May QRP Sprint...

Another great night on the bands!  Lots of signals on 20m and 40m tonight and many European stations calling North America as well.

Saturday night was the third  2 hour QRP Sprint in a series of six sprints this year that the Upper Canada QRP Club sponsors.  The score is accumulative over the course of the year, so far Eric, VA3AMX, is in the lead, but that may change after tonights scores trickle in.

Propagation tonight at 2309 UTC was...SFI=69, SN=0, A Index=3, and the K Index=1. There was quite a bit of bad QSB as well, but it wasn't there all the time.

Best DX for me tonight was two contacts with the Azores, not bad for 10w RF into the OCF Dipole.  On top of that I worked 2 provinces and 4 states.  Not the best of results, but I am pleased with it.

I put the following in the log:

CQ8THANKS in the Azores
W0ZF in MN
CU3HN in the Azores
W8BI in OH
VE9FI in NB
KB3CMT/p in WV
K9GPV in IN
VA3QV in ON

I'm looking forward to the next sprint in July, hopefully the weather will be good and I can operate portable for that one.

Portable Ops......FOILED!!!!

Having been cooped up in the house for quite a while, I was making plans to sneak out of the house and do a POTA at Fort Henry, VE-4864.

However, it was foiled at the last minute.

John, VE3JPW, tried to get up there last night to do a check on his new HF portable antenna.  He discovered that they have blocked the access roads to keep people and cars away.  Isn't that nice!!

Oh well......I'm off to formulate "Operating Plan B".

The red lines in the Google Map shot below shows where the barriers are placed.

QRP Weekend...

In a word, it was disappointing.   The propagation was in the toilet, the weekend numbers were: SFI=69, SN=0, A Index=7, and the K Index=1.  This coupled with some deep QSB made for some very noisy bands.  Hopefully the propagation Gods will start to wake up and allow things to improve....quickly!

This weekend saw the QRP to the Field event and the Europe to North America SOTA event.  I hung around the usual QRP watering holes but never heard a sound from any station looking to make contacts for these events.  I have not even seen any news on the SOTA event on the SOTA reflector, so it was probably just as bad on the European end as it was ours on this side of the pond.  Perhaps by the November SOTA cross the pond event propagation will have improved.

The Ontario QSO Party for a QRP SSB station was just as bad.  I managed to make contacts on 80m, 40m, 20m, 6m, and 2m.   But my final score was less than half of last years.  I did manage to make contacts from VO2 land to VE7 land, so contacts where out there to be made, just extremely difficult to do by QRP apparently.

Next weekend is the Florida QSO Party.  Rules for that event can be found HERE.

2020 Summer Field Day...

As of todays date, it would seem the ARRL Programs and Services Committee has in fact considered the Wuhan Flu issue, and has decided not to make any rule changes. 

This is disappointing, current social distancing requirements as well as our new provincial and municipal laws very likely will impact just how, and even whether, we are able to participate in Field Day this year.

It would have been very easy for the ARRL to put rules in place that encourage social distancing early enough for clubs, and individuals, to make alternative arrangements.  Part of the Field Day concept has always been adapting your operation to the situation at hand, and this year we have a real doozy of a situation. 

I really hope everyone who wishes to participate in Field Day is able to do so this year, and can do so in a safe manner, even if you must operate from home.

2020 Winter Field Day Results...

The Winter Field Day scores have been published (HERE), a couple of months early thanks to the ongoing Wuhan Flu, and people being able to do it quicker due to unfortunately being laid off work.

I believe over 1400 logs were sent it.  Of that number only 47 entered as QRP in the Outdoor Section of the event.  Of those 47 QRP entries our group came third overall and were the top Canadian QRP entry.

This was our first Winter Field Day attempt as a QRP entry after many years of doing it QRO, we did not expect to do as well as we did, and I can tell you we certainly didn’t expect to be the top Canadian entry this year.  

