It's done!

Yes, after two years and four attempts, the activation of Upper Brewers Mill Island was finally completed this morning.  Upper Brewers in now officially designated as ON-294.

The bands were not in the greatest of shape today, both 40m and 20m were very noisy and both had quite deep QSB.  40m was very short as well.  Despite calling CQ on 10m and 15m we managed zero contacts on those bands.

There was lots of juggling frequencies this morning as there always seems to be a net in Spanish on 14.250, and they're there 24/7, as well as the ECARS Net which sits slap bang in the middle of the IOTA calling frequencies at 14.255.  By the way, the language from the ECARS Net Controller this morning left a lot to be desired, and yes, he did actually give his callsign. There seems to be far too much foul and abusive language on the air these days, and there is no need for it at all.

The majority of the contacts were done on 40m using a 31' vertical and a FT-857D.  The other station ran a IC-718 into a 20m vertical Buddipole.

This will be the last of the island activating for a while........Field Day is a coming !!

Many thanks to all those we managed to work today, we appreciate your being there!

High SWR..... ?????

Having just read Mike's Blog, VE3WDM, about his high SWR problem....it as 99.9:1,  I was glad to read Mike got the problem sorted out without any damage to his equipment.

I can only recommend to him, and others, to use the following if it happens in the future.....it may help ;-)

Available at all fine Ham Radio Stores........

Upper Brewers Mill Island Activation.......Again!!

The Locks at Upper Brewers mill

OK, we're going to try and do this again......for the fourth time!

This Saturday morning between 1300 UTC and 1700 UTC the Frontenac Radio Group is going to attempt to break the jinx, and finally activate Upper Brewers Mill Island, which is located on the Rideau Canal system.

Grid is FN14uj.

Callsign in use will be the group's call, VE3FRG.

Hopefully the bands will be singing so we can get this activation over and done with.

There will be two HF station on the air, and as usual, the frequencies will be +/-........

7.250
14.250 to 14.260
21.350
28.450

I'll be using the new IC-718 and my Chillycon 31' vertical.

The Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour - 2015 Edition

The VE3CLQ Mobile on Sunday

We had perfect weather for this years edition of the Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour, warm with just a touch of wind.

As in years past my job took me to Perth Road Village were we have two stations operating at the General Store.  One station is the Net Control for the Frontenac Section of the tour, and the other station is the liaison station with the Lanark Section Net.  This system seems to work very well for us and allows the passing of important traffic back and forth between the nets without overloading either net with unwanted information.

There are times though when Perth Road has so many portable masts and antennas in the air it looks like a NATO Divisional HQ......only the camouflage is missing!

This year was a bit different in the way the Tour was operated.  For the first time we had to provide communications to two separate routes, which of course means the operators were spread over a far greater distance.  Our "normal" route follows Perth Road and eventually becomes Division Street in Kingston.  The new route followed a convoluted route from Perth through numerous windy backroads ending up on the Battersea Road and into Kingston.  Both routes end at Queen's University where the riders send the night in the dorms.

So instead of our usual five radio support locations, this year we had eight stations on our net, and surprisingly, contrary to what we thought would happen, things went very smoothly.  Thanks to Scott, VA3PTO, from Ottawa who helped out on our net from one of the new Battersea Road locations.

VE3EOG's go-box in action

The weekend is actually a lot of good fun, and we get to see old friends who man the nine mobile units that run up and down the course providing repairs and rides to exhausted riders.

It wouldn't be the Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour without some excitement and this year we had plenty.  Several ambulances had to be called for various injuries, nothing too serious though.  And, surprisingly we had two bikes that actually failed with broken frames and broke in two!

Long days and lots of fun.  If you haven't taken part in the event yet we can always fit you in.

Riders taking a break at Battersea Village

The new rig in the shack.....

Well after Sunday's disastrous island activation attempt and the death of my much beloved FT-857D, a new radio appeared in the shack this morning.  An IC-718 now graces the bench.

While I would have dearly loved to have replaced the FT-857D with another one, I really could not justify the cost.  The IC-718 was about half the price, and although it doesn't have 6m, 2m, and 440, it will do me very nicely for the portable work I do.

It's a nice compact rig that is packed with options.  I set it up right out the box, attached the antenna, tuned up, and had a QSO with JW9JKA on Bear Island, Norway, and got him on the first call.  While I only received a 51 from him, I was quite pleased as that was done with the factory settings.

The menu system is one that you set and forget.  I had Don, VE3MNE, on the air tonight on 160m and we went through some of the settings and sorted out the mic gain.  Don says the radio sounds very good, in fact the results were very similar to my FT-950.

I think it's a bit big to actually mount in a go-box which is a bit of a draw back to me, but we will figure something out to protect it while we're operating portable.

This weekend I'm out doing the communications for the Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour, and I plan on taking the radio and my Buddypole antenna with me and doing some HF DX chasing in-between the busy times.