New 15m Antenna

For the past 18 months I've been using a vertical 15m dipole taped to a 31' collapsible mast with great results.  I was using this antenna as my 80m OCF Dipole will not tune 15m at all.....it tunes everything else, just not 15m.

The original 15m vertical dipole came down the other day as it was having some issues.  Perhaps some water in the balun, but I need to investigate some more before I can make a good diagnosis.  Anyway, with the start of the contesting season upon us I needed a 15m option, especially as were getting close to the ARRL Sweepstakes.

With the weather starting to turn bad......yes, I know, it's the perfect antenna maintenance time of year, I put something up quickly.

So, I decided to put up a 15m hamstick antenna using a single truck mirror mount that cost me $5 at the last ham flea market.  The mounting stud was $3.95 at Durham Radio, and I reused the coax from the original vertical dipole.  The antenna mount was bolted onto an old painter pole I use for portable work, and raised up to 11'. 

I also added two 11' elevated radials, these were done along the North-South axis, and I'll probably add another one, perhaps two this week.

It was up and ready to go for the ARRL Sweepstakes but not tested, so I was a bit apprehensive about how it would do.  Not to worry, first contact on it was to John, VE8EV, in Inuvik, NWT, and second up was Gus, VO1MP, in Portugal Cove, NL.  So there you have it, coast to coast, and I have about $30 into it. 

Now we'll have to see how it does on Trans-Atlantic DX.....

The antenna in action

Sweepstakes - the result.

My finished 2014 section map - no clean sweep.

Saturday afternoon at 1600 local arrived and this years ARRL Sweepstakes kicked off, and it was straight to 10m I went.  The band was hopping and kept me going strong for the next two and a half hours.  Most of the signals were coming from out west and the California sections filled up pretty quickly.  No sign of Hawaii though, and no sign of any Quebec station for the whole weekend.

I did go to 40m after supper.....but there was no sign of the ever elusive VA3QV, even though he did email to tell me he would be on.  He was probably outside washing and waxing the RV.......

At about 2030 local the bands took a bit of a nose dive.  The SFI was at 159, the SN at 117, the A Index was 17, and the K Index was at 4.  Not the numbers we really wanted, but it was what we had to work with.

Most of the evening was spent on 10m, with the odd foray to 40m and 80m to check things out there.

By 0900 local on Sunday the bands had settled down and were jumping once again.  10m and 15m were the go to bands, but 20m was excellent as well.  But, by 1300 local the bands were starting to lose their magic as the A and K Index numbers went up again and the bands got very noisy.

I like this contest, the exchange is just difficult enough, and only being able to work a station once, regardless of band, also makes it interesting.

No band police were heard this weekend, but I did hear a US ham have a totally childish meltdown on 20m.  Apparently a fellow amateur had the audacity to trespass on this guys personal frequency.........messing up his AM signal with an interloping SSB signal.  I must confess that I had been sitting on the frequency for good 10 minutes while I fixed my log and had not heard a peep until the SSB station started to call CQ.

I always have a quiet chuckle when I hear a US station lecturing a DX station about the band plan.  Somehow they think that everyone must follow the ARRL or FCC one....well, here's a news flash......we don't, we have our own.

All in all a good weekend on the band. No QRP this year, I went QRO.  I'm nowhere near winning like I did last year, even if I did beat last years score by 5500 points.

2014 Field Day Results

YES!!!......this years Field Day results are in !!!

Frontenac Emcomm Group, operating as VE3FRG, came first in Canada and first in North America in the 5A (Commercial) category.

Well done to VE3MNE, VE3CLQ, VA3VDP, VA3TIC, VE3DZE, and VE3HRW for this great result!!  The team finished the weekend with 3556 points. 

In second place was W9CQ, the Wisconsin Amateur Radio Club of Germantown, Wisconsin.  They finished with 1970 points.  In third place was K5NEA, the Northeast Arkansas Radio Club of Truman, Arkansas, who finished with 1812 points.

Our group overcame some significant antenna issues that slowed things down for the first hour and a half until they were sorted out.  Lots of hard work to get us to this point, and we're really looking forward to Field Day 2015 to see if we can give our competition another good run for their money.

