Another Sunday in the Park...

Getting up early on a Sunday morning, and going off to play radio, is starting to become a habit!!  It was a great day, blue skies and not a cloud to be seen anywhere.  In fact it was 18C when I was in the park, not too shabby for the 1st May around here.

My antenna today was, surprisingly, not a hamstick.  I used what I call my WG0AT antenna, a 41' radiator, and a 17' ground radial.  It's attached to the radio by a BNC to Banana Plug adapter, and not with coax or a Balun.  Steve, WG0AT, kindly provided me with the details of this antenna after I saw a video of him using it on a SOTA activation.

It works on most bands, and tunes down to 1.5:1 for many of them, a couple were 2.1:1.  I can not use it on 80m, 17m, or 12m, it just won't tune them at all.  It's not really an issue as I don't normally activate on those bands anyway.  I must try this antenna with a 4:1 Balun and see what changes with it.

So how did I do?  Well let me start off by saying that the propagation was not the best (that's also becoming a habit!!).  We had very noisy bands with deep QSB, signals were S9 one minute and gone completely the next.

Propagation numbers for today: SFI=120, SN=50, A Index=18, and the K Index=3.

However, I did manage to work three stations in Florida, WB4TDH, N4II, on CW, and N4Y on SSB.  All three were taking part in the Florida QSO Party.  Best contact of the day goes to G7SQW, Andy, who was activating a park in the UK, and my mighty 10 screaming watts grabbed him on my first call.  I'm very pleased with that contact, especially considering todays conditions!

It looks like we have a wet week ahead, so I will have to squeeze any of my planned POTA activations in between the rain drops.....the good news is that it isn't snow in the forecast!

Stay safe everyone.

A nice spot to play radio! 

Sunday morning in the Park...

The propagation numbers this morning seemed to be a lot better than they were yesterday, so off I went after breakfast to the Marshlands Conservation Area, POTA VE-5143, and set up to activate the park.

Let me tell you that the propagation numbers that popped up on the space weather website, had nothing to do with what was actually experienced on air.  The published numbers were:  SFI=160, SN=118, A Index=12, and the K Index=1.

It took me 90 minutes to make 14 contacts on three bands, 15m, 20m, and 40m.  Not at all what I expected when I started. That is the longest amount of time I have ever spent on an activation so far.

The radio of the day was my KX3, but I swapped out my normal mag-mounted hamsticks on my vans roof, to a light-weight camera tripod mount.

This setup uses one 17 foot radial, which I left attached for the whole activation.  Furthest contact was on 20m and was with Mike, W5NXK, in Lufkin, Texas, 2100 kms away.  So I'd say the proof of concept test went well, regardless of the poor band conditions.

There are a couple of things I need to do for the next time I use this setup.  Firstly, I need to find a good way of securing the tripod so it doesn't tip over.  Today was fine, we had zero wind.  

Secondly, I need to add a few more ground radials. Yes, it worked with just one radial, but we all know it needs more.

Today was another first....it was the first time I activated this year and didn't sit in the van, I actually setup outside on a small portable table.  Yes, spring is here!!

Close up of the actual mount

Todays QSO map 

Results - QRP to the Field...

Today is the QRP to the Field event and I joined Bob, VA3QV, at Lemoine Point to do a bit of QRP'ing.  The bands were in an absolute atrocious state.  In fact we couldn't even work a local station, Jelle, VA3JDG, on 40m who was, in a straight line, only eight kilometres away.  Jelle was running 100w, and we still didn't hear him.

The propagation at 10am local was: SFI= 163, SN= 101, A Index= 6, and the K Index= 4.

We did hear some stations on MI and OH calling CQ POTA, but we could not work them at all.  Bob's screaming 5w SSB just wasn't cutting it this morning at all.

It was disappointing, but we still got to play radio in the great outdoors, and Bob got to check out his portable gear, and make sure it worked and had everything he needs. So all was not a total waste.

Hopefully tomorrow morning will have better propagation and we will be able make a few portable contacts when we meet up at Lake Ontario Park for another portable operating session.

Bob, hard at work trying to make at least one contact!

Bob's Xiegu X5105 in action.

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!