It was a great team effort and plans are already underway to go bigger and better next year.

Things to do...

While we're all hunkered down trying to stay clear of this Covid-19, here's a few things to keep you busy next weekend....

To coincide with this years annual QRP To The Field event, the next Trans-Atlantic S2S QSO Party will be on Saturday 18th April 2020 between 1300z and 1700z.  Due to various restrictions in place in a number of EU countries about being outside, participant numbers may be down.

As usual, some may prefer to start a little earlier and others continue after 1700z when propagation has been known to improve.

This is also the same weekend as the Ontario QSO Party, so there will be lots of contacts out there to make.  Rules for this event are HERE.

The QRP To The Field event runs from 0800 local to 1800 local.  The Ontario QSO Party is split into two parts.  The first runs from 1800 UTC on April 18th to 0500 UTC on April 19th, and the second part runs from 1200 UTC to 1800 UTC on April 19th.  Their Rules are HERE.

As you can tell the bands should be hoping if the propagation Gods smile upon us that weekend.  

I'm planning on operating portable from my back deck as all parks and conservation areas in my part of the world are now closed to the public.   

Have fun and stay safe everyone!!

The Weekend's Results...

Let me start by saying I've had better contest results....   It was a very tough go for the most part, with very deep QSB on the bands here, especially on 15m and 20m.

Propagation wasn't the best, in fact the numbers never changed all weekend.  They were:  SFI=68, SN=0, A Index=5, and the K Index=2.  Those numbers, coupled with the deep QSB issue, made life pretty miserable.....especially for we QRP operators.

Looking back on the weekend it was probably a bad decision to opt to run QRP, but you know, somebody has to do it 😀

Once again, as with the big ARRL DX contest two weeks ago, the "Tuner Uppers" were out in force - making it even more difficult to complete an exchange under the marginal conditions we had.  I just don't get why people need to tune up right on frequency instead of moving off 5 or 10 kc.  It's just ignorant to be honest.

One other thing, I didn't hear anyone working split this weekend, and I can't figure out why.

I managed to make contacts on 80m, 40m, 20m, and 15m on Saturday, but on Sunday 15m was dead and not a sound was heard on it here.  20m became the 'go to' band on Sunday.

There seemed to be very few European stations on this weekend.  I heard no Scandinavian, Baltic, or UK stations....in fact there were a lot of stations I normally work in big contests that where missing.    I'm hoping it was the lousy propagation and not the current pandemic that was the cause of that.

I have to say how amazed I am to have heard so many operators, in the middle of a big contest, take the time to wish us well and to stay safe.  It was so nice to hear.

Hopefully life will get back to normal shortly, but until then....stay safe and take no chances!!

A Public Service Announcement...

This Weekends BIG Contest...

In many locations around the world we're all stuck indoors these days, and for those of you looking for something to do - other than looking at four walls, lucky for us this weekend is the CQ WW WPX Contest, SSB.

One of the years biggest contesting events, it's always a great way to collect those rare DX stations in the log.

Rules can be found HERE.

The contest runs from 0000 UTC March 28th to 2359 UTC March 29th.

Hope to work some of you on the air.

Have fun....and stay safe!

March QRP Sprint

Tonight was the second in a series of QRP sprints being run by the Upper Canada QRP Club.  They are 2 hours in length, and are held every 2 months, with the score being accumulative over the year.

Once again I used my KX3, it performed very well, I'm so glad I bought it.

I used both of my antennas during this Sprint.  It's very nice to have the option of switching between them as needed.  The majority of tonights contacts were done on the 80m OCF Dipole, which is now up at 50' since John, VE3JPW, put up a new support line for it.  Both antennas did a great job tonight.

The main workhorse tonight was 40m, it was crammed with stations called CQ for the Russian DX Contest.  As the Grey Line went through the propagation was fantastic, if I could hear them, I could work them with no issues.  It was near the end of a long day and they were hungry for contacts.