ARRL November Sweepstakes

Coming up this Saturday afternoon.....this years ARRL Sweepstakes starts !!  After my result last year I'll have to try and defend my QRP  title....but the decision to go QRP will not be made until later tomorrow after I analyse the forecasted propagation.

The link to the Rules are HERE.

Propagation wise we could be in for an interesting time.  One of the sites I frequent has this to say about the next few days:

"Solar activity is likely to be moderate with a slight chance for an X-class flare on day one (14 Nov) and likely to be moderate with a chance for X-class flares on days two and three (15 Nov, 16 Nov)." 

Hopefully everything will go smoothly......but ya just never know.....

Good Luck to everyone!

In Remembrance......

 

 

In Loving Memory of the

Officers, NCO's, and Men

of

2816 Squadron, RAF Regiment

1941 - 1946

 

 

Per Ardua

A Great Day !!

Quite the surprise today after lunch when a FedEx truck delivered a large parcel to the house. 

I knew I had done well in the 2013 ARRL Sweepstakes, but little did I know that I had come first in Canada in the QRP category.....and if that wasn't enough later that day the Postman dropped off an envelope, also from the ARRL, containing a certificate for First Place in Ontario East for the same contest.

 

 

I'd better start working on a strategy for this years Sweepstakes......

A good weekend on the bands....

 

 

It would be very had to pick out the best part of the weekend, most of it was a blur of "CQ DX",  I was late getting on the air Friday evening, I felt it more important to watch the arrival of Cpl Cirillo, and his family, at the Funeral Home in Hamilton, and watch the outpouring of respect from the thousands of Canadians who lined his route home.  It was quite humbling to watch.

It was 0040 UTC before I turned on the rig and made my first contact.  Friday evening contacts were on a mixture of 20m and 40m.  But there was a problem, it seemed that many of the stations calling CQ were running too much power, and were transmitting far beyond what their antennas could actually hear.    It was quite funny really to sit back and listen to many stations answering these guys, and have these big guns just call "CQ Contest" over and over again.....if they only knew how many stations were actually lined up to talk to them.

Saturday morning was a 10m feast!!  The SSB on 10m started at 28.250 and continued, wall-to-wall non-stop to 29.190.  It was so good on 10m that I did not get to 20m until very late in the day, and I did not get to 15m until Sunday morning.    I shut things down at 2200 UTC on Sunday with 701 QSO's in the log, my ears just couldn't take any more noise.

I did not hear any band police over the weekend, but the idiots who like to tune up right over a QSO were out in force.

The worst behaviour I heard over the weekend was the pileup over A73A, the contest team from Qatar.  I felt very sorry for the operator as the jerks trying to call him would not listen to his instructions, and continued to scream their call signs at him over top of his QSO's.  Nearly all the offenders were, unfortunately, stations from the USA.

And finally, some operators still have not learned the most basic of rules when dealing with DX.  Use the standard list of phonetics, not everyone understands English well.  I listened in total amusement an exchange that went on 10 minutes between an American and a Latvian station.  Instead of using "Whiskey Delta Bravo", the American was using "Willoughby Divorce Beans".  In return WDB got back "BCN", and around and around they went.  In the end the QSO wasn't completed, the Latvian gave up in frustration.

The radio in action this weekend was the FT-950 and the 80m OCF dipole.  I did use the 15m vertical dipole as the 80m will not tune up on 15m.  Very pleased with the equipment, everything seems to be working well.

Julian G4ILO - SK

Julian G4ILO

Over the past few years I have been following the journey of Julian, G4ILO.  Julian is the founder of "Wainwrights On The Air", which is a program very similar to SOTA, but on smaller hills.

Julian has been a great inspiration to me, and many other hams, with his portable operations.

Unfortunately he was diagnosed with an un-operable brain tumour three years ago.  He never gave up, always positive in his outlook towards life and his future.  He lived life to the fullest as long as he could, and he fought it as long as he could as well.

We lost Julian this past Friday, October 14th 2014.  A true gentleman, he will be missed by me, and a great number of fellow hams around the world.

RIP Julian.  SK.