ARRL 10m Contest.....Day Two

Here in Kingston we woke up Sunday morning to a pretty intense snow storm that left us about 10" of snow on the ground.  So, foolishly, I jumped into my truck and drove downtown to have breakfast at 7:00 am with the other Frontenac Radio Group members at the Star Diner. 

The roads were disgusting and I don't think the City of Kingston plowed at all overnight.   I really should have just turned around and went home.  Most Sunday's we get 11 or 12 out, this Sunday we had three :-) 

Safely back home by 9:00 I had a quick look at the antennas to make sure all was well with them...and it was.  So off to the shack it was to check the SFI on Solarham.com and the numbers were not too bad considering the minor geomagnetic storm we had going on.  SFI was at 164; SN was 163;  'A' Index was 16 and the 'K' Index sitting at 1.

First contact of the day was with TM1A in Provins, France, and for the next 2.5 hours it was a feast of non-stop European stations.  Most of these signals arrived here at about a true S5 or S7, and during that time I never heard a single US or Canadian station.  One would have thought it was a European 10m Contest :-)

At 1130 I went and made a cup of tea, and when I arrived back in the shack 5 minutes later, the Europeans had all disappeared and the band was now full of US and a few Canadian stations.  It was amazing just how fast the band shift happened, but it was that way all day, shifting East-West and then North-South and back again in a matter of a very short time.  As an example, within a 7 minute period I worked OG2A in Finland, KH6LC in Hawaii, and then PY5DC in Brazil. 

We had lots of good openings into the West Coast and I racked up dozens of contacts into California, Oregon, Washington, and BC.  I even worked three Alaskan stations - one after the other!  Best catch of the day for Sunday was either V55V in Namibia or VY1EI in Whitehorse, I can't decide which.

Most of the strong signals on the band, especially those coming in S9+, all seemed to  have great trouble hearing the stations calling them back.  Perhaps this is a result of too much power being used, and transmitting far beyond what they could actually hear?  It sure sounded that way, and many of the local Kingston hams all thought the same thing.  Most of these powerful stations called all day to little effect.

The radio used this weekend was the FT-950 with the Heil Pro-6 headset.  The main antenna in use was the 80m OCF Dipole.  100w into a piece of wire and 12 hours of glorious fun.  Ya just can't beat it!

I'm now getting ready for the RAC winter contest on the 27th and I'm hoping that the lone ham in Nunavut is not on vacation in Florida like he was the last few years :-)  I'm also looking forward to trying to make that ever elusive contact on 40m with Bob VA3QV.  We will see if we can do it this year!

ARRL 10m Contest

Great day on 10m today for the contest!  The band was wide open into Europe this morning with many call signs all calling "CQ NA".  I must have worked over 70 European stations and really enjoyed myself.

In the afternoon 10m swung to work North-South and we started to hear the Caribbean and South American stations.  I managed to work V55V in Namibia, and got him on the first call.....which was totally unexpected given the pileup he was working at the time. 

About 1600 local the band changed again.  This time it was working well in all directions and I managed to work KH6LC in Hawaii.  Not too bad for a SFI of 164.  A SN of 141.  The 'A' Index at 16 and the 'K' Index at 4, and the band noise was going from bad to worse. 

It looks like we are in for some minor geomagnetic activity over the next 24 hours, and at 1920 local the Solar Wind is at 400+ Km/s.

There are still some of the big guns calling CQ on the band but it's almost impossible to work them now.  I doubt we will have the fun we had today in the morning, but we can hope!!

RCAF Moose Milk

Drinking "fortified" Moose Milk at Christmas has been a time honoured tradition in the Royal Canadian Air Force for many, many years. 

For those that don't know what it is, Moose Milk is a magic elixir that makes fighter pilots look much more handsome, Aurora crews much smarter, and the Chinook crews much more rugged..............but it seems it doesn't do much for the Hercules or the CC-150 Polaris crews!

Most non-Canadians will not know the first thing about how to go about catching a wild Moose so you can milk it, and I must confess it can be a very dangerous sport if you are not extremely careful.  This is one of the few jobs we leave to the Flight Engineers as they tend to be much more responsible than the pilots, and the Loadmasters just get in the way and drink the stuff.

