And......more good WSPR

How about this for a good evenings WSPRing on 30m?   This was last night at 2300 UTC on February 21.  Australia and South Africa....not too shabby for 500 Mw in the inverted L long wire.

Amazing contacts....

Just back from our weekly ham radio breakfast and decided to put WSPR on for an hour or two, and the map below show's my first half hour on 30m.  It's not often I get into Africa and Australia in the same hour.

I am surprised at the lack of trans-Atlantic traffic though.  Normally Europe is booming in here at this time of day.

These contacts were made on my 148' inverted L long wire antenna up at 60', and using 500 mW.

30m, 1520 UTC on 19 February 2017.

And, here's the propagation for this hour:

WSPR.....again

During these "quiet" times I have been continuing my propagation experiments using WSPR.   The following maps show the results of 500 mW into a 148' inverted L longwire antenna up ay 60'.

I'm hoping to get a 200 mW transmitter using a Raspberry Pi shortly, and then we will see what we can really do.

20m, 1423 UTC on 17 February 2017

17m, 1527 UTC on 12 February 2017

40m, 2154 UTC on 14 February 2017

40m, 2214 UTC on 14 February 2017

Very Quiet Times......

Not much going on around the shack to report.   The weather and propagation have both been pretty bad so not much radio work has been going on.

Hopefully this will change in another month as we get out to activate a few islands and maybe a new lighthouse.

My best buddy, VE3MNE, is retiring at the end of March, so who knows what trouble and adventures we will get up to together.   We are planning a mini-DXpedition to visit VE9FI in Hampton, NB, at the end of October, so we can take part in the CQ WW DX Contest from that QTH.  That will be worth several posts on here alone.

Other planned weekend activities, so far, include the International Lighthouse Weekend in late August, the W/VE Island QSO Party, Field Day, and the Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour in early June.

 

The Weekend and Sunday WSPR

Well, I managed to pull 128 contacts out of a hat for the NAQP on Saturday, January 21st, which triples my score from last year........so I'm pleased.   It was kind of disappointing though, the only Canadian stations heard and worked were from Ontario and Manitoba, the rest of the country had a cone of silence over it.

Over the course of the day I managed to work stations on all bands except 10m, which was far too noisy to work anything if they were there.

Sunday morning, after our Ham Breakfast, I fired up the WSPR and started off on 20m with 500mW.   Lots of stations across NA and Europe reporting hearing me, I was quite surprised actually.

After about an hour I switched to 15m, and while I did make a cross-Atlantic contact into the Netherlands, it was mainly NA contacts.

40m wasn't too bad, but no hits were received from anywhere other than NA.  No cross Atlantic traffic at all.

Just for the record, the propagation at 2146 UTC Saturday was:  SFI-86,  SN-61, A Index-10, and K Index-3.   Sunday, at 0119 UTC was: SFI-86,  SN-61,  A Index-11, and K Index-4.

20m at 1630 UTC, 22 January

15m at 1730 UTC, 22 January

40m at 1810 UTC, 22 January

Winter Field Day

The highlight of the winter season is taking place next weekend.......Winter Field Day!!  

The event runs for 24 hours - from 1900 UTC on January 28th to 1900 UTC of January 29th.

The Rules can be found HERE.

This event was started by SPAR, who gave up running the event last year when the Winter Field Day Association took it over.

This is a chance to practice our Emcomm and deployment skills under cold weather conditions, instead of the bugs and oppressive high heat of June.  As the association states: "Not all emergencies happen in the good weather".

If you're on Facebook, have a look at the WFD Page...HERE.  There's over 1500 members to exchange notes and ideas with.

Gently Chastised......

I was very gently chastised last night for slacking off on my blog by one of the members of the Kingston amateur radio fraternity

I must admit, over the past few months I have not been too active here, and even my time on the bands has not been as much as what I would have liked.....But........sometimes life gets in the way.

Over the past few months I, and three others, have been pretty busy getting organized to run this years basic ham course.  We have redesigned it from the ground up, and this has meant producing hundreds of powerpoint slides for the lectures.    This has been my priority, and I make no apologies for that, getting new young blood into this hobby has been the priority and will remain so.

We had our first class last Wednesday evening.  The classroom, which holds 28, was full of eager and enthusiastic people, many of them from the College that is kindly hosting the course.   It was really great to see and hopefully the course can become an annual event here.

