I received the following email in my inbox this morning from the Prince Edward County Radio Club:
New Ham - Aaron Wiik - VE3UDA - 10 years old!!
Posted by: Mike Papper ve3vmp
Date: Wed Jun 13, 2012 12:10 am ((EST))
I am pleased, honoured and excited to announce that Aaron Wiik VE3UDA,
10 years old, has passed the Basic Amateur Radio exam with a score of 74%.
Both Aaron VE3UDA and his dad Peter VA3ORU (passed with honours) were students of our Fall 2011 course. They live in Cherry Valley. So please welcome our new Hams to the Magic of Radio when you hear them on the air in the coming months.
Congratulations to Aaron-VE3UDA, and well done!!
Wednesday, 13 June 2012
Monday, 11 June 2012
RLCT 2012 - The Wrap Up
This past weekend saw the 41st annual Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour run between Ottawa and Kingston......and a great time was had by one and all.
For the seventh year running the Frontenac EmComm Group (FECG) provided the communications for the southern part of the route, between Perth Road Village and Kingston. Ottawa ARES looks after Carleton University to Black's Corner's, and Lanark-North Leeds ARES looks after the middle section. This year, all three groups, had over 40 operators working over the weekend.
FECG looked after the radio check points at Perth Road Village, Loughborough Lake, Inverary, Glenburnie, McAdoo's Lane, and Queen's University. Both myself and Don-VE3MNE manned the Perth Road Village radio check point. We ran net control for the southern portion on the VE3FRG repeater, and a liaison station with Westport net control on the Christie Lake repeater.
Establishing comms was pretty easy this year using the VE3FRG repeater, none of the stations required a lot of power to reach it. VE3FRG has a huge footprint and we used an awful lot of it.
However, trying to hit the Christie Lake or Lavant repeaters was another matter. It seems my Ringo Ranger has an issue, and as a result has an SWR of 4.1:1 and was pretty much unusable. So, using typical ham ingenuity, we put up a 5/8 mag-mount, but we had to mount it on a cast iron frying pan for a ground plane as it was the only item we had that the magnet would stick to. We then put the frying pan on top of the village sign to get enough height to reach the Christie Lake repeater.......and I've no idea why Don carries a frying pan in his truck!!
We arrived on scene at 1030L, and the first rider went through our location at 1140L - flying faster than Bob-VA3QV's electric Vesper!! Everything was going smoothly until we were informed of a memorial service being held in the village church, just across the road from where we were set up. I think they expected us to close up shop and disappear, but with 2200+ cyclists coming through the village there was nowhere else for us to go. In the end we simply turned down the radios so they were not blaring away, and asked the riders to be quiet and slow down by the church, which they all did with the utmost of respect, and that calmed the situation.
We ended up having some pretty heavy rain from about 1500L till 1630L. The last rider blew through our location about 1730L and then we started the drive down to Queen's to play "tail-end Charlie" and pick up radio equipment there.
Sunday was a very early start for our portion of the event. Out of bed at 0500L and on the road to Perth Road at 0525. I past the first rider heading north at 0540L just past Hwy 401. The fog on the Perth Road was very thick and visability was less than 50m at times.....kind of scary early in the morning with the deer out on the roads.
The weather was very hot and muggy, the Perth Road General Store was a hot spot for topping up on water and food for the long slog ahead. The terrain around Perth Road is fairly hilly and the muggy weather must have made it pretty tough for some of the riders.
Lots of hams involved besides those manning the radio check points. We had five or six mobile in various vehicles, doing pick-ups for riders who opted out, or the repair trucks. It was nice to see the amateur community come together and doing some worthwhile community service.
For a look at how things played out from the Ottawa end, have a look at my old friend Bob's page - HERE.
'Twas a great weekend all-in-all, looking forward to next year, especially with the proposed changes.
For the seventh year running the Frontenac EmComm Group (FECG) provided the communications for the southern part of the route, between Perth Road Village and Kingston. Ottawa ARES looks after Carleton University to Black's Corner's, and Lanark-North Leeds ARES looks after the middle section. This year, all three groups, had over 40 operators working over the weekend.
 |
| Don-VE3MNE running the net from his "command post" |
Establishing comms was pretty easy this year using the VE3FRG repeater, none of the stations required a lot of power to reach it. VE3FRG has a huge footprint and we used an awful lot of it.
However, trying to hit the Christie Lake or Lavant repeaters was another matter. It seems my Ringo Ranger has an issue, and as a result has an SWR of 4.1:1 and was pretty much unusable. So, using typical ham ingenuity, we put up a 5/8 mag-mount, but we had to mount it on a cast iron frying pan for a ground plane as it was the only item we had that the magnet would stick to. We then put the frying pan on top of the village sign to get enough height to reach the Christie Lake repeater.......and I've no idea why Don carries a frying pan in his truck!!
 |
| Riders at Perth Road Store |
We ended up having some pretty heavy rain from about 1500L till 1630L. The last rider blew through our location about 1730L and then we started the drive down to Queen's to play "tail-end Charlie" and pick up radio equipment there.
