IARU HF World Championships 2015

Saturday was spent taking part in the IARU World Championships.  The bands were not too bad, we've seen much better for this contest but as it's out of our control we just have to grin and take what we get.   At 1324Z on Saturday the SFI was 134, SN=131, A=25, and K=1 and it never moved from those numbers just about all weekend.

No new countries were worked, only the usual suspects managed to get into the log, in fact for a good part of the day pickings were pretty slim.  20m was the active band and I made 80% of my contacts there, a few were made on 15m and a couple on 40m as well.  I never did hear a signal on 10m or 80m for the whole contest.

The only contacts that were made on 15m were all in South America, its strange how the bands act at times.....but, considering that the only antenna I have up for 15m is a ham stick with two 11' radials sitting up at 12' on a painter pole I'm pleased with that result.

Many stations were heard calling and calling, but they were not hearing the ops calling them back.  One station from Kuwait had a huge pileup every time he paused from calling CQ......and then carried on calling CQ because he couldn't hear any of the stations coming back to him.  This happened time and time again with quite a number of stations, especially from the USA, guys transmitting further than they can possibly hear.  I guess if you have poor antennas you have to compensate by running more power....at least that seems to be their theory!!

I did not do as well as I have in the past few years on this contest, but neither did the other guys in Kingston who took part.  Is it a sign that Solar Cycle 24 is cooling down?  I know the deep QSB that we had didn't help us at all.

I'm off now to get ready for the IOTA Contest at the end of the month......there's a few islands I'm looking for!

The 2015 W / VE Island QSO Party

Storm over Simcoe Island - ON022

Each year in the Fall the US Islands Award Program sponsors the W/VE Island QSO Party. That means pick an island from anywhere in Canada from the list (HERE) and go and activate it !!

This year the date has been brought forward to allow us to have some decent operating weather, as last year we all froze to death doing it.  The date chosen for this year is August 29th 1200 UTC to August 30th 0300 UTC.  Mark your calendars and plan on attending !!

Participation by Canadian stations has been pretty dismal over the past few years and the disappearance of the Canadian Island Award (CIsA) website did not help.  However, in case you don't know, out of the ashes has grown another group of guys who have formed Canadian Island Activators with the intent to carry on from where CIsA left off from.

The one item the organizers do ask is that you submit your days log.  Last year only three Canadian stations did so.  That list is HERE.

I've participated on this event for the past four years and have had a blast and I'm sure you will too if you take time to take part.

Start getting ready !!

IC-v8000

Well, another rig appeared in the shack yesterday, an IC-v8000.....not that I needed it, but a spare 2m rig is always useful.

This rig is from the estate of Mike, VE3SIW, and it's always nice to have a bit of kit in the shack to remember an old friend by.  The loss of Mike was a pretty large shock to our small ham community here.

It works very well, and the reports on its signal and audio have been very good.  It does pump out a solid 75w at its top setting, but it does tend to get quite hot.  I have this one set at a more "cool" 25w, and while it gets warm, I can't make coffee on it.....

Marathon Island Activation - July 11th

Victoria Island, Ottawa.

The following email was received from Gilles, VE2MAM........

I will be activating four or five islands Saturday the 11th of July.

The order will be the following:

Victoria isl. ON-123    Green isl. ON-122   Porter ON-121 and North Petri ON-119.

Bates isl. ON-283 will be activated the last if all goes well with the others.  Since I go on Bates isl. a few time each week it will be easy to make a sked if I skip Bates because of time constraint.

I will be on Victoria isl. at 9 AM (1300Z) and transmit on 7.250 (plus or minus) until there is no more takers. Then to 14.250 (plus or minus) again until no more takers. I will then move on to the next island.

It will be the same for every islands, 40M then 20M. The exchange will probably be contest style.

Victoria, Green and Porter are close to each other so it won't be too long between each of them.  North Petri is a bit farther, maximum one hour to get there.

One QSL card from you will be OK to confirm one or all the islands. I will send back one card that will confirm one or all the islands. QSL info is on QRZ.com

The order of the run could change or be cancel because of weather or for reasons that are unknown at this time.

It should be a lot of fun !!!   Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Gil  ve2mam@gmail.com

Field Day 2015 - - - - - We Survived !!

The portable beam goes up.

Field Day was an interesting experience this year.  From lousy weather and bad propagation, we had it all.  Field Day actually started for me on the Wednesday before when Don, VE3MNE, and I went out to Hay Bay to the property Don owns out there.  Wednesday and Thursday were great, the weather was warm, hardly any bugs.

This year, as we normally do, we operated as a 5A station, made up of four SSB and one Digital positions.  We did change up the antenna list this year.  The line-up was an 80m OCF dipole, a 160m OCF dipole, a 20m beam,  two 31' verticals, a 10m/15m fan dipole, a four element 6m Yagi, and a ten element 2m beam.  Friday and Saturday morning was spent getting these antennas in the air.  

