Busy Weekend.....

What a great weekend for the QRP to the Field event!  There were lots of QRP stations calling CQ, more on CW than SSB....as per usual, but they were out there!   I managed to put 31 in my logbook this weekend, not including the SOTA contacts I made as well.

Our weather this weekend was on the cool side, and it did in fact rain just a little.  Over all though I won't complain....it didn't snow!

The IC-703 and my Buddipole are a winning combination it seems.  There are more Buddipole parts on the way and should be here this week......and my radio club has an island activation coming up soon, so talk about good timing!

There seemed to be a good number of SOTA activations going on in North America this weekend as well, and I did manage to put 44 activator points in my log.

Unfortunately some collective efforts to get a VE3 SOTA Association up and running over the past three years have fell foul of the SOTA management team rules about only allowing peaks that are a minimum of a 150m prominence to qualify.  We don't have too may of them here, it's true that there are a good number north of Sault Ste Marie and Thunder Bay, but around where the main ham population lives in Ontario there are none.  So all we can do is chase those guys who can activate summits in their part of the world.

It's really great to see the rise in both QRP and SOTA activity on the airwaves, and hopefully it will continue as we slide down into another solar minimum.

Not Much Contest Activity

It was a pretty quiet weekend for the Ontario QSO Party.  Saturday most of the SSB activity was between 7.060 and 7.099 and stayed there until evening and then it moved to 80m around 3.730, but to be very honest I didn't hear too many stations calling for the QSO Party.

There was lots of traffic calling for the Michigan and Nebraska QSO Parties so it wasn't like the bands were in bad condition.  Saturday afternoon the SFI was: SFI-148.  SN-93. A Index-25, and K Index-2, in fact those numbers never changed all weekend.

I did manage to find a few contacts on 20m on Sunday before the contest finished but it was pretty hard slogging most of the weekend.  There was a bright spot though.....I did work VA3QV on Saturday evening!  Yes, the ever elusive Bobster is in the log once again.   For the Ontario QSO Party I managed to put a dismal total of 26 stations in the log.

The IC-703 performed as advertised and I had many good signal reports over the weekend.  Obviously the punch of the 703 and the height of my dipole is a winning combination, I think I'll leave everything as they are as I've tweaked everything as much as I can.

In between hunting elusive VE3's I also spent some time hunting SOTA activations using the SOTA Watch website (HERE), and I managed to snag three USA activations over the afternoon.   It was a lot of fun working those guys and I actually had QSO's with them, not just a quick "59, Thanks, QRZ?"

I also worked four DX stations on Sunday afternoon, R120RM in Moscow, S57V in Slovenia, J79MM in Dominica, and AO2015WRD in Spain.   Not too bad for a QRP station.

QRP To The Field

Coming up on Saturday, April 25th, is this years edition of QRP to the Field.  I always enjoy this event although I don't always submit my results.

This is one of the very few QRP events that has a SSB category so the IC-703 will be getting another workout this month.  It's funny as I was talking about selling the radio but I find I'm using it more and more these days, so it's off the market.

The event also includes the use of local SOTA Summits......which we don't have in VE3 Land, but it's still a great excuse to head out and operate portable from you favourite park bench in some little park.

SSB Frequencies to use are: 3.985, 7.285, 14.285, 21.385, and 28.885.

This event runs from 0900 to 1800 EDT......hope to work you on the bands that day.....and that means you too QV !!

Ontario QSO Party 2015

Coming up next weekend is the Ontario QSO Party.  The airways should be alive with VE3 and VA3 stations calling CQ.

I hope the propagation will be better than we have had over the past week otherwise we're in for a pretty slow and dismal weekend.

The rules for this event can be found HERE.

I had the IC-703 out today checking it out as I will be doing the contest as a QRP station using my VE3FCT callsign and handing out contacts from the "very rare" Frontenac County.  Not sure if I will operate portable or stick around the shack, I'm leaning to operate portable, but not sure where I should do that from.

Hope to work some of you guys next weekend............perhaps even that VA3QV character!!

Update on the W3EDP Antenna.......

A few years ago I wrote a blog entry on the W3EDP Antenna (HERE).  That article seems to be one of the more popular ones I have posted according to the stats for this blog.  The W3EDP is a good multi-band antenna that gets a bad rap from some sources, but it doesn’t deserve it at all.

Recently while surfing the net I can across a couple of articles written by Fred Benson, NC4FB, about some experiments he had conducted using the W3EDP antenna.  Knowing how popular this antenna is with the portable operators in Eastern Ontario, I had a good read of them.

These articles can be found here:

http://www.nc4fb.org/wordpress/w3edp-multi-band-antenna/

Http://www.nc4fb.org/wordpress/optimizing-the-w3edp-antenna/

There is some interesting information in those articles and I decided to experiment on my own.  I build my first W3EDP several years ago, and have used it mainly for Winter Field Day and Chillycon, places I want to get a working antenna up fast.

I chose to try the twin radial version, one radial of 33’ that is put in line for use on 80m and 40m, and a 17’ radial that is used for 20m to 6m.  Only one radial at a time is used.  Used with a 4:1 balun with these radials the antenna works like a charm.  I’ve also tried it with a 9:1 balun with success as well.  I’m going to use my analyser and record the difference between the two different baluns, and I will post that information here.

This antenna can be set up in any fashion that you like, inverted L, inverted V, sloper, or as a flat top, it works very well in any configuration.   It’s definitely worth while building and having in your antenna arsenal.