So to make it easier for my friends from overseas the following recipe is as close as you can get to drinking real Moose Milk.....

 

Recipe credit: www.badenremembered.com

 

Flight Sergeant Jack Moore, is credited with concocting the original mixture on the instructions of the RCAF Station Borden CO, in about 1943, for guests to "have a good time."  A couple of 40-pounders (Dark Rum and Canadian Rye) providing the kick makes it a rather enjoyable drink.  Some substitutions include a brick of ice cream in place of the whipping cream.

 

Please remember to drink and drive responsibly!!! 

If you're caught the Police will never believe you drank Moose Milk!!

2013 ARRL Sweepstakes

Yet another great weekend on the bands!  It was the perfect storm.....the wife is away on a 10 day cruise - so she can't bother me, and the propagation Gods were smiling on us.  You couldn't ask for better!

After looking at the numbers I decided to do this contest as a QRP station, and I'm glad I did....I don't think I've ever had such a good result in a contest.  The IC-703 was brought off the shelf and hooked up to power and coax and away we went.

I took it fairly easy, giving myself plenty of time off the air for breaks, and you can only submit the first 24 hours of the log anyway, so there was no need to kill yourself and go crazy.  I ended up working 63 out of the 83 ARRL and RAC Sections.  Not too shabby for a screaming 5w.

10m was wide open for most of the contest, as was 15m.  I ended up working stations on 10, 15, 20, 40 and 80m at one time or another, but 10 and 15m were my "go to" bands during the day.  I didn't get onto 20m until late Sunday afternoon as the runs on 10 and 15 were just so good!

I heard no LIDS and no band police this contest, but it was such a friendly atmosphere there was no need for them to hang around and try and make us miserable.  It was also very nice to be hunted, apparently Ontario East (ONE) is very much sought after.  I guess there are not many contesters in this Section.  One other point did stick out, and that was the number of YL's on the air.  I can't remember hearing as many on the air as I did over this weekend before.

Many thanks must go to the great operators who took the time to work me, it must have been difficult at times for them I'm sure. 


The worked Sections from my contest logger

 

Remembrance Day 2013

 

In Loving Memory of the

Officers, NCO's, and Men

of

2816 Squadron, RAF Regiment

December 1941 -  June 1946

LEST WE FORGET

 

 

 

 

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Sad News

For those QRP'ers who followed the adventures of Rooster and Peanut, the pack goats of Steve, WG0AT, as they climbed all over the Colorado mountain ranges, there is some very sad news today.  Rooster the pack goat has passed away. 

I have always enjoyed Steve's videos of his adventures as much for the antics of the two goats, as I did for his set-ups and DX contacts.  In fact it was watching these videos that first got me hooked on QRP.

Our condolences go out to Steve and Pam, they've lost a true loyal friend.

RIP Rooster, we'll miss you.

Rooster, Steve, and Peanut.

Upper Brewers Mills Island Activation

Upper Brewers Mills Lock

Next Sunday, November 10th, the Frontenac Radio Group will be trying to activate Upper Brewers Mills Island.  This island has not been activated before, although we have attempted to activate it on one previous occasion, but were unsuccessful because of very poor propagation.

We plan on being on the air between 1530 UTC and 1800 UTC, and the frequencies in use will be 28.450;  21.350; and 14.250 to 14.260.  All frequencies are +/- 10 Kc.

Radio will be an FT-857D and the antenna will be a 31' vertical.

Hopefully the weather will cooperate!

What a weekend......

The weekend in one word?  Outstanding!  The bands were just simply incredible with both 10m and 15m just rocking with wall to wall DX.

It started early Thursday morning when Don VE3MNE and I hit the road and travelled up Hwy 38 to Leggat Lake, about 75 Kms north of Kingston to my brother-in-laws cottage.  Leggat is a medium sized lake and sort of remote.....well, it's off the beaten track. It's very quiet electrically there with very little to no noise like we get in the city.