Propagation tonight was:  SFI=70, SN=0, A Index=6, and the K Index=1.  Almost identical to the last sprint in January.

So with 10 watts coming out of the KX3, I put the following stations in the log:

J42L in Greece
S53MM in Slovenia
HB9NE in Switzerland
HI8RD in the Dominican Republic
LZ5K in Bulgaria
VE3MNE in Ontario
4O4T in Montenegro
ED5N in Spain
CM6RK in Cuba
F5USK in France
N4PD in Virginia

Over all it was a great evening, and I'm really pleased with the contacts I made.

DXpedition Cancellations...

Due to the current world-wide situation, the following DXpeditions have been cancelled……for obvious reasons....everyone needs to stay safe.

Hopefully, we will see them relaunched when the world gets back to normal.

Stay safe out there....and wash your hands !!!

PZ5G - Papegaaien Island, SA-092

FK/Chesterfield - Chesterfield Island, OC-176

VU4R - Neil Island, Andamans Group, AS-001

TU2R - Ivory Coast

PJ2/DK5ON - Curacao Island, SA-099

DU2/SP5APW - Calayan Island, OC-092

ZC4MK - Cyprus, AS-044

V6ZP - Polap Atoll, OC-155

V62S - Satawal Atoll, OC-299

ZA/HG2DX - Albania

T30ET - Tarawa Atoll, OC-017

9K2F - Failaka Island, AS-118

ZD7VJ - St Helena Island, AF-022

Trans-Atlantic S2S QSO Party

To coincide with this years annual QRP To The Field event, the next Trans-Atlantic S2S QSO Party will be on Saturday 18th April 2020 between 1300z and 1700z. 

As usual, some may prefer to start a little earlier and others continue after 1700z when propagation has been known to improve.

This is also the same weekend as the Ontario QSO Party, so there will be lots of contacts out there to make.

The QRP To The Field event runs from 0800 local to 1800 local.  The Ontario QSO Party is split into two parts.  The first runs from 1800 UTC on April 18th to 0500 UTC on April 19th, and the second part runs from 1200 UTC to 1800 UTC on April 19th.

I'm already looking for a good operating location.....

A Great Weekend...

The ARRL International DX Contest is one I enjoy doing every year, to me it's the start of the contesting year.   Clearly, while the bands where not exactly in top form this year, we are I believe, out of the bottom of cycle 24 and coming up into cycle 25.

And yes, the "Lids" and "tuner uppers" where out in force all weekend doing what they do best.

40m was hopping on Friday night with wall-to-wall signals.  80m was busy with contest signals in-between the constant "let's talk about our medical issues" nets.....you know the type, they use 1500w to talk across town about their hemorrhoid problems, all the while splattering 15 kc either side of their signal!

Still, I managed to put 8 stations from the EU in the log as well as the UK and Northern Ireland on 80m, something that hasn't happened here in a number of years.

Friday night the propagation numbers were:  SFI=69, SN=0, A Index=7, and the A Index=0 at 0130 UTC.

Saturday morning 15m opened into South America and the Caribbean.  I managed to work most of the islands and all of South America with the exception of Bolivia.  I have never managed to work Bolivia, but I guess there are not too many hams there.

We also saw a very short opening on 10m as well, and I managed to put Brazil and Argentina in the log before the opening disappeared.

The Saturday propagation numbers were:  SFI=69, SN=0, A Index=4, and the A Index=2 at 1533 UTC.

Both of my antennas worked as advertised.  The 35.5' wire vertical did very well on 15m and allowed me to work that band without any issues.  I will have to add a few more radials in the spring though. The 80m OCF Dipole, now that it has been raised another 20' (it sits at 50' above the ground), also worked extremely well, and surprisingly also now works on 15m, something it has never done before.  I wonder if the new height has something to do with that?