Sunday was a very early start for our portion of the event. Out of bed at 0500L and on the road to Perth Road at 0525. I past the first rider heading north at 0540L just past Hwy 401. The fog on the Perth Road was very thick and visability was less than 50m at times.....kind of scary early in the morning with the deer out on the roads.
Lots of hams involved besides those manning the radio check points. We had five or six mobile in various vehicles, doing pick-ups for riders who opted out, or the repair trucks. It was nice to see the amateur community come together and doing some worthwhile community service.
For a look at how things played out from the Ottawa end, have a look at my old friend Bob's page - HERE.
'Twas a great weekend all-in-all, looking forward to next year, especially with the proposed changes.
Saturday, 2 June 2012
Government Cutbacks......
We've all heard about it, everytime you pick up a newspaper or read the news on the Internet, all you see are articles on the federal cutbacks and provincial cutbacks.
Apparently the cutbacks have also impacted the Ontario Provincial Police! You'll notice their new cruiser in the picture below.....
This picture was taken today on the campus of Queen's University here in Kingston.
This new model must be very good on gas...not sure how good it will be in a high speed highway chase.
Actually, all kidding aside, the Special Olympics are being held here in Kingston this weekend at the CFB Kingston Sports Complex, and police forces from all over the Province are here looking after, and mentoring, the kids, and this car was here for that event. I'm sure it gave the kids as big a chuckle as it did me.
In fact the parking lot at Queen's looked like a police convention as there were cars from just about every police force in Ontario parked there. Nice to see the boys in blue looking after the kids.
Apparently the cutbacks have also impacted the Ontario Provincial Police! You'll notice their new cruiser in the picture below.....
This new model must be very good on gas...not sure how good it will be in a high speed highway chase.
Actually, all kidding aside, the Special Olympics are being held here in Kingston this weekend at the CFB Kingston Sports Complex, and police forces from all over the Province are here looking after, and mentoring, the kids, and this car was here for that event. I'm sure it gave the kids as big a chuckle as it did me.
In fact the parking lot at Queen's looked like a police convention as there were cars from just about every police force in Ontario parked there. Nice to see the boys in blue looking after the kids.
Saturday, 26 May 2012
Early morning activities
It may be Saturday but I was still up at 0500 local to get ready to go to Fort Henry Hill to play radio and test out a new antenna that Tim, VA3TIC had made.
The first news about the "new" Fort Henry is that it is terrible. They have now paved the parking lot making it almost impossible to use at any other time than very early morning, we should be OK between 0500 and 0800, but not later than that due to vehicle traffic on the site.
Secondly they now have a "rent-a-cop" on site who came over to ask what the hell we were doing, and thirdly the new visitors center built on the east side of the parking lot is filled with a dozen or so huge plasma screens, and we now have a noise floor level of S7 on all bands.
Back to Tim's new antenna........it's a homebrewed 31 foot aluminum vertical made with salvaged parts from long dead antennas. It has four 31 foot radials and four 16 foot radials, and he has it mounted on his trailer hitch and uses a homebrew 4:1 balun with it.
It works very well and we were getting out with no problem. First station worked with it was PI9SRS, a Scout Troop radio club in Spijkenisse, Netherlands, on 20m who gave us a 54.
Next up was a check into Ontars on 3.755 who gave us a 59. The best contact of the morning was with ZL2WL, Wayne in Hastings, New Zealand, also on 20m who gave us a 55. Not too shabby for a antenna made up of scrap aluminum.
So now the journey starts to find a new, quiet, hassle free early morning operating spot in or around Kingston. Makes me wish I was back home in BC operating up in the mountains again. Oh happy days!!
The first news about the "new" Fort Henry is that it is terrible. They have now paved the parking lot making it almost impossible to use at any other time than very early morning, we should be OK between 0500 and 0800, but not later than that due to vehicle traffic on the site.
Secondly they now have a "rent-a-cop" on site who came over to ask what the hell we were doing, and thirdly the new visitors center built on the east side of the parking lot is filled with a dozen or so huge plasma screens, and we now have a noise floor level of S7 on all bands.
It works very well and we were getting out with no problem. First station worked with it was PI9SRS, a Scout Troop radio club in Spijkenisse, Netherlands, on 20m who gave us a 54.
Next up was a check into Ontars on 3.755 who gave us a 59. The best contact of the morning was with ZL2WL, Wayne in Hastings, New Zealand, also on 20m who gave us a 55. Not too shabby for a antenna made up of scrap aluminum.
So now the journey starts to find a new, quiet, hassle free early morning operating spot in or around Kingston. Makes me wish I was back home in BC operating up in the mountains again. Oh happy days!!
Friday, 18 May 2012
Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour 2012
The majority of riders come from Ontario and Quebec but there are also entrants from many of the other provinces, the United States and occasionally, even from abroad.
This year we will be operating five radio checkpoints, Perth Road Village, Loughborough Lake, Inverary, Glenburnie, and Queens University. These locations will be manned for both Saturday and Sunday.
This year we are trying something different. The Station at Perth Road Village will have two radios, one on the VA3TEL 2m repeater at Christie Lake and the other on the VE3FRG repeater using the 70cm link. Hopefully this will stop any interference between the two radios. In the past these two radios have both been on 2m, and we have had several interference issues.
Here's hoping the weather cooperates this year.
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