Interesting Map...

Yesterday I did yet another POTA activation.  The bands have been not cooperating over the few days, and I was getting cabin fever not having decent conditions.  

As it was a "Support Your Park" weekend, I really wanted to get out and do a very quick park activation, and lucky for me the propagation numbers improved just in time:  SFI=122, SN=78, A Index=8, and the K Index=2.  Those numbers are a vast improvement on what we have had over the past week.

The bands were very busy as we had the POTA event, the Ontario and Michigan QSO Parties, and on Sunday we also had the first ever Quebec QSO Party.  It was very difficult to find an open frequency to start calling on.

I spent some time on 20m, and then moved to 40m.  The map below is interesting because you can clearly see the contacts made on each band without even tagging them.

Stay safe out there !!

QRP To The Field...

Coming up next weekend is this years edition of QRP to the Field.  

QRP to the Field is an annual operating event to encourage QRPers and SOTA stations to get out of the house and operate portable from the field or a local summit.  Find a nice operating location for yourself, or combine it with some buddies for a day-long adventure. QRPTTF encourages participation by QRP hams of all skill levels. 

There's not much SOTA activity in Eastern Ontario due to a lack of suitable summits, but we do have a cornacopua of POTA parks which are great places to operate from.

Both CW and SSB is used in this event.  CW speeds are usually in the 13-20 wpm range. 

It takes place Saturday, April 21, 0800 to 1800 EDT, and the event uses the standard QRP frequencies.

From what I can find this event, and the NJQRP Skeeter Hunt in August, are the only two that have an SSB category.

More information and the rules can be found HERE.

Stay safe out there !!

New Radio...

The Easter Bunny delivered a new radio to my QTH this week, a new FT5Dr, 144/430 C4FM handheld.  

Originally I had the FT2Dr handheld, but recently it was traded for another mobile rig.  That was a mistake, for some reason I forgot that I like to take a HT along with me when I'm off to do a POTA activation.  We have a large contingent of POTA activators here in Kingston, and it's a good way to keep in touch with them on the local C4FM repeater, and keep track of where they all are.  That way two or three operators don't show up independently to the same park to attempt an activation.

This is a great HT.  The RX and TX audio is probably the best I have heard from a small radio before, and so far I have had many compliments on the audio quality.  I have changed out the stock antenna for a Diamond SRH77CA dual band antenna, but to be very honest I don't hear much of a difference between it and the stock antenna.

Is there a downside?  Yes, it takes a full nine hours to charge the battery.  I did purchase extra the AA battery pack for the radio.  I figured I could use that to finish a QSO, or continue to monitor while the main battery charges.

I haven't really started exploring the capabilities of this radio yet, but I very much like what I have seen so far.  Would I recommend it?  Yes, with no reservations.

Stay safe out there !!

Spooky Activation...

It's not very often I go to cemeteries, in fact I can't remember the last time I did.......before last night.  

Sometime last year Cataraqui Cemetery National Historic Site was added to the POTA list as VE-5300.  To be honest, at the time most of the hams in town thought it was kind of disrespectful to do that, myself included.

But then you hear the stories from the old guys about how many hams are actually buried there, so I decided to bite the bullet and activate it.

Let me tell you, it's a very spooky spot at night.  Yep, I did a late shift activation starting at 0001 UTC....but I won't do that again.  In fact I don't think I will ever activate there again, once was enough, thank you very much.

It took me 21 minutes to put 25 contacts in the log.  40m was just hopping, yet the QSB was bad and the propagation numbers weren't the best:  SFI-96, SN-24, A Index-12, and the K Index-3.   It was interesting that in the cemetery I had a constant S9 noise floor, so I know many stations who couldn't make it through the noise floor were missed.  The contacts made were all solid S9 plus.  

I must admit I was very uncomfortable there, it's not really the place to play ham radio, so I closed down with the 25 contacts and went home.

Here's last night's 40m contact map:

Stay safe out there!!

A North American First...

I was very pleased to take part in a first for North America this past Saturday.  It was the first ever "Annual HEMA Day".  HEMA, stands for Hills Excluding Marilyns Award.  In the UK a Marilyn is a hill of any height with a drop of 150 metres or more on all sides, and as this scheme originated in the UK, that's the term they use.

To qualify a Hill for this award, must have a 100m prominence, meaning it sticks up above the surrounding land by at least 100m.

So far there are 196 Hills in Ontario that qualify for this award.  Most are fairly hard to access, but there are some that are fairly easy to activate.

On Saturday I found a local hill, spotted myself on 20m, and called CQ.  Well, to say it was a waste of time was perhaps an understatement!!  The bands were in very poor shape.  I guess I should have paid more attention to the propagation numbers before I left home......I probably would have stayed in bed.

The numbers were:  SFI=147, SN=109, A Index=22, and the K Index=4.  Yeah, I wasn't going to talk anywhere that morning.

I had set up some Scheds with a couple of UK stations, in order to do Hill to Hill contacts, but that was not to be.

Have a look at the HEMA Award Scheme HERE.  If you're interested in getting HEMA up and running in your State of Province, get hold of Rob at: newDXCC at hema.org.uk

Plans are already underway for the next HEMA Day, to be held on October 22nd, 2022.

Stay safe out there!

More Bad Propagation on the Way...

Moderate (G2) to strong (G3) geomagnetic storms will be in the forecast beginning on Wednesday. A pair of coronal mass ejections that were observed on Monday are predicted to combine into one larger shock front and impact Earths geomagnetic field. 

The forecast calls for a passage by late in the day Wednesday (UTC time) and into early Thursday. The forecast doesn't look too good!

Here you go:

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!