This weekend...

Most of you will know that the propagation over the last 2 weeks has been pretty dismal.  Well, don't expect anything to change over the next few days.  

Here's the forecast until Saturday...

Stay Safe Out There.

Not A Bad Weekend...

Against all good common sense I decided to try and complete my 100th activation of Lemoine Point, CA-5141, on Sunday afternoon.  

Propagation wasn't that good, and the QSB was really bad, and to be very honest, it was probably not the day to do it with 10w SSB and a Hamstick antenna.

Well, Lemoine Point has three parking lots, and there was not an empty parking spot in any of them. So it was off to Parrott's Bay and try an attempt to activate CA-5142.

I ended up with 12 contacts in 90 minutes, and had to use 40m, 15m, and 10m to get those contacts. You can see from the contact map that a good proportion of the contacts were from the west coast.

Not a wasted day, just not what was planned.

Monday morning saw me heading back to Lemoine Point, CA-5141, in an attempt to have a successful 100th activation of the park........and when I arrived, nobody else was there, what a difference a day makes! The place was totally deserted, so I quickly parked and got my radio and antenna set up.

Like the day before the propagation was terrible, and I had to fight for every contact I made. Starting on 15m I made a grand total of one contact, after 10 minutes of calling with no response I moved to 40m, which was very noisy, and was full of static crashes from the storms in my area.

It still took me 60 minutes to get 13 contacts in my log, but the job was done, and the 100th activation was a great success. Many thanks to K1WIT, Shannon, who was number 10 in the log to complete the activation, and best of all she too was in a park, US-0324, so I received credit for a Park 2 Park for the same QSO.

I am still figuring out what the next POTA Challenge I will be doing. There are so many options, and that's the beauty of the POTA program.

Stay Safe Out There!!

QRP to the Field...

This Saturday, April 20th, is the day for the 2024 QRP to the Field Event. 

The Rules for the event can be found HERE.

Last year, 2023, I was the only Canadian station to submit a log, and from the results page, it looks like I was the only SSB station as well.  The event allows both CW & SSB.  CW is 5w, and SSB is 10w.

If you're out doing SOTA or POTA, those contacts can be submitted to QRP to the Field.

Get outside and have some fun.

Stay Safe Out There!!

Getting Ready - D-35...

Just over a month until I depart on a 30 day, 10,000+ km cross Canada trip.  This is the first of a couple of updates before my departure day.  I'm planning on activating over 70 POTA parks, including quite a few that have never been activated yet.  If you chase parks you can follow me on POTA Spots during the trip and catch a few new ones.

Jim VE3ULC, and I spent Monday afternoon analyzing some antenna systems to make sure they were acceptable and usable on the new mounts.  It took a little bit of tweaking but all three of them look really good now.

First up was my 40m Hamstick that I plan on using on the rear antenna mount, at night, for my WSPR station.  I'm not planning on using APRS on the trip, as there are currently huge holes in the Canadian APRS coverage map.  Friends and family can log into the WSPR Page each evening and see where I have made it to.  

The 40m hamstick was ok, but we still ended up trimming about 1" off the whip and it came down to 1.1:1 SWR, which is very acceptable.

I initially tried four 17' radials with the hamstick, but found that when I used just two radials you couldn't see the difference.

We also had a look at my Slidewinder coil, that I have never used before, and set it up as it will be used on

the trip.  I'm using the Buddipole Versahub system along with three 33' radials to support it and get it off the ground.  It tuned up on 20m & 40m with no trouble at all (I didn't look at any other bands), and I'm looking forward to making some contacts with it before the trip.

Lastly, we measured and cut the wire for a new 40m EFHW antenna.  This will be used with my SOTABeams Tactical-Mini Mast.  After trimming it, the EFHW tuned up on all bands, 40m through 10m, with no issues at all.  

Later this week I have to start booking provincial and national park camping sites to make sure I have a place to sleep each night.  Next Monday we will be removing the canopy from my truck and re-sealing it to make it water tight.  At the moment it leaks in heavy rain, and I need to keep my sleeping bag and the rest of my equipment nice and dry.

This trip I will not have access to wifi on a regular basis, unlike the other trips I have done, so I will update the page when I can.  

Stay Safe Out There!!

New Piece of Gear...

I picked up a new piece of equipment last week, an ABR Industries RF Choke.  I'm very happy with the choke, it's built extremely well - like a tank, it's about 18" long and has seven series 31 Current Ferrites. The Ferrites are covered with tough heat shrink, and it does the job as advertised......but I'm NOT happy with the hidden costs to get it here.

When I purchased this item from ABR Industries they charged me an additional $30 for shipping, which was almost two-thirds of the base price.  OK, I need the gear, so I'll swallow the cost and purchase it.

What I did not count on was that they shipped it via UPS, and that company charged me an additional $47.95 to deliver it to my door, after I'd already paid ABR for delivery! Delivery charges have now come very close to being twice the actual cost of the piece of equipment. So this is the last piece of gear I will get from ABR Industries as they seem to only ship via UPS.

As I stated, it's a well built piece of equipment, and does a great job, but it's not worth anywhere near the total price I have had to pay to get it.

Stay Safe Out There!

Sweden....

It was a good day on the bands yesterday....for a change!!  The last few days have been particularly bad after the double CME hit, but things are improving.  Hopefully today I will catch some DX on the CQ WPX Contest.

I had a first today, I was at Lemoine Park doing a POTA activation (as usual), and I was hunted by Thomas, SM3NRY, a Swedish station.  This is the very first time I have worked Sweden doing POTA.   Thomas gave me a 58 report, not too bad for 10w into a 15m Hamstick!

Propagation yesterday was: SFI=175, SN=90, A Index=7, K Index=1.

It was a quick activation, only 18 contacts were made, but it was great to be out in the sunshine and a park for even a short time.  Just enough to relax and enjoy things.

Here's the contact map:

Stay Safe Out There!

More Poor Propagation....

Not a good day on the bands today.  It's not too often you see a K Index of 8....and it's not looking too good for tomorrow either!  Here's the latest numbers:

 

Stay Safe Out There!

Rough Day on the Bands...

Parrott's Bay

While the propagation numbers looked ok this morning, the reality of the situation was the bands were total garbage, this was coupled with extremely deep QSB wiping out signals completely.

Today was the first time, ever, it's taken me over an hour to activating a park. I made contacts on 12m, 15m, 20m, and 40m to make 10 simple contacts, it was just insane.....and no DX stations were worked. 

This mornings propagation numbers were:  SFI=131, SN=86, A Index=6, and the K Index=2.

It wasn't all bad, it was a beautiful day to be in the park, +10C under blue sky.  It was great!

Here's todays contact map:

Be Well, and Stay Safe Out There!