Most of Saturday was spent working 15m with the odd expedition to 20m and 10m.  I found 20m to be an absolute zoo with multiple stations micro-kc's apart from one end of the band to the other.  I worked the loudest signals and went back to 15m.

The Sunday propagation numbers were:  SFI=70, SN=0, A Index=4, and the A Index=2 at 1100 UTC.

I had no intention of even trying to score millions this weekend as I wasn't sure how well the antennas would perform, so Sunday was a repeat of Saturday, only at a slower pace. I went from band to band and worked the loudest signals, and looking for those few I don't already have in my log book.

There was some very deep QSB on the bands on Sunday, nothing we couldn't deal with if you took your time and had some patience.

I shut down early with 100 contacts and 49 countries in the log.  Overall it was a very good weekend.  I had a lot of fun and plan on doing it all over again for the CQ WW WPX Contest at the end of the month.

Antennas...

I had quite the fruitful evening, my 80m OCF Dipole is back up in the air....at twice the height it was before.  Thanks to John, VE3JPW, it's now sitting up at 50' in the large pine tree at the back of the garden.

Between John and I, it took us about 20 minutes to get it back up into the tree thanks to a compound bow and a modified arrow.  That's going to be one useful tool at Field Day this June!

I tested it out with a quick check in with Mike, VE3CMM, the net controller for that hour on the ONTARS Net on 3.755.  Mike gave me a solid true 59 after I told him I was after a signal report after putting the antenna back up.  It was only after I had signed off that I realized that my FT-950 was set at 5w output, so it was a true QRP contact, even though it was unintended.  So I was very pleased with the 59 report.

Later I had a sched with Don, VE3MNE, who informed me I had bad RF on my 80m signal.  After playing around with the settings, and changing a piece of coax, it turned out to simply be my mic gain was turned up too high.  It was thankfully a cheap and simply fix.

It looks like I'm all set for the weekend, it will certainly be nice to be back on the air.  Even though I don't plan on a serious effort on this weekends contest, I'm looking forward to putting a good number of DX stations in the log.

ARRL International DX Contest

Coming up next weekend is the ARRL International DX Contest, SSB.  I'm really looking forward to this event this year as it will mean my antenna is finally back in the air!!

I have not made a single HF contact for the whole month of February.  The rest has been great, but it's time to get back on the bands.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate and the antenna will get in the air tomorrow after the club breakfast.

There is always tons of great DX during this contest which runs from 0000 UTC March 7 to 2359 UTC on March 8.  A full 48 hours of contesting.

Rules can be found HERE.

The bands are getting better...slowly, but they are improving.  Hopefully next weekend will have some good propagation for us all to enjoy a bit of that DX.

Hope to work some of you on the bands!!

Mobile Radio Exemption...

This news just in tonight:

The Ontario Ministry of Transportation has “made permanent the exemption under Ontario Regulation 366/09 (Display Screens and Hand-Held Devices) of the Highway Traffic Act for hand-held two-way radios for commercial drivers and Amateur Radio operators.” 

This is about time, it's been a long time coming.  We should never have been under threat of losing our mobile privileges at all....but that's another story.

2020 Plans...

So far it's been a quiet month, I haven't turned a radio on other than my 2m rig.  My 80m OCF Dipole is still down, and with the amount of snow in the back garden it's going to be a hard fix until the melt.

Sitting here writing this it is snowing again, and the wind is steady at 40 kts, not a pleasant day out there at all.

As usual at this time of year I have been planning my operating event schedule, and it's starting to fill up.

In the plans so far...

In April the North America SOTA Spring Activity Weekend on the 18th & 19th, QRP to the Field is the same weekend, so that's two for the price of one.

July 18th & 19th is the CQ WW VHF Contest.  Never done it before, but this year it's on the calendar.

August, no dates yet, will see a small DXPedition head up into Northern Ontario to activate some rare grids and get some rare parks on the air.  I've been invited, and I have the wife permission to go...... but haven't made my mind up on that one yet.

