Emergency Frequencies....Please Keep Clear

The island of São Jorge in the Azores has suffered over 1800 earthquakes over 48 hours causing concerns and prompting the Regional Government of the Azores to prepare contingency plans to protect the islands population. 

Carlos Nora CT1END, Emergency Communications Co-Ordinator for Portugal reports that a group of nine Radio Amateurs in the towns of Velas and Calheta are working to support emergency communications locally through VHF/UHF repeaters but also long range links back to Portugal on:

80M – 3,750.00 MHz. — 3,760.00 MHz. – LSB (Overnight)
40M – 7,100.00 MHz. — 7,110.00 MHz. – LSB (During the day)
20M – 14,300.00 MHz. USB (For outside region)

This external activity being supported by the Azores DX group and the Portuguese national society REP.

Other radio amateurs are encouraged to listen carefully and avoid causing any QRM to emergency operations on the above frequencies. 

Hard Going...

It was still fairly cold when I left to do a POTA activation this morning at VE-5141, Lemoine Point, but not enough to be uncomfortable.

Because of the CQ WPX Contest on this weekend I chose to avoid 20m and 40m.  Contest traffic on those bands was crammed into every inch of those bands.  I decided to get on 17m and avoid the congestion.  However, as soon as I starting calling CQ, the deliberate QRMing started.  Apparently the Children don't like POTA on 17m, that's too bad, I kept going anyway.

Propagation today was: SFI=112, SN=50, A Index=10, and K Index=1. 

There was some very deep QSB and lots of noise on 17m, which made things quite difficult, along with the deliberate QRMing, to actually complete a contact.  But after a pretty slow thirty minutes I had 14 contacts in the log, including 2 into Spain, and so I went QRT.  

I have to say that I was actually quite proud of the fact that my puny 10w into a 17m hamstick had so many of the regulars on 17m in a complete meltdown.  Some people just don't like to share their space I guess.  They insist POTA is a contest.....which it isn't.

By tomorrow morning the madness of the contest should have settled down, so I'm planning on another portable operating, this time on 10m and 15m, and see what DX I can work.

Here's todays QSO Map:

Remember, POTA is a team sport........Stay safe out there!

Spring has Sprung...

What a great day to be out playing portable radio today!!  It's a balmy +11C here, best day all year...so far. It's warming up fast here, in fact in less than a week the ice has all but disappeared from Lake Ontario.

This mornings propagation was "interesting".  The numbers were:  SFI=95, SN=39, A Index=9, and the K Index=1.   There was a great deal of very deep fading, and a fair bit of QRM going on.

The best contacts of the day were to Jean-Luc, F4GWG, and Jean, F4ILH, both located on the French mid-Atlantic Coast.  Not too shabby for 10w into a 20m Hamstick 😀

The bands are definitely getting better, but they are sure taking their sweet time!

Here's todays QSO Map:

Stay Safe Out There...

Bad Propagation...

This isn't looking too good for the next 24 hours....

A Day Playing Radio...

It was a rough day on the bands, the propagation numbers were not very good:  SFI=113, SN=77, A Index=10, and K Index=5.  So I figured it was a good morning to try and do some portable operating.  Of course, I forgot it was the ARRL DX Contest weekend.

The bands were full of contesters all screaming "CQ Contest", so it was off to 17m where the more saner operators had decided to hang out.

First up this morning was Bob, M0MJA, who gave me a nice signal report of '54'....not too bad for 10w into a 17m hamstick on my vans roof....and that was my last DX of the day.  I managed 7 contacts on 17m and then moved to 40m, which while busy, was still a comparatively sane place at that time of day.

Weather wise it was actually comfortable today, the temperature was hovering around 0C, but there was no wind at all.  Hopefully we'll start to get more days like that now that March is here.

Here's todays QSO Map:

Stay safe out there!

Slava Ukraini !!

ARRL International DX Contest - SSB

Coming up next weekend, March 6th - 7th, is the ARRL international DX Contest - SSB.   This is always a great contest to work on your DXCC.

Rules can be found HERE.

One rule that I don't understand is the fact that we are not allowed to run multi-operator QRP stations.  The rule makes no sense at all to me, I guess I will have to contact the ARRL and ask why this rule is there.

I noticed that propagation went into the toilet this morning, hopefully it will improve before next Saturday!

Take care out there, and stay safe !!

A Quiet Month..so far...

February around here is normally a very quiet month, and this year seems to be no different.  Of course I'm talking about amateur radio here....not trucker convoys causing mayhem across the country.

I was out a few days ago, using my KX3 and my 20m EFHW.  To be honest, I didn't notice any difference between using the EFHW with a 20m Hamstick, the end result seemed to be exactly the same.  In fact if you overlay todays map with a map from last week, or even last month...they look pretty much the same.

Temperature wise it's actually warmed up to a balmy -3C here, although I'm sure we are going to get hit with another round, or two, of snow before the end of March.  It was quite comfortable doing my last POTA activation, I really didn't feel too cold at all.  The older you get the harder it seems you handle the cold.

This year, I am planning on taking part in the ARRL International SSB DX Contest.  This is being held on the weekend of March 5th & 6th.  I will do this contest QRO with my FT-950, as I think it will be a waste of time running QRP.  The Rules for this contest can be found HERE.

Stay warm and safe out there !!

Back Out Activating...

We've had some terrible weather here over the last week.  Another foot and a half (39 cm) of snow is on the ground and some freezing rain was added to it.  Luckily both my antenna have survived the wind and ice, but not much operating was done.

So today started with this strange golden yellow ball hanging in a beautiful deep blue sky, something we haven't seen for a few weeks now.....time to get out and play radio!!

It was still very cold, -20C in the wind, and the wind was gusting to 35 kph, so it had quite the bite to it.  I chose to go to Lemoine's Point, VE-5141, which is fairly close to my QTH.  With the bad propagation we have suffered through this past week I wasn't sure how the bands would be.

Propagation this morning was:

SFI=130, SN=87, A Index=32, and the K Index=3.....so it was going to be interesting.  Lot's of very deep QSB rounded things off.

Once again I stuck with 20m using the Hamstick, KX3 and 10w.  Really, I didn't think I was going to have much luck today operating....but it was nice just to get out of the house with a radio!

What an activation I had!   I put EA1FIC, Spain, and CU3HY, the Azores, in the log along with 26 US states and 2 Canadian provinces.  It turned out to be a great day.  The QSB was pretty deep at times, and I must apologize for the couple that I just could not work because of it.

Here's todays QSO map:

I'll be back out tomorrow doing another activation as the weather looks like it will still be good enough to do one.

Stay safe and warm out there!