Devastating News Yesterday...

I'm very lucky in my life to have some of the best friends ever.  They're scattered all over Canada, and I know if anything bad was to happen I could count on them 100%.

Kieran Shepherd, VA3KS, was one of those friends.  We share an interest, POTA, that we both enjoy very much.  We both like doing portable operating in quiet places away from the intense RF noisy areas we live in, and we both enjoy camping and hiking.  

Kieran and I have done many shared activations over the past 3 years, travelling to meet up at remote spots, so we could spend a few hours together "playing radio".  Portland Bay Conservation Area was one of our favourite spots, a few hours activating the conservation area, Fish and Chips and a Pint for lunch at the Portland Restaurant, a few more hours on the radio, and then we each head for home.  A perfect radio day.

Next spring I'm planning a 30 day road trip to activate some of the remote, and not so remote POTA parks in Western Canada. At the same time Kieran was planning a trip to Nevada to visit his son and grandkids, we were trying to figure out how to meet up in Alberta and drive the return trip in convoy, activating more parks as we travelled.

These plans, and future plans came to a screeching halt early yesterday morning when I received an email from Jennifer, Kierans wife, letting me know he had passed away suddenly, and totally unexpected, during Thursday night.  He was 64 years old.

Kieran was a great friend to me, and I learned a great deal from him about portable operating and POTA. I valued his advice. He was a prolific POTA activator with 563 activations completed. His last activation was on the morning of Thursday, November 24th, the day we lost him.

His passing serves to teach us that any one of us could go at any time, we have no control over that. So don't wait to start doing your bucket list, time is valuable, and short.

Goodbye old friend.

Kieran Shepherd

VA3KS

January 30, 1959 – November 24, 2023

10m was rocking!!

Yesterday, November 15th, I decided to do a mid-morning activation of VE-5141, Lemoine Point Conservation Area, a local to me, POTA spot.   

The weather, for this area, at this time of year, was spectacular.  Sunny, +7C (44.6F), and a deep blue sky.  Not a drop of rain or snow in sight.  It was just an absolutely beautiful day.

The day before during an activation of VE-5142, Parrott's Bay, I had great success on 10m, so today I decided to do the whole activation, if I could, on 10m.  Many of my activations have been done only on 40m, but I had never tried to do this on another band.

Luckily for me 10m was just alive with good signals.  First in the log was F4FTJ, and in rapid succession PU1JSV, 2E0VRX, OE4JHW, F4ILH, IK1GPG, EA1BUL, and F4HZR followed.  This was the first time I made POTA contacts with Brazil and Austria, that just made my day.  The Brazilian station was S9 +20 to me, just an outstanding signal.

The radio was my KX3 set at 10w.  The antenna of the day was a 10m Hamstick on the roof of my truck using a 5" mag-mount.  

The day's propagation was: SFI=124, SN=40, A Index=6 and the K Index=3.  There was no, to very little QSB, and the LIDS and deliberate QRM'ers stayed away for a change.

Hopefully if this run of good weather and decent propagation holds for a few more days, I can get out and do a lot more portable operating, because you know before long the snow will start to fly around here.

Here's the days contact map:

Keep Well, and Stay Safe Out There!

Remembrance Day 2023

In Loving Memory of the

Officers, NCO's, and Men

of

2816 Squadron, RAF Regiment

December 1941 -  June 1946

LEST WE FORGET

Another CME Headed Our Way......

Yesterday we had a Halo CME ejection at 1000 UTC that is headed directly towards earth.  This means another weekend of bad to mediocre propagation.

Here's the 3 day forecast for the weekend in 6 hour blocks:

Stay Safe Out There!

Saturday at Portland Bay...

I had four great POTA activations last Saturday. The weather was nice and dry in Portland, and the propagation even behaved for a few hours. I had arranged to meet up with Kieran VA3KS there, and we had a great time, and lots of good radio contacts.