August is also Lighthouse Weekend and the W/VE Island QSO Party, both being held on the same weekend this year, the 22nd & 23rd.

September of course is Chillycon, where the cries of "Beat Eric" sing out amongst the trees.  This year it is being held on the 19th & 20th.

Plans are also afoot to activate a new island in early October.  I'll update that closer to the event.

Well that's it so far, much more to do and plan, but "She Who Must Be Obeyed" needs to be consulted first.

Stay warm everyone!!

Another WFD done...

Another great Winter Field Day down and done.

VE3ULC making the
satellite QSO.

This year we did a "3 Outdoor" QRP entry using the Upper Canada QRP Club callsign of VE3UCC.  It was a tight squeeze in the tent with 7 of us, but we made it work.

We set up the three antennas starting at about noon on Saturday.  I used a HyEndFed 9:1 Balun with 71' of wire, and it worked beautifully, just as advertised.  It went vertical up about 30' in a tree, and the horizontal component was aimed due south.  I also used two 12' radials on it.  The KX3 loved it and tuned it very quickly on all bands - 160m to 6m.  We also had a 80m OCF Dipole up and a EFHWA, both of them up about 40 feet.

Saturday, for most of the day it rained heavily, and that coupled with the snow on the ground made things very wet and damp.  Later in the day it turned to snow and we ended up with another 6" of it.  At least it wasn't very cold, in fact it hovered around 0C for most of the weekend.

Propagation was steady for the weekend and was:  SFI=72. SN=0.  A Index=5, and K Index=1.

The bands were very busy with people calling "CQ WFD", quite unlike several years ago when you hardly ever heard a station calling for WFD.  How times have changed!!

VE3MNE at the satellite station.

I used my KX3 powered by a 12 amp hour battery and was very impressed at how long the battery lasted.  The KX3 pulls very little out of the battery and it lasted forever.

Our main contacts were on 80m, 40m, and 20m.  We heard nothing on 160m, 15m, and 10m.  We did manage simplex contacts on 6m, 2m, and 70cm which added to our multipliers.

We also managed two DX QRP contacts on 20m,  one with Lithuania, and the other to the Canary Islands.  Both were easy to make, even at QRP power levels, and we received good signal reports back from them both.

However, at about 2000 hrs Saturday evening the bands just disappeared.  The signals for the most part just faded away.  Luckily our digital station managed to pull in a few more contacts before we shut down for the night.

Sunday we finally managed to get a satellite contact with a station in Western New York.  That was quite the occasion and the cheers in the tent were deafening.

It took us hardly any time at all to take everything down and coil up antennas and coax, and of course it was raining again.

Now we're looking forward to the warmth of spring so we can get out and play some more portable radio....but you never know, we'll probably be out before the warm hits.

One of our two KX3 stations.

QRP Sprint...

Tonight was the first of a series of QRP sprints being run by the Upper Canada QRP Club.  They are 2 hours in length, and are going to be held every 2 months, with the score being accumulative over the year.

This was the first event I have used my KX3 for since I bought it.   It performed very well, and I was very pleased with it.

Due to last weekends very high winds and bad ice storm, the only antenna I had available to use tonight was my 35.5' vertical wire feeding into a 4:1 balun.   It certainly wasn't the best antenna, it does need to be tweaked, but it did a good job tonight.

I managed to make seven 10w SSB contacts:  4 into Texas, 1 into Colorado, 1 into Ontario, and a great DX contact into the Cayman Islands with ZF2PG.  The last one made my night.  Given where we currently are in the solar cycle, I'm very pleased with the KX3 performance.

The propagation was definitely north-south for the most part.  The propagation numbers at 2030 UTC were:  SFI=71, SN=0, A Index=5, and the K Index=1.

Winter Field Day

Coming up on January 25th & 26th is Winter Field Day.

Information can be found HERE.

This is for ALL hams, not just North Americans.

The New Year...

