New Rig in the Shack

Last week I had to put my Yaesu 2800 out to pasture, it gave up the ghost after many years of faithful service.  It was a good little rig and did a good job for me right up to the very end.

I spent a day or so cruising around the ham store websites checking out what was available in 2m rigs these days, and to be very honest.....I wasn't very impressed.  Many of the ones that I thought could do the job for me had lousy reviews, or didn't do everything I wanted it to do.

I think the scariest thing was the price of some of these new 2m rigs.  A few more $$ and you could practically buy a good used HF rig!

Anyway, I ended up with the very first ICOM radio to set foot in my shack, the IC-2300H. 

I'm very pleased with it so far.  It has received some good signal reports and the locals say the audio is great.  It has four power settings: 5w, 10w, 25w, and 65w.

It's a small package, and is going to do great for Emcomm work.

ILLW - Great Weekend !!

Don hard at work

What great weather, and what even better propagation we had for this years International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend.  This year the group I belong to activated two lighthouses as mentioned in the previous posting below. 

Today, Sunday, Don VE3MNE and I activated the Point Petre Lighthouse, CA-026, and we had a fantastic time.  It was blue skies, a light wind, and 25C all day, we couldn't have asked for better weather.....and the Granville Island beer we had with our lunch went down really well.

We arrived on site about 0830 and began to set up our usual array of antennas.  Don set up his 31' vertical and got to work looking for other lighthouses on 20m and 40m.  I took a different route this year.....................

15m Vertical

Some of you will know that I have been working on getting my home QTH fixed up for 15m, as none of my current antennas seem to want to work on that band.  So before I did anything else today I built a 15m quarter-wave vertical and three ground radials.

The radiating element was taped to a 20' crappy pole, the three radials were simply laid out on the grass, and I used an LDG 1:1 balun.  The antenna was then simply leaned against the chain-link fence around the Coast Guard compound.

I should also mention that the wire used was a 25' roll of 14 gauge speaker wire that cost me $2.00 at Princess Auto here in Kingston.

It took several attempts to get the SWR down to an acceptable level, but in the end I did not really need the tuner as it matched right across the SSB portion of the band. 

Well, they always say the proof it works speaks volumes, so I'm really pleased to tell you all that it worked great on 15m.  Over the course of the day I used it to work:

EA3/DL1EHV, Albert in Barcelona, Spain.
UT7UV, Sasha in Kiev, Ukraine.
Z320T, Al in Shtip, Macedonia.
YT5CT, Zex in Novi Sad, Serbia.
RU3UR, Mike in Ivanovo, Russia.
ES5QD, Vello in Tallinn, Estonia.
S59N, Dan in Naklo, Slovenia.

Needless to say I'm pretty pleased with its performance, and it will be set up at the home QTH sometime this week.  I like working DX on 15m, and I've really missed this band over the past 10 months we have been at this new QTH, and I'm really looking forward to getting on there on a regular basis now.

International Lighthouse Lightship Weekend

Coming up next weekend, August 17 & 18, is the BIG international lighthouse weekend, sponsored by the Ayr Amateur Radio Group. 

Here in Kingston the Frontenac Group will be activating two lighthouses, one at Nine Mile Point on Simcoe Island - CA0031, and Point Petre - CA0026. 

The Simcoe Island light will only be on the air only for the Saturday, but Point Petre will be on from 1000 local Saturday, until 1400 local on Sunday.......or as long as the batteries hold out.

There's not much in the way of a camping spot there, as we have to stay outside the Coast Guard compound, but hopefully the OPP will leave us alone once they see us just operating and not causing any trouble.

With over 400 lights signed up for the event we're hoping to work a pile of them, and hopefully, this time, the propagation Gods will favour us this weekend !!

Give a listen for VE3FRG and VE3FPN and give us a call if you hear us.

Disappointing Day

It was a pretty disappointing day yesterday on Amherst Island, the propagation Gods decided to have the day off !!

The weather was perfect, lots of sun, a nice breeze and the occasional cloud drifting by.  Ron, VE3GO, had arranged with friends of his to use their waterfront property to operate from, and what a beautiful spot to operate from it was.

My antenna of the day was a 31' homebrewed vertical into a 4:1 balun, and four 16' and two 31' radials.  Ron used an Outbacker mounted on a mag-mount on the back of his SUV.