I started the morning on 40m, and surprisingly I worked my usual "customers", and even with the 45w amp in use, it didn't seem to make that much of a difference to who I was working distance wise. After 15 contacts on 40m Eric VE3DN, texted me and told me to get up on 10m, and what a time I had there.  

In the end I finished up with 11 European stations in the log, all on 10m. IK1GPG in Italy, SP8DJY in Poland, EA2CCG, EA4TL, and EA1BUL in Spain, 2E0VRX and M7CBI in the UK, F4ILH and F4FTJ in France, DL3LJ in Germany, and PD1CW in the Netherlands. That's my best day of DX in a long time. So it looks like the small amp is working very well indeed when it comes to DX, and it looks like it really does allow me to punch my signal out that bit further.

Then it was off to Mill Pond Conservation Area, a small site about 15 minutes further north of Portland. This is a very strange site, and it gives off some creepy vibes....everyone who has operated there has said the same thing. It was after lunch by now and contacts were getting harder to get. It took me about 20 minutes to get 16 contacts in the log, after which I packed up and started the hour long drive back to Kingston.

Propagation for the day was: SFI-156, SN-82, A Index-4, and the K Index-1. The weather, while sunny, was pretty cold, it was 3C so it was a good job I was dressed warmly. Well, at least it wasn't snowing!

Below are my contact maps for the day.

North American Contacts

European Contacts

Stay Safe out There!

Rough Day...Updated

It looks like it may be a rough couple of days propagation wise coming up.  Here's the three day forecast:

Here's the update showing the K Index levels for the past few days:

Stay Safe Out There!!

A Couple of New Toys...

This week a couple of new toys showed up in the shack, both of them are on the list of wanted gear for my 30 day, 61 POTA Parks, west coast trip I have scheduled for next spring.....more about that later.

Both items were picked up from eBay, and several friends also have these items...so I know they work.  I was concerned that the 15w maximum of the KX3 may not be enough to get a good signal out of some of the deep valleys I'll be in.  So first to be bought was a MX P50M 45w amplifier to help push my signal out a bit further.

I'm also building a new 20m/40m linked dipole for the trip which will also help get a signal out better than my 40m EFHW or Hamsticks.

Next to arrive was a ATU-100 external antenna tuner, this is needed as I mainly use non-resonant antennas, and the amp will need to find a good match.  This tuner works on 10m through 80m, so it will cover all the options I need.

One last item has still to arrive, the PTT/Switching control cable for the KX3.  The tuner comes with the cable for the FT-817, which is no good to me as I have just sold my 817.

Once I have all the parts I can start testing how it will work for me.  It will be interesting to see how the extra power changes my normal contact area that you see in the QSO maps I publish every once in a while.

Now it's off to tidy up the maps for the routes I have chosen.  

Stay Safe Out There!

15m Rocks!!

I decided at the last minute to do a POTA activation at Parrotts Bay Conservation Area this morning. After looking at the propagation forecast I thought it would be ok to give it a try, and I wasn't sorry I did.

While looking at the POTA Spots page I noticed that 15m was working well, so I decided to start there.  In the end I ended up with 21 contacts on 15m and another 3 on 40m.  It took 20 minutes to get the 24 contacts in my log.  

The propagation this morning was: SFI=122, SN=34, A Index=3, and the K Index=1.  As usual I used my KX3 at 10w, and the antenna was a 15m hamstick on the roof of my truck.

I was really shocked to get a Park-to-Park call from Florian, DK5FF in Northern Germany, and then a good solid S9 contact with Jose, EA1BUL in Northern Spain.  It was also nice to get Jerry, VE8GER back in the log again from Inuvik in Canada's Northwest Territories.  Jerry has hunkered down now for the long cold winter that happens in his part of the country.  It'll be a few months before he sees sunlight again. 

Overall it was a great QRP day!!

Here's today's contact map:

Stay Safe Out There!!