During the lead up to Field Day we had three CME hits, which of course threw the good propagation out the window.  The numbers at 1320 UTC on June 27th didn't look good at all: SFI=100, SN=28, A Index=10, and K Index=2.  Those numbers, while changing a little, stayed almost constant throughout the weekend.

We also spent Saturday morning tarping the tents after seeing the projected weather forecast, two of the SSB stations and the Digi station where located in tents, and there is not much shelter out at Hay Bay from the elements.

The 6m and 2m "tower" made from a 32' ladder.

At 2000 UTC on Saturday the driving rain and strong winds hit, and it rained and blew heavily for the rest of the weekend.  But, nobody got wet, the tarps did their jobs, and all the radio's survived!   Things were so wet and windy out there we actually left everything setup out there when we left Sunday afternoon, and we will go out Monday morning and take everything down in the beautiful weather we have today...........now that Field Day is over !!

Even with the poor propagation we still managed to better our score from last year.  The 20m band was our top scorer with over 500 contacts, the 40m and Digi stations did pretty well too.  Unfortunately the 15m and 80m stations didn't have much activity on them, both of those stations made a respectable amount of contacts - but nowhere near normal, and we only managed to make a single contact on 6m.  

The second Field Day site our club operated was near Odessa at the QTH of George, VE3SIQ.  They also did very well over the weekend, especially as Geoge only moved in to this QTH a few weeks ago.  This year due to the number of ops who wanted to take part we had to do two sites, and we hope this trend continues.

Overall it was a successful weekend at Hay Bay, finishing with a total of 1385 contacts.  I think we may have kept our standing from last year, but we will wait and see what the final scores are when they are published later in the year by the ARRL.

Tarped up and waiting for the rain at the Digi station.

2015 Field Day Map.....only Newfoundland is not filled in!!

Remember........364 days to go till next Field Day !!!!!

Solar Flux.....

As 30,000 hams all patiently wait for Field Day to arrive it looks like the Propagation God is playing a dirty joke on us all.   If you haven't seen the SFI numbers today you're in for a shock!

Currently at 1811 UTC, the SFI is at 127, the SN is at 77, the K Index is at a whopping 54, and the A Index at an unbelievable 6.

And, it could get worse, as the forecast speaks of another possible earthbound CME due to hit sometime on June 25th, following a M6.5 flare on Monday.

Hopefully things will have settled down enough by the 27th to let Field Day be a good one with lots of contacts.  I'll be out at beautiful Hay Bay running the 40m station, and using the clubs VE3FRG callsign.

For those of you heading out to Field Day, have a great and safe one, and for those of you who are not going out to Field Day...........you don't know what you're missing !!

Have fun everyone!

Island Activating

How many of you get out in the spring, summer, or fall and activate islands.....or even lighthouses?   It seems over the past few years that this aspect of our hobby has fallen to record new lows.

Some of us who do activate Canadian islands on a regular basis blame the last administration of the Canadian Islands Award (CIsA), which disappeared about 2 years ago, after they failed to administer the program in an efficient manner.  In fact the truth of the matter is that the webmaster just failed - period!

CIsA was quickly replaced by Canadian Island Activators (CIA) to make sure the database of Canadian Islands was not lost, and the CIA website can be found HERE.  Or, If you're on Facebook you can read about forthcoming activations HERE.

A lot of work by a lot of amateurs was very nearly lost when the CIsA website was suddenly taken down with no warning by its webmaster.  Pages of reference material and island numbers were saved by using the Google "wayback" machine.

We need to get this aspect of the hobby built up again.  At the moment it seems there are very few who do go out and spend a few relaxing hours activating the odd island, and very few of the activations are past on to be advertised on the CIA sites.  As a result of that, people don't know what's out there to work, and the activators get fed up with getting no traffic and eventually give up doing it.

CIA has a "sister" club in the USA with whom they work very closely.  Down there they have US Islands, (USI) and they too have both a website and a Facebook page.  The website can be reached HERE, and the Facebook page HERE.

When activating an island we find it gets more attention if the notice goes on all four sites, and you will be amazed at just how many people read them looking for new and unusual islands to work.

Rules for the CIA can be found HERE.  Give it a go, you might enjoy it!

Sad News Today

Those of us in Kingston received some very sad news first thing this morning.  Mike Lambert, VE3SIW, became a Silent Key last night, he was 61 years old.

Mike VE3SIW

Mike has been a good friend of mine since I moved to Kingston 10 years ago.  He was a 32 year veteran of the Frontenac County Ambulance Service.   Mike retired early due to issues with PTSD.

Mike was a gentle giant who would give you the shirt off of his back if you needed it.  He was an extremely compassionate and caring person, and this was true right till the very end.

A long time ham, and a long time member of the Frontenac Emcomm Group, Mike's presence will be greatly missed by the ham community, especially at our Saturday coffee gatherings and our Sunday breakfasts, where he always was telling stories and joking around.  Mike was also a net controller on several US nets, including Sully's International Rooster Roster which is held daily on the Watertown repeater.

Mike, you're going to be missed buddy !!!

VE3SIW...........SK.