Once we had arrived and unloaded our trucks it was time to get the antennas up.  Don used his Chillycon Mk.2 antenna with six 16' radials.  We also put up a 2m 5/8 ground plane antenna so we could hit our local repeater and talk back into Kingston.  My initial choice of antennas are what we now call the VA3QV, first seen on Bob's Blog.

Now Bob uses this antenna all the time and has good results with it.  I couldn't get it to work to save my life.  Don was working DX hand over fist and I couldn't get the VA3QV to even tune.  I even added and then subtracted radials and changed the coax, but still it did not work for me.  The radio in use was a FT-857D with a LDG YT-100 tuner.  By this time Bill VA3WOW had arrived from Belleville, so outside we went and swapped the VA3QV for a 66' long wire with a "pile" of 16' and 31' radials.

While the 66' long wire worked, it was not to my liking and the tuner was taking forever to tune.......I knew I could do much better, and it was now getting dark, Don was still working DX hand over fist, and frustration was starting to settle in!  Outside we went again, only this time it had started to rain, and put up my 31' antenna in a sloper configuration with, once again, a "pile" of 16' and 31' radials.  Hallelujah, it worked just fine, and the DX started to roll in. 

Thursday evening was just a feast of DX as everyone was on the air testing and checking out their antenna systems for the weekend contest.

Most of Friday was taken up with more tweaking of the antennas, adding and subtracting radials, elevating them, and putting them back on the ground.  We also took time out to explore the other side of the lake, and had a good long walk doing so.

Bill VA3WOW chowing down!

Don BBQ'ed a great steak supper on Friday night and as he did so the bands went very quiet.  Other contesters were also off to eat a good meal and grab an hour or two rest before it all kicked off at 0059 UTC.   Steak, mushrooms, peppers, and a very nice red wine were on the menu. 

After supper we stocked up on dry wood for the stove and got things cleaned up ready for the contest.

At 0059Z the bands just exploded!  I started off on 15m and Don was on 10m.  We just never stopped logging stations.  15m was simply wall to wall DX, with hardly a gap between them.  It was actually quite hard to sort things out at first as our ears were not used to the deafening calls of "CQ Contest".

It was  great to hear so many hams on the bands, I can't remember when I heard a contest kick off like this one did.  Because of the great band conditions and superb propagation we had many inexperienced contesters on the bands working.  This is great to see, but many of them didn't even know what a "zone" was.  You would think before entering a big contest like the CQ WW SSB Contest a person would read the rules, and hopefully listen.........and listen again........and listen again to what the other guys are exchanging.....but many did not do that.

VE3FCT in front and VE3MNE on the far side

On Saturday evening, just as the grey line was going through us, Don worked 15 Japanese stations one after the other.  He thought he had died and gone to DX heaven!

We also worked seven Moroccan stations between us, and over 20 Brits.  There were also a good number of Scottish stations we worked, including one in the Orkney Islands and another in the Shetland Islands.

Many stations, and especially those from one particular country, were running so much power that they were talking way past what they could actually hear.  I doubt very many of the stations calling them actually got through to them, the big guns called CQ over and over with little response.  Perhaps one day these guys will learn that you can do wonders with 100w and a long piece of wire up in a tree. 

My Philosophical question of the weekend is why is it that the station you "need" is always weak, and is always parked right next to a super station pounding out a 1.5k signal into stacked Yagi's ??

Of course it wouldn't be a contest without hundreds of "band police" on the bands.  They seemed to be everywhere on the weekend, and of course the LIDS were also out in full force.  Why, for the love of God, do these idiots insist on tuning up right over a QSO?  Do these individuals really think that's how things should be done?  I'm sure if we tuned up over one of their QSO's  they would all scream loud and long!

My prize for the most polite operators must go to the Germans. It was a delight to work them.  It was always please and thank you from them. The Romanians were also very polite as well.  One Romanian ham actually apologised to me for his poor English......which was perfect by the way.  I told him if he thought his English was bad he should hear my Romanian!

This weekends total was 131 countries worked, including three new ones:

C37NL from Andorra
UP2L from Kazakhstan
9K2HN from Kuwait.

Just an outstanding weekend!

Don VE3MNE cruising the bands

Hmmm....which wire goes where?????????



The quiet before the storm