A Good Day...

Today was one of those rare days that I get almost totally to myself.  It was sunny, hot, and pretty humid out...so a good day to find a new park to activate!

Recently a new yellow dot has popped up on the POTA map showing a new park in Gananoque, about 35 kms (22 miles) east of my home.  The POTA website showed it had been activated 3 times before, but only with digital modes, never SSB or CW.  

This park, CA-6346, Agnes Maule Macher National Historical Park, is not very big...in fact it's quite small. There is a small gravel parking lot that can hold maybe 8 or 9 cars if they all park correctly. As you can see in the photo on the left, the park is full of tall, mature, trees, all ready for a good wire antenna. I found a solitary picnic table there, and it's located right under a big shade tree. On the downside, there are no toilets there.....at all.

For the few days before this activation the propagation numbers have been almost off the charts, and I did not think I would be able to get this activation done. But the numbers "kind of" settled down overnight and I thought it would be ok to go ahead and get it done while I had the free day.

Today's propagation numbers were: SFI=260, SN=177, A Index=17, and the K Index=1. Definitely not the best, but certainly a lot better than the previous few days. There was also a lot of very deep QSB on all the bands.

No DX was worked, although I could faintly hear a EA2 station trying to call me on 20m, but he was so far below my noise floor I couldn't make out the call. 

I ended up with 26 contacts in the log, 23 SSB and 3 CW. I'm very pleased with this, given todays conditions. Hopefully the conditions will continue to get better and I can get back there and get more contacts another day.

Here's todays contact map:

Stay Safe Out There!!

Coming Up Next Weekend...

It's shaping up for a busy few days next weekend, we have the following big events:

1.  The International Lightship & Lighthouse Weekend.  That runs from 0001 UTC Saturday, August 17 to 2359 UTC Sunday, August 18.

2.  The North American QSO Party SSB.  That runs from 1800 UTC Saturday, August 17 to 0600 UTC Sunday, August 18.

3.  The New Jersey QRP Skeeter Hunt.  From 1700 - 2100 UTC, Sunday, August 18.

Click on the above event names to take you to the relevant rules and information pages.

Let's hope the propagation greatly improves for next weekend so we can get out and really enjoy ourselves on the bands!!

Stay Safe Out There!!

Plugging Away....

Yesterday was a very hot and muggy day here in Eastern Ontario.  The temperature was 27C (80.6F), but felt like 37C (98.6F) with the humidity.....in other words, very uncomfortable, and to top it off we had no breeze at all.

I made the mistake of not looking at the daily propagation numbers before I left home to activate CA-5141, Lemoine Point Conservation Area. If I had I probably would not have left home! The numbers yesterday morning were: SFI=245, SN=182, A Index=10, and the K Index=4. As well, the BZ was an unbelievable -13.5.

In 62 minutes I managed to put just 10 contacts in my log, just the bare minimum to get the activation done, 7 SSB and 3 CW. Now I'm well aware that the propagation we had was not conducive to QRP operating, but that's what I did......10w and a 40m hamstick on my truck roof.  

Given the conditions I was very happy to get the minimum 10 contacts, no DX was worked of course, but you wouldn't expect to on a day like that.

I'm looking forward to the cooler weather that is coming, and some much improved band conditions.

 

The days contact map.

Stay Safe Out There!!

Incoming Solar Storms...

Strong (G3) Geomagnetic Storm Watch.

Not just one....but a series of coronal mass ejections (!!!!) are predicted to possibly merge and contribute to a combined impact by July 30th. Moderate (G2) to Strong (G3) geomagnetic storm conditions will be possible within the next 48-72 hours.

Going to be a fun few days on the bands.

Stay Safe Out There!

Farewell to the FT-950...

After 15 years of sitting on my shack bench I have officially retired my FT-950. I'm going to miss the old beast, it never let me down, and it has done well over 21,000 SSB & CW QSO's since I bought it new.