The bands seemed to be working very short, and while we could hear a lot of European stations on 15m, we worked only two of them on CW: IK3VUT, Luca in Oderzo, Italy, and HB9TNW, Celso in St. Gallen, Switzerland.  Our third CW contact was with HI3IFE in the Dominican Republic, but I'm not sure if that is the correct callsign, copy was difficult.

The SSB side of the activation was not very good at all.....two contacts were made, both in Ontario.  First up was Russ, VE3FI, in Haliburton, who was testing out a new 80m vertical, and next up on 20m was Don, VE3MNE, at his cottage on Hay Bay. Both of course had booming signals.

No signals were heard from the Colorado 14er event at all, despite spending quite a bit of time listening for them.

While not the most successful activation we have ever done, it was a fantastic day really.  We wouldn't have asked for better hosts, the location was perfect, and we got to ignore the "Honey Do List" for another day.

I'm not one to make political statements, but having seen the mess these things left Wolfe Island in, I don't want to see this happen on Amherst Island.

Amherst Island ON-21

Short notice.........but a group of us will be activating Amherst Island ON-21 tomorrow, August 4th, from 1500Z to 2000Z.

Ron - VE3GO, and Bill - VA3WOW will be joining me for a fun filled day of DX.  We will have 2 or 3 HF radios on the air, and we will be mainly on 20m, 15m, and 10m, hanging out on the usual island activation frequencies. 

Hopefully the propagation Gods will be smiling on us.  The weather is suppose to be very good, with a high of 21C expected.

Tomorrow is also the 2013 Colorado 14er event, so we are hoping to make a pile of contacts with the guys on the top of the really big hills......the 14,000 foot "hills".

IARU HF World Championships

The last week has been a bit of a blur around here.  I have been attempting to get a LDG S31 vertical antenna in the air ready for the IARU contest.  The main reason for this is that my 80m OCF dipole does not allow me to tune on 15m, even with a manual tuner, and as a lot of the DX action happens on that band.... I needed to be able to operate there to get a good score.

Apparently the Gods were totally against me.  The S31 went up in the air, the radials were laid out, 4:1 balun hooked up, a brand new 100' of RG-213 was connected, and.......the antenna tuned every band but 15m...... !!  Now, it's not like I haven't put up a 31' vertical antenna before, in fact I use a homebrewed version of the S31 when I operate portable, and it works great.

The other interesting fact is when comparing signals between the vertical and the dipole, there was a huge difference.  An S9+20 signal on 40m using the dipole was a measly S1 on the vertical....and it was that way over every band when I compared the antennas to each other.

So, over the course of three days I changed every part of the antenna, the coax, and added many more radials.  Nothing changed, it was a crap antenna.  Several emails went to Bob, VA3QV, who has this type of vertical looking for advice, but Bob couldn't understand what was going on either.

In the end I used my 66' long wire, 9:1 Balun, and two 31' radials and worked a good portion of the world with it.

Band conditions were not that good, we had very deep QSB for most of Saturday afternoon which made things difficult.  My first five contacts were Iceland, Russia, Hawaii, Greenland, and Moldova....after that the DX disappeared and only US stations were heard until very late afternoon.

It was a lot of fun but a tough slog, but in the end I put 122 contacts in the log, including a new one for me, TC3HQ in Turkey.

Oh yeah, the S31 vertical.......apparently the issue was a broken, but brand new, right out of the box, MFJ RF Isolator that I had put in line......I've removed it from the run of coax and ....the antenna works fine now, as advertised, because the contest is over !!

Field Day 2013

It's Monday evening and I'm just recovering from this years field day.......I even took the day off of work !!

I left for the Hay Bay site early Friday morning with the new guy, Mark - VE3EOG in tow.....for his first field day experience.  This was the seventh year we have used the Hay Bay site, thanks to Don - VE3MNE, who owns the outstanding spot.

Friday was spent getting the antennas out of storage, the cobweb's blown off them and getting them back up in the air.  This year we used one 160m OCF Dipole, two 80m OCF Dipoles, two 31' verticals, and a single 44' doublet......as well as a tri-bander on a 20' section of tower, mounted on the back of Tim's station wagon.

This year as in the past, we planned on operating as a 5A operation, four SSB and a digital station, and of course this means setting up operating places for them.  Lucky for us we had enough screen tents for everyone to use.  And every one of them had a million dollar view of the Bay.