Now all I need to do is get back in the habit of posting here.......

Basic Ham Course

I can not begin to tell you all how many "doom & gloom" articles I have read over the past 10 years on the subject that Amateur Radio is a dying hobby.  I've read it's for "old farts" only, that you must have one foot in the grave before you will be accepted into the hobby......you name it, I've read it.....all of it was total BS.

Here's an idea for all the doomsayers out there.....how about approaching your local community college about hosting a basic course?  You might be pleasantly surprised.

Here in Kingston, the Frontenac Amateur Radio Club approached St. Lawrence College about hosting a ham radio course and they couldn't do enough for us!  

Starting on the evening of January 18th, we will be running a course at St. Lawrence College, and it's full, all 28 seats in the electronics lab we have the use of have been filled........and the average age of the students is 23.  So much for being an "old farts" hobby!!

Many Thanks go out to St. Lawrence College for their great support and help in getting this course off the ground!

More WSPR

As the propagation slips away on its downward slide to the solar minimum I plan on keeping a record of my daily WSPR'ing so we can see the effect.

Power output today was 5w on all bands.   Here's todays 20m picture:

As you can see, as of 1717 UTC we had lots of activity across North America, not so much across the Atlantic.   As of 2116 UTC the propagation numbers were: SFI-74, SN-0, A Index-10, and K Index-2.

I also spent some time having a look at what 40m was producing, the following picture is of 40m as of 1817 UTC today:

No hits outside of the eastern side of the continent, and nothing trans-Atlantic at all.

If you're interested in taking part in the WSPR beacon project, their website can be found HERE.

WSPR

Spent another good afternoon on the WSPR frequencies.  It never ceases to amaze me what you can do with a lowly half watt, a wire antenna, and crappy propagation.

Here's todays 20m map:

Not sure how that Norwegian station was hearing me, he must have one hell of an antenna farm!!

Happy New Year

Well, it's that time of year again, time to make New Year Resolutions.  I'm not going to bother this year, I made a resolution four years ago and so far I haven't broken it, so why ruin things.....

As Albert Einstein said: "Learn from yesterday, live for today, and hope for tomorrow."

I hope you all have a great New Years, and a great 2017.  Stay safe out there!

Oh yeah, the resolution I haven't broken?  Not to drink cheap Whiskey on Wednesday nights.......

Back on the Air with Digi

While Santa didn't bring a new radio or antenna to the VE3FI Shack, I did get my small laptop fixed so I'm finally back on the air with FLDigi, mainly using PSK31.  Thanks to Jim, VE3ULC, for doing that for me.

Due to poor band conditions most digi contacts have been fairly local, but I did manage a good "DX" contact all the way from Saskatchewan........ Given the crappy SFI numbers I'll take anything west of Thunder Bay !!

I hope everyone had a good day yesterday, our house was filled with family, and I can't believe the amount of food we went through.

Now to build up strength to get through the New Years celebrations !!!

WSPR

I did some 40m WSPR tonight, the first time in a few months.   Below is the map from 0130 UTC.  The lonely Brazilian station must have a good set of ears !!

Christmas 2016

The snow is on the ground, and the last contest of the year is done and logged.  I have no idea where the past 12 months went, it seems like only last week I was writing Christmas wishes for 2015.  Hopefully 2017 will take a bit longer to get through!

Christmas is the perfect season to be reaching out to others when laughter and good tidings are in the air.  Here's hoping that your Christmas will find you amongst friends and family, sharing the spirit of the season.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

ARRL 10m Contest

This weekend we have more fun and games on the bands with this years edition of the ARRL's 10m contest.

Not sure how the contest will pan out this year, 10m has not been in good shape for a good couple of months now and the propagation numbers certainly don't give me any hope to celebrate.

My antennas seem to be in good shape, so we will forge ahead and see what we can do.

Rules and other information can be found HERE.

Not much has been going on in the VE3FI shack for the past few weeks.  The Ford Ranger that I have travelled about in for the past 9 years has been sold, and a 2014 Dodge Grand Caravan has been bought to replace it.

So far so good, the ride is comfortable and the gas mileage seems to be far better than the old Ranger.   The only issue seems to be interference from the on board computers with my Icom 2m rig I have had installed.  The only way I can comfortably operate is with the squelch turned full on, otherwise the constant noise drives me insane.