I started to realize that the new rigs had much better roofing filters....and just about everything else. So it was time for it to go to another home. In its place will be a much smaller FT-891. It's all I really need in the shack as 90% of my operating is POTA, lighthouse, or island activations, and this means a huge rig wasn't really needed.  The plus side is I now have much more room on the bench for more junk!!

My thoughts so far on the FT-891? What a royal pain in the 'backside' the menu system is, and the manual that comes with the radio is just about useless.  I've always used Yaesu or Elecraft......this may be my last Yaesu. I can't figure out why I must set the band settings for each individual band, instead of just doing it once, and allowing the on board computer to assign those setting to all bands. 

I'll give it a while and try to really learn this rig....but I can't promise it'll be around for another 15 years!

Stay Safe Out There!

Support Your Park Event - Summer...

It's been a busy first 24 hours of this summers Support Your Park Event. So far I have 5 successful activations completed, and a couple more planned for tomorrow. The five completed parks so far are: CA-5142, CA-6003, CA-4872, CA-4864, and CA-5143.

The weather last night and today was superb, comfortably warm, with a light breeze and blue skies. Great weather for being outside playing radio.

Propagation wise it was good on Saturday until 1530 UTC, after that contacts were very hard to get as the conditions started to deteriorate.  The numbers were: SFI=202, SN=197, A Index=5, and the K Index=1. However, there was very deep QSB on the bands which certainly didn't help me.

One of the issues I'm finding here in the parks around Kingston is the fact that they are so busy in the summer. I know we're a tourist town, and it's good for business if the town is busy, but it gets difficult to find a parking spot in the parks unless you're there at the crack of dawn. Because they are busy it's also difficult to put up a wire antenna, I certainly don't want a lawsuit because some person, not watching where they're going, tripped over my radials or coax.

As my regular readers will know, my go-to antennas - for a long time - has been hamsticks, mounted on my truck's roof with a 5" mag-mount. I'm always surprised at how well they do, especially with 10w SSB. Last night, for a change, I dug out my Slidewinder coil with the 9.5' Buddipole whip, and used that. While it makes changing bands very easy, and it works very well, I didn't notice any significant improvement over my hamsticks.

We'll see how they do tomorrow....if the bands are usable again.

Stay Safe Out There!!

Bandpass Filters...

A bandpass filter is a device that passes frequencies within a certain range, and rejects frequencies outside of that range. These items are particularly useful in Field Day settings or when a POTA or SOTA activation has two or more stations operating at the same time.

After suffering through some minor interference during this years Field Day I decided to invest in a set of filters from K9DP.com, as did another member of our club. These are for QRP operations, up to a maximum of 20w, and they are only available for 15m, 20m, and 40m at the moment. I'm hoping a 10m and 80m version becomes available in the near future.

Here's a picture of the set that arrived today:

Stay Safe Out There !!

Great Day on the Bands...

This past Sunday I decided to drive to the Thousand Islands National Park and activate CA-0099 for POTA.  This was a new site for me, in fact I have never driven through the park before, and I highly recommend that if you can, do it.

It was an absolutely beautiful day, blue skies and 23C (74F) and because the site was on the river, the humidity was very low which made it very comfortable.

Propagation was pretty good, SFI=166, SN=119, A Index=3, and the K Index=1. However, there was quite a bit of deep QSB during the day and I know that cost me a couple of contacts by the end of the activation.  Stations would be S9+ and a few seconds later would disappear for good.

Because it was a weekend the usual LIDS were out and about, you know.....the tuner-uppers and the whistlers, all of whom seem to come to your specific frequency just to play their silly games.  I didn't let them bother me, I just carried on calling CQ and had a blast doing it.

When the SSB contacts died down I made a few contacts with my new portable key. It's made by Putikeeg, a company I had never heard of before. The key is great, it has a very smooth action, and the grip is perfect.  I'm enjoying using it, and it wasn't that expensive either.

Contact wise I have done a lot better, but I put 36 contacts in the log.  It wasn't a contest, and I took my time and had fun - which is what you're suppose to do.

Here's the contact map:

Stay Safe Out There !!