The RAC Kerfuffle

By now most of you will have read, or heard, of the kerfuffle going on between RAC and the Emergency Communications Ontario Association (ECOA).

The birth of ECOA was brought about by the recent change to the RAC
national liability insurance policy whereby non-affiliated clubs are no longer eligible to gain access to the RAC insurance policy, and the individual members of those non-affiliated clubs are also no longer eligible to access the RAC insurance policy. So ECOA was setup in order to allow for individuals and non-affiliated groups to access the RAC insurance program by having ECOA become a RAC affiliated club.

I must point out that gaining access to RAC insurance was not the only reason ECOA was formed.  They have managed to bring together, in a remarkably short time period, many emergency organizations in Ontario, such as the Salvation Army, Red Cross, and the St. John Ambulance.  In fact if you look at who ECOA's Directors are you will note that they come from these organizations, including a Director appointed from the EMO.  What a great thing to see, the very people who will need our emergency communications support serving as directors.  Ever see that happen in RAC?

One must ask the question that if the restriction being enforced that a club must be a RAC affiliate to gain insurance coverage, and that an individual must belong to an affiliated club to gain insurance coverage, has been imposed by the insurer, why would RAC agree to such a stupid requirement?

Anyway, you've probably guessed by now that RAC has thrown a hissy fit and has refused to accept ECOA as an affiliate, and has refused them insurance coverage as well. Nice one eh? And here I thought RAC was supposed to be encouraging new membership!

Just think about how many clubs across this country are not incorporated
and therefore not able to be a "RAC affiliated club" and therefore are
not eligible to have club insurance? Incorporation costs money and a
lot of clubs can't afford it, nor do they have the membership base to
support it. What about them? Why are they being disenfranchised?

How many hams are members of clubs who are not RAC affiliated clubs and
are now not eligible to have RAC insurance coverage? The other side of
the coin is not every ham wishes to belong to a club, affiliated or not,
so why should they be penalized?

In my ARES District we have four ARES groups. Two of those groups are
not incorporated, and are no longer eligible to get RAC insurance either
for their group or for their individual members. Is it fair to ask ARES members to react to an emergency, yet allow RAC to deny them insurance coverage to do so? 

The big question here is does RAC have a legal duty to protect us when we are called out?  If they have already authorised the formation of an ARES group, and that group is not incorporated.....as that is not a requirement to form a new group, surely we should be grandfathered under the new rules?  Because let me tell you, if I'm called out and I get injured, the first two people I intend to sue is the President of RAC and the VP Field Services for voting to deny me RAC insurance coverage, even though I'm operating in a RAC authorized ARES group.

RAC touts itself as the "Canadian National Organization" and that it "represents Canadian amateurs".  It doesn't.  RAC actually represents ALL Canadian amateurs, RAC members or not, and if it will not do that, or accept that fact, then they cannot be the national representative for amateur radio in this country.  Think about it - you represent everyone or nobody, you can't pick or chose - does Industry Canada only ask them questions about hams who are RAC members, or are the actual issues being discussed of national interest and ones that effect every ham in this country?

RAC needs to get its collective head out of its ass and get with the program.  Because sooner or later a group of hams will get together and decide enough is enough, and form a new national association, that WILL represent ALL Canadian amateurs........what a novel thought!

New Toy!

Last week I splurged and bought myself a new FT-817nd to play with.  It was ordered at 10:30 Tuesday, and I had it in my sweaty little hands at 11:00 Wednesday......great service from Radioworld.....and Canada  Post.

I can't believe how small it is, and it makes you wonder just how small radio can eventually go!

I'm looking forward to experimenting with it over the next few weeks and getting my CW up to speed.

Now I can take it to work and operate at lunch time daily from Fort Henry Hill using my Buddipole system.  This is going to be a good summer.

IARU Contest 2011

As per the usual for this weekend, Don-VE3MNE and myself headed out for our annual IARU HF World Championship weekend to Don's cottage on Hay Bay.  This year Tim-VA3TIC joined us for a weekend filled with the anticipation of excellent DX.

The bands seemed to be very long with stations from Europe coming in at 20 over 9, but they could not hear us answering their CQ's - on any band, using any of the four available antennas.  We all thought it was going to be a very long weekend when I answered a CQ from Steve-VK6IR in Western Australia and had an almost instant response.  The bands settled down after about 30 minutes and we made lots of DX contacts.

Overall it was a great weekend, and the weather was fantastic.  However, some of the behaviour on the bands could have been a hell of a lot better.  I started to wonder if some of the clowns we heard had ever operated a HF radio before!

Sunset at Hay Bay, Ontario

The LIDS were out in full force tuning up right on top of each other and the weak signal they were all trying to work.  Twice I had to remove my headset quickly due to a LID tuning up right on top of my QSO.  They were so loud it hurt.  Obviously they have no respect at all for their fellow amateurs!

Why is is when a station calls for the "VE3 only" every "W4" or "N9" in creation decides that the calling station actually meant them and not the VE3?  Some of these guys need Elmers in the worse way!

What's with the stations calling "QRZ" over and over and over without ever giving their callsign?  In the end I started to work one of these stations just to see if I could actually get his callsign out of him.....and it took 20 minutes to do so.  Elmers anyone????

What's with these clowns who sit on a frequency and tell you that it's in use, when clearly it isn't?  This happened to me at just as lunch was called on Saturday.  I left the radio on that frequency while I ate lunch and heard nothing for the next 30 minutes.  I went back called CQ and was told the frequency was in use.  In the end I asked the guy how much he had paid for that particular frequency as I'd like to buy one as well!

And finally, what's with giving your callsign at mach 6, so a normal human being could never understand anything you had just said.  Then why do they leave a few milli-seconds in between their CQ's so that stations do not have enough time to get their callsign in?  IO4HQ was an excellent example this weekend on how "not to call CQ".

Tim-VA3TIC working DX

Last contact of the weekend?