Another good article can be found HERE

More real experimentation is needed on this antenna.  Once the weather warms up I can get back at this..........hopefully next weekend! 

CQ WW WPX Contest 2015

Well, it's over for another year............let's hope CQ Magazine manages to survive and sponsor it again next year.

Conditions when we kicked off at 0000Z Saturday were just great.  Within minutes I had worked ZL2IO in 10m and got him on the first call with 10w.  New Zealand was quickly followed by Moldova, San Marino, French Guiana, Japan, and Morocco, and I had a blast!

After a few hours sleep and coffee with the boys, it was up and at them again Saturday morning.  The propagation numbers for the morning were SFI=137. SN=109. A Index=8, and the K Index= 3.  Bands were very noisy and had some QSB.  On 20m I could only hear US stations calling for Europe, 15m was full of Europeans calling North America, but they weren't hearing us calling them.  The only decent band was 10m and that was full of Caribbean stations, and I think I worked them all.

Again my three big bitch subjects have to be mentioned.....Hispanic stations giving their callsigns at triple the speed of light.  These guys need to understand that if we can't make out your callsign we are not going to work you.  Then there were the LIDS tuning up right over the calling stations....why do they do this?  And then there were those "Alligator" stations again who were all being received here at 59+++ yet they couldn't hear the stations replying to them at all.  More proof that 1500w is no better than 100w at times.

The main band in use on Saturday was 10m and it was pretty good.  I had the occasional foray to 15m and 20m but really didn't have enough luck there to stick around.  40m opened up in the evening and I made a few good contacts into Europe there.

Sunday was a waste of time.  The bands never seemed to open here, and when they did they had some pretty good deep QSB on them.  The propagation numbers on Sunday were the same as on Saturday.  10m and 15m seemed to be totally dead most of the time with not a station to be heard on them, and 20m was full of US stations calling CQ looking for Europe.

My final score was 134 contacts with 110 multipliers, and I worked 81 countries.  So I guess overall it wasn't that bad.....the lack of constant action just made the weekend drag on and I found that it just wasn't very enjoyable this year for me.

So, when's the next contest ???????

Problems with an IC-7000

One of the members of the Frontenac Radio Group, my local club, had an issue yesterday with his ICOM 7000.........the radio would turn off as soon as he modulated on transmit.  After an incredible period of frustration checking coax connectors, RF feedback in the shack, too much mic gain, too much compression and reading the service manual for clues he ran across an article in QRZ that mentioned a possible voltage drop.

Interestingly, as soon as he spoke into the mic on full power (100 watts) the current should be about 15 to 25A and the voltage should remain constant at 13.8 to 14.0 volts, if not , the ICOM shuts down and then reboots in a few seconds.

The ICOM power cord has two (2) 30A inline fuses. The article suggested that one should pull them (they are auto style bayonet type) and check the lugs for any corrosion or water damage.  He pulled both fuses and thoroughly cleaned the lugs and reinstated them back in the power cord. Voila, he had full power and the rig did not turn off.

It seems the ICOM is very voltage sensitive below 13 vdc and will automatically shut off. When he tried to power up the transmit mode there was a demand for high current and the resistive contacts made by the fuse blades dropped the voltage below 13 volts and the rig shut down. 

So there you have it, an easy fix to a very frustrating issue.  Hopefully Derek's experience will save you from learning some new swear words if this happens to you and your IC-7000.

WL2K Mobile

The VE3CLQ digital Go-Box

It was a pretty good day yesterday, the Frontenac Emcomm Group held their first WL2K deployed exercise of the year after doing a lot of RMS Express classroom work, and I deployed up to Perth Road Village, about 28 km north of Kingston.

We had eight stations up and running on the air, several from their home QTH and several from deployed locations around Frontenac County.  Over the past 18 months we have been building up a digital network here so we can stop using the archaic ARRL message forms and take Emcomm into the 21st Century.

So far in Frontenac County we have the following Gateways and Nodes:

VE3UDO-7, located in Clarendon Station this Node covers all of Northern Frontenac, most of Northern Lennox-Addington County, and a good portion of Lanark-North Leeds.

VE3FPN-7, the Node is located at the Sydenham Firehall and covers all of Central Frontenac as well as most of Central Lennox-Addington County.

VE3FRG-7, this Node is located in South Frontenac and covers all South Frontenac, the Frontenac Islands, the City of Kingston, South Lennox-Addington County, and Northern Jefferson County in New York State as far south as Watertown.

VE3MNE-10, this Gateway is located in West Kingston and covers a very large area.  The Gateway is able to connect to all of our Nodes.

VE3DTG-10, this Gateway is located in Central Kingston and is able to connect to our Nodes.

The Frontenac Club recently authorized the purchasing of equipment to build two portable Nodes which will help fill in a few holes in our coverage, and they will be able to be moved and placed where they are most needed to extend our coverage in an emergency.

All of our WL2K Gateways and Nodes operate on 145.070 and are on the air 24/7/365.

My Digital Go-Box consists of a Motorola CDM-1250 VHF radio along with a Coastal ChipWorks TNC-X and a ACER Notebook.  It performed very well.

We had a few learning experiences, we found that the Gateways will support heavy traffic with little problem.  The Nodes did get overloaded so we have a few issues to work out there.  Overall we passed the traffic we were supposed to with only a few hiccups.  It was a good training exercise and I'm looking forward to the second half of it in April.