VE3GO, VA3QV, VE3MNE, VE3WTN, & VE3DZE.

Some of the local characters at the Frontenac Radio Group meeting last night, held at the County Ambulance Logistics Base.

Instead of being out in the cold warehouse next to the command vehicles and support trucks, these guys snuck into the Chief's office.

As a group we are very fortunate to be able to use the logistics base for our meetings.  It also has the benefit that the paramedics, and their supervisors, know who was are.

Sad Day

Lieutenant-Colonel Fernand Gerard Villeneuve, AFC, CD, RCAF Rtd. 

July 2, 1927—December 25, 2019

Founder and First Commanding Officer of the 

RCAF Golden Hawks Aerobatic Team.

Australian Emergency...

DX Marathon...

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years, I know I certainly did.  2019 seemed to go by so fast, we can only hope 2020 slows down a bit so we can all enjoy it.

The other day I came across this LINK.  If you don't know about the DX Marathon have a read, it's a well kept secret that needs to be made much more public.

What a great motivation this will be to try and get on the air every day.  Hopefully, as the bands get better, and the propagation starts to improve, this will be fun.

The rules for this event can be found HERE.

Happy New Year Everyone...

Its over….for this year

I think this years RAC Winter Contest was the best in a number of years.....by far.   In the end I managed to work Coast to Coast to Coast, ending up with a respectable number of QSO's......far better than the last three years combined!!

As well I also managed DX QSO's with France, Slovenia, and Belgium, all on 20m, and all of them totally unexpected.  In the end I made contacts on 20m, 40m, 80m, and 160m.  Occasionally I checked both 10m and 15m, but I never heard a thing on them, not even  in the CW portion.

Propagation for the contest was: SFI=72, SN=0, A=13, and K=2.  I have heard other local ops tell me they had high noise on the bands that hindered their efforts, but I had none of that, the bands sounded good to me.

I even managed to work the ever elusive Bob, VA3QV, on 20m.  It's amazing where you find him 😁

Now I'm off to start making some long range plans for 2020.

RAC Winter Contest 2019

Coming up this weekend, December 28th, is the 2019 edition of the RAC Winter Contest.  This is a great relaxed contest, many of the Ops stop and have a quick chat during the contact.  It's a good way to work Canada, Coast to Coast to Coast.

Rules can be found HERE.

Merry Christmas Everyone...

The Weekend...

What an awful weekend on the bands.....especially 10m.  The ARRL 10m Contest was a dismal affair this year, with absolute garbage propagation to contend with.

I did manage to put two VE6 SOTA Summits in my log on 20m, and I made a number of local contacts on 80m.

However, 10m just wasn't there.  I had no responses to any of my CQ's and I heard no SSB stations at all.  There were a couple of CW stations down on the bottom end of the band but they were sending way too fast for me to read.  So that was it...a total bust.

The RAC Winter Contest takes place on December 28th.  One can only hope the propagation improves a great deal before then.....and pigs may fly as well 😎

ARRL 10m Contest

I'm looking forward to this weekends ARRL 10m Contest, and I'm hoping the propagation is good enough to make a serious attempt at it, at the very least I want to better my score from last year.

Looking at this weekends weather forecast, it looks like a good one to stay indoors and get on the radio.

Rules can be found HERE.

I'm thinking about doing a mixed mode (SSB & CW) QRP entry, using the new KX3.  Not sure my CW is up to speed though, but you have to bite the bullet and just dive in.

See you guys on the bands.

Coming Soon...

Planning on taking part in Winter Field Day, January 25th & 26th, 2020 ??

If you are, plot your location on this map located HERE, so far there is only one Canadian location shown....I'm sure there will be more, but let's get Canada on the map !!

The Rules for the event can be found HERE.

If you're planning on taking part in the outdoor category, you need to play it safe and start brushing up on your winter safety skills.  Don't take a chance, be safe.

First Snow...