By late afternoon we had everyone set up and some of the initial radio checks carried out.  As is our tradition we cleaned up and drove via the Glenora Ferry to the village of Wellington in Prince Edward County for a relaxing dinner and a couple of cold ones.

Saturday dawned dark and overcast, and we knew we would be in for some rain later in the day, so the race was on to get everything finished and the screen tents tarped over for protection.

The morning was spent checking coax connectors, bad patch cords, and sorting radio issues out. 

The SFI for the start of field day was: SFI-136; A Index-17; K Index-2, and the SN-135.  Oh yeah, the rain started at 1430 local but only lasted a few hours before it cleared up.

Field day kicked off at 1400 local to a lot of confusion of the new Ontario Sections. Most of the US stations were logging us as Ontario, not Ontario East.  Even after we explained the situation to them they continued to log us as simply Ontario.  Oh well, at least our logbook is correct.

Antenna repairs

For our U.S. friends, there is no longer a Section in Canada called "Ontario".  Instead we have been split into four individual sections, Ontario East, Ontario South, Ontario North, and Greater Toronto Area.  Hopefully next year this issue will have sorted itself out.

Ron-VE3GO came out very early Sunday morning and spent the day operating CW for us.  The CW station filled in some missing gaps in our state and province count.  In the end we only missed having contacts in Wyoming and Manitoba.

The weekend went quickly and before we knew it field day was over.  We ended up with 1156 contacts, including a DX contact to Jamaica on 6m. 

Thanks to Don VE3MNE for hosting the weekend.

The Bike Tour......

What a great weekend we had for the 2013 Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour.  Saturday was cool and cloudy with a little bit of rain late in the day, and Sunday was a glorious sunny day.

Don, VE3MNE, and myself operated two VHF stations from the parking lot of the Perth Road Village General Store.  We arrived on site at 1000 Local, and setup our equipment.  One station acted as Net Control for the Frontenac Section of the tour, and the other is a liaison station with Net Control for the Perth Section located in Westport.

We had issues both days getting into the Christie Lake repeater, VA3TEL.  Normally we can hit it from anywhere in Perth Road Village with a 5/8 mag-mount, but not this weekend.  In the end a 22' mast with a 2m antenna lashed to the top did the job, and even then conditions deteriorated over the course of the day to the point we had to shut down the liaison radio.

On Saturday the first rider came through Perth Road Village at 1123 local, and after that it was a steady stream of riders and support vehicles until we closed things down at 1700 local.  This is an hour and a half earlier than any of the past 7 years we have provided communications support to the tour.

Thanks to Tim, VA3TIC, for paying us a visit and delivering Timmies coffee to us.

We dealt with two accidents on Saturday, both minor. Thanks to the drivers of the support vans things were looked after very quickly.

Sunday started real early at my house.....0400 Local !!  After loading a freshly charged battery into the back of my truck, it was off to pick up Roy, VE3VJF, and then a slow drive back up to the village.  It was a slow drive due to heavy ground fog and lots of deer on the road.

Roy VE3VJF in control
 

After setting up the antennas and radios it was just a matter of sitting around and waiting for the riders to come by heading home to Perth and Ottawa. 

The first rider left Queen's University at 0500 Local, and came screaming by us, without stopping, at 0626 Local.  Many of the riders did not stop at the General Store on the way home this year, those that did enjoyed some cold water, clean toilets, and lots of grass to lay about on in the warm sun.

It was 1100 Local when the last rider left the village and we closed down the net.  We passed Net Control off to Westport and the boys of the Lanark-North Leeds ARES Group.

As usual this was a great weekend and lots of fun to do.  It's really great practice for ARES and Emcomm groups, it allows us to deploy to locations we don't normally operate from, and it gets us to pass real message traffic that actually means something, not just the usual fake exercise traffic. 

After it was all over it was off back down Hwy 10 to the Star Diner in Kingston for a very late breakfast, and around the table the planning for next years operation was begun.

A huge THANK-YOU goes out to the owners, and extended family, of the Perth Road Village General Store for their great support of the Bike Tour.  We look forward every year to see their smiling faces, and the communications team appreciates very much what they do for us over the weekend...........and they have the best coffee !!!!!!

The working space
 

It's all over for this year!!