November Sweepstakes

Time to get those antennas tuned up and ready.

Coming up this weekend is the 2016 edition of the November Sweepstakes.  US and Canadian stations, working on 160m through 10m, try to work as many callsigns as possible.

Always a good contest, this year is shaping up to be a good one as well.

Let's hope the propagation improves somewhat.  At the moment (Friday) solar levels seem to be stuck at some pretty low levels.  The large coronal hole that caused the major issues in September and October is now rotating back into view on the face of the Sun.  Hopefully we'll get through the weekend first.....

Rules can be found HERE.

Robert (Bob) Goyetche, VE2PDT - SK

Just received the very sad news this morning that Bob, VE2PDT, became a Silent Key on November 10th.

Bob was part of the VE2 contingent that attended ChillyCon.   He will be missed.  My thoughts are with his family and friends, his sudden passing is a great shock.

Robert (Bob) Goyetche, VE2PDT

1969 - 2016

The memory of a good person is a blessing

Proverbs 10:7

Remembrance Day 2016

In Loving Memory of the

Officers, NCO's, and Men

of

2816 Squadron RAF Regiment

1941 - 1946

"PER ARDUA"

In Memory of

LCol David "Doc" Purich

Maj Colin "Turk" Fisher

MWO Ben Lemarbre

Cpl JC Smith

Gone, but never forgotten.

CQ WW Contest

It was an interesting weekend on the bands.  The propagation was not the best to say the least, and that led to some issues.  The LIDS were out in force, bitching and swearing at the contesters....you know it's very important that people use 1500w to talk on 20m across town discussing their most recent hemorrhoid medication.

I would really like to meet the American clown who was jamming me on 7.191 on Saturday afternoon because I was on "his" frequency....and he had a net to do on it in 2.5 hours!!!!!!!  The audacity of me to use that frequency.....I could tell he was foaming at the mouth about it and I thought he was going to declare war.   Who knows, maybe the FCC are now selling "personal" frequencies to help raise money........

Saturday morning saw the numbers at SFI=78, SN=16, A Index=26, and the K Index=3.  The bands were very noisy, and had some deep QSB issues.

One of the big issues was that there was very little east-west propagation, it was nearly all north-south.  It was relatively easy to work South America and the Caribbean, Europe was another matter all together!

Things were a little better on Sunday and I did manage to get Spain, Wales, Slovenia, Portugal, Finland, and Iceland in the log.  Best catch of the day was 6W1RY in Dakar, Senegal, on 15m mid-afternoon on Sunday.  I had been calling him on and off many times over the contest and finally broke the pileup.   New Zealand also got in the log as well as a couple of other unusual places.

Even with the idiots causing issues, I managed to put 82 countries in the log with 234 contacts....BUT..... I can tell you that I had to work for every one of them.

Next up is the ARRL Sweepstakes on November 19/20, and I have to get a better 15m antenna up ready for that contest.

NVIS Operating

Coming up next Sunday, October 16th, is the NVIS Event sponsored by the Peel ARC.  This event has had a lot of interest raised about it in Eastern and Southern Ontario.

Details on the event can be found HERE.

Timing for the event is 1300 to 1600 Local.

Frequencies are:  3.700 to 3.750.  7.060 to 7.070, and 5.357.

Stations taking part should call "CQ NVIS Ontario".

Hope to see you on the bands!

Hurricane Matthew Emergency Nets

Active for the past 2 days in response to the threat posed by Hurricane Matthew, the Hurricane Watch Net (HWN) now has ramped up to its Alert Level 5 — “Catastrophic Response Mode.” As the dangerous category 4 storm has begun battering Haiti and threatens eastern Cuba, states along the US Eastern Seaboard now are taking serious notice. 

Emergency operations centers in Florida, Georgia, and Virginia are at full or partial activation, and the governors of Georgia and North Carolina have declared states of emergency. 

Matthew made landfall near Les Anglais in western Haiti at 1100 UTC. 

The following Frequencies are now in full time use and should be kept clear for emergency traffic:

Hurricane Watch Net: 14.325 & 7.268

Salvation Army SATERN Net: 14.265

Cuban Net: 7.110, 7.120, 7.045, 7.080, 3.740, and 3.720

Dominican Republic Net: 7.065

Be advised that Jamaica and Haiti also have nets running full time, but no frequencies have been made public yet.