Well, it arrived early this year, in fact it's a lot earlier than normal.....winter is still 5 weeks away!!! We're all hoping it doesn't stick around, otherwise it will start to get too cold and wet outside for our portable operating sessions.

The Winter Field Day website states: "Don't let the winter doldrums keep you locked up in the house, get out and play some radio!"  I can tell you that I have now reached the age were I long for a 8 week winter DXpedition to Fiji or perhaps Tahiti......but that's not going to happen.  Instead we'll suck up the winter crap and radio on.

This year Winter Field Day is being held on January 25th & 26th, 2020.  Mark it on your calendars, it's always a good time....even if it is cold.

In Remembrance

In Loving Memory

of the 

Officers, NCO's, and Men

of

2816 Squadron, RAF Regiment

December 1941 - June 1946

True Words ....

Comments

Just a quick note to inform my readers that I have had to limit comments to users with Google Accounts.  I did not want to have to do this, BUT.....there's always a BUT....it's the only way I can stop the constant spamming of the comments section.

On the average day I was receiving up to 200 comments from European porn sites and it was a real pain stopping them before they went live on the Blog.

So, for a little bit of an inconvenience, I now do not have to check the Blog every 30 minutes to make sure some pervert hasn't spammed me and filled the inbox with some form of porn.

Thanks for your understanding!!

The Weekend...

This years edition of the CW WW SSB Contest is now over, and from what I have seen of some already submitted scores, you either had propagation or you didn't.

Due to some medical stuff going on we called off the mini-DXpedition to the QTH of VE9FI, where we have operated from for the past two years, and stayed close to home.

The propagation numbers were not very promising, the SFI=67, SN=0, A Index=18 and the K Index=3.  These numbers, unfortunately, stayed pretty stable for the whole weekend.

I managed to make contacts on all bands except 10m.  I even managed to make three contacts on 160m with my 80m OCF Dipole, which has very obviously stretched!!  But, this was the weekend I wanted to try out my new 35.5' vertical on 15m, and it certainly didn't disappoint me.

Amongst many others, I put HH2AA (Haiti), FY5KE (French Guiana), TM6M (France), PJ4K (Bonaire), and 5K0K (San Andres & Providencia) in the log, all worked on 15m, so I have nothing to complain about its performance.  I still plan on putting more radials down before the snow flies, and then it should just be about perfect for my use.

For the most part the bands were extremely noisy with very deep QSB.  Signals were S9+ and a second later were gone completely only to reappear a few seconds later as S4.  Lots of stations had big signals, obviously running a bit of power, but they were not hearing the stations calling them, they were completely deaf, and this led to more than a bit of frustration for the S&P guys.

The other thing that was going on was stations were rushing their callsigns so fast you couldn't understand them at all.  Then to top that off, they didn't leave enough room in-between their calls for you to sneak in your callsign.  It was rush, rush, rush, and in the end nobody won. Slow down so people can understand you and answer your CQ - then everyone will be happy.

The prize for the loudest and cleanest signal this year must go to ZF1A (Cayman Islands).  What a signal they had!  I think I worked them on three bands, and everyone was a joy to work, and very professional operators as well.

So that's it for another year.  Hopefully next year we will be back down with VE9FI operating with much better propagation.

Trans-Atlantic SOTA Event

Just a reminder for those SOTA fanatics out there reading the Blog - the next Trans-Atlantic S2S (Summit to Summit) event is on Saturday 2nd November 2019, generally between the hours of 13:00 and 17:00 UTC. 

For those with more battery capacity, summit shelters and generally more stamina than others, those timings may go out + 1 hour at either end of the above period.

You do not have to be on a SOTA summit to chase these guys, just get on the air, chase them, and support them.....they'll appreciate it.

For a list of available VE3 Summits have a look HERE.

Get outside, operate, and have some SOTA fun !!

