.

 

Jamboree on the Air

It's that time of year again.........next weekend, October 17th & 18th, the HF bands should come alive with the voices of youth.  

Jamboree on the Air, which is more commonly known by its acronym JOTA, is an international Scouting and Guiding activity held annually on the third full weekend in October. 

The event was first held in conjunction with the fiftieth anniversary of Scouting in 1957, and was devised by a radio amateur with the callsign G3BHK. It is now considered the largest event in Scouting.

Amateur radio operators from all over the world will participate with over 500,000 Scouts and Guides to teach them about radio and to assist them to contact their fellow Scouts and Guides by means of amateur radio.  

Since JOTA isn't a contest, there is no designated start time.  Get on the air when you're ready!

In North America the following frequencies are used:

3.690 and 3.940

7.090 to 7.190

14.290

18.140

21.360

24.960

28.390

JOTA is a worldwide event, and JOTA stations in Europe will be looking for contacts as well.  To avoid conflict with the Worked All Germany Contest, European JOTA Stations will be active on the following frequencies:

3.650 to 3.700

7.080 to 7.140

14.100 to 14.125 and 14.280 to 14.350

21.350 to 21.450

28.225 to 28.400

Get on the air and work the kids !!!!

Antenna issues....

We have had a heck of a gale blowing here in Kingston for the past 24 hours and it is expected to continue into tomorrow.  Winds are gusting to 50 kph and are expected to die down over-night.

Well, after three years up 50' in a maple tree my centre support line for my 80m OCF Dipole finally broke.  The antenna is still up the tree, either the balun or the coax has found a branch to hang on to, but I could pull it all the way down using the coax.

Oh well, I can't complain after having to do little to no maintenance to it over the past 3 years.  I'll have to get one of the guys to shoot a new line over the same tree with their compressed air cannon and I'll be back in action in no time.

The plan is to replace the current rope with UV resistant and to also use a piece of aircraft cable attached to the balun for extra strength.

The fun of amateur radio!!

Island Activating

Most of my readers know I like to take part in island activations, and many time I have wondered how this part of the hobby started.  Well, today Jose, VA3PCJ, sent me a picture from the very first, the original island activation........so now we all know the truth.

Hurricane Watch for Joaquin

The Hurricane Watch HF Net was activated at 1500 UTC yesterday (September 30) on 14.325 MHz during the day and 7.268 during the night for Hurricane Joaquin.   Please keep these frequencies clear for Hurricane Traffic.  

There is already a lot of active traffic being passed on this net, especially from Bermuda, and the Bahamas.  Stations on the US Eastern Seaboard who are now getting prepared and are checking in.  

For your information the current track of this Hurricane is scheduled to come ashore near Atlantic City and is now shown heading straight for Kingston, and according to the current track it should hit us starting sometime early Tuesday, although it may hit on late Monday.  

We may just get the tail end of it, but lets be ready.  This would be a good time to secure any loose items laying around outside of the house to minimize damage from flying objects. 

Dave - VE3DZE, our Canwarn Controller, will be bringing up a weather watch net well before it hits us.

Saturday on the Bands

What a great day on the bands today.  This had to be the best day in about six weeks for working DX.   Today 20m and 17m were the main bands, but I did hear weak signals on 15m as well, although I did not manage to work any of them.

The SFI today was: SFI=100, SN=66, A Index=5, and K Index=2.  Not the best of numbers, but better than I've seen in a while!

First up today was HV0A, Francesco operating from the Vatican.   This was my first ever contact with a HV0 station, and I'm pleased to finally get it in my log.

After that it was:

TF2MSN, Odinn in Iceland
OZ90IARU, Benny in Denmark
FG5DH in Chris in Guadeloupe
EI4HDB, Mark in Ireland
M0KEB, Kevin in England
EU7A, Andy in Belarus
R2015SM, Club station in Russia
HK3C, John in Colombia

Not too shabby for 5w and a wire antenna, I'm hoping Sunday's propagation holds up and I get a repeat of today!!

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.

Chillycon

Bob-VA3QV suited up for Chillycon.

Chillycon is coming up next weekend, September 12th & 13th, and looking at the long range weather forecast it looks like we're in for some great weather that weekend.  In fact, this looks to be the warmest one in a long time.

For those that don't know, Chillycon is a gathering of QRP operators from Eastern Ontario, and is sponsored by the Ottawa Valley QRP Society, and held at the Rideau River Provincial Park just across the river from Kemptville.

This will be my sixth year attending the event, and every year it gets better and I learn something new to take home.

This year I'm taking my old FT-857D and the new IC-718 with me which will give me an opportunity to compare them against each other on the air.  I've been meaning to do this for some time, in fact ever since the FT-857D came back to life.  Antennas going with me will be the Buddipole, the 31' vertical, and the 84' longwire.

So this coming week will be spent getting all the camping gear together, checking it over, getting it packed into the Rubbermaid containers, and getting ready to roll next Friday morning.

The weekend also gives us all a chance to catch up with old friends, and make new ones, and I'm really looking forward to it.

September....ALREADY !!!!!!

I cannot believe that today is the September 1st........where has the year gone??  Mind you September is going to be a busy month from what I see written on my calendar!

Coming up on the 12th & 13th is Chillycon, the annual gathering of QRP'ers in Eastern Ontario.  Held at Rideau River Provincial Park which is about half way between Smith's Falls and Ottawa.  If you can't make it for the full weekend, come on out for Saturday.  VA3QV will be there, in person, signing autographs from the back of the "mobile love shack".....don't miss that!!

That same weekend is also SOTA Weekend in North America.  So I would imagine the guys at Chillycon will be chasing the SOTA guys up and down the mountains.

The 19th is QRP Afield, the details for this years event have still not been published on line, but I imagine they will be shortly.  Details will be found HERE.

And lastly on the monthly calendar is the 2015 Boy Scout Brotherhood Event.  Held this year at Morrisburg, Ontario.  Details HERE.   Our club has been asked to go along and provide an radio display and an operating shack for the Scouts to visit.

It's going to be interesting trying to fit this lot in with the amount of gardening still to be done at this QTH !!