CQ WW DX SSB 2019

CQ WW DX SSB is coming up next weekend: October 26-27.  The contest starts at 00:00:00 UTC Saturday and ends at 23:59:59 UTC Sunday.

The CQ WW SSB is the largest Amateur Radio competition in the world. Over 35,000 participants take to the airwaves this last weekend of October with the goal of making as many contacts with as many different DXCC entities and as many CQ Zones as possible.

The 2019 Rules can be found HERE.

This is by far my favourite contest, and one of the very few I do on a serious basis.  For the first time in three years I will not be operating from the VE9FI station in New Brunswick due to a couple of issues with the station, a number of items are out for repair and will not be back in time.  Propagation wise we're at the bottom of Cycle 24 and I don't really expect a lot this year, I think we'll have to fight for every DX contact we make.

I'm sure the FT-950 and the two antennas will get a good workout this weekend, and I look forward to writing another post telling you all how well I did.

Good luck everyone.

New Antenna

I decided to put up a second HF antenna the other day as the 80m OCF I have up in the air will not tune on 15m at all.  Now, I know there's not much action on 15m these days....but one can always hope.

It's up in a tree that hangs over my back deck, and the radials are partly on the deck and partly on the lawn.  I built it with used 18 gauge speaker wire that was originally used for my 148' longwire that I took down last year.

After googling a number of different antennas I settled on the following:

So far it has worked great and I have had excellent signal reports from all the stations I have talked to.  It tunes up quickly on every band from 80m up to 6m with the FT-950's built in ATU.  That ATU is no good for mis-matches greater than 3.1 to 1.   

Next weekend is the NY State QSO Party, that will be it's first big test.

New York QSO Party

Coming up next weekend is the New York QSO Party.  I'm hoping the propagation improves before then as I would like to better my QRP score from last year........but things aren't looking too good right now.

Rules can be found HERE.

Being so close to New York State I will be mainly on 40m and 80m with the occasional visit to 160m late at night.  I'll also give 10m and 6m a listen as well, you just never know when they will open up.

Hope to work you on the bands for this event.

KX3

I've made a few contacts on the KX3 now and I'm very impressed with the rig.  People are correct though, the menu system takes quite a bit of getting used to and figure out.....but I'm sure I'll get used to it in the end.

I took it out to the park on Sunday to operate, but unfortunately the SFI was so bad it was just a waste of time.  It seems we had a minor solar storm.

Although operating the radio was a waste of time, I did take time with the help of Rick, VE3ORY, to cut to the correct length the new Packtenna I bought several months ago now.   It will be interesting to see how this antenna performs with the KX3.

Normally when I head to the park I take a pile of equipment with me, weighing several tonnes it seems.  That has changed, I can't get over how light and small my portable kit is now.  My sore back thanks me.

Hopefully, although the weather is starting to turn and get cooler, I will still be able to get out and put the radio through its paces before the snow flies this winter.  It will also make a change for Winter Field Day as it's small enough to operate from the front seat of my van for that event....I might even be able to stay warm.

New Radio....

A new radio arrived at the QTH today, a brand new KX3....with all the bells and whistles.  I've wanted one of these radios for a good number of years, in fact ever since I saw Steve, WG0AT, try one out.  Actually, at the time Steve was trying out KX3 Serial Number 001.

I've heard it's the Rolls Royce of QRP radios, well, we will see this coming weekend when it gets taken out on it's first trip to the park.  I will post a report on how that goes.


It's back to reading the manual now....I don't want to break it on the first time to the park.

La Grosse Ile - QC-010

Coming up on September 29^th, Pierre, VE2GT will be activating Grosse Ile – QC010, and the Irish Memorial National Historic Site CNPOTA QC24.  The Island is also POTA VE-4910 and VEFF-1507.

He will be using 80m to 10m and will be on the air from 1445 UTC to 1815 UTC 

+/- delay of the boat.

You can follow him at: https://aprs.fi/#!call=a%2FVE2GT-5&timerange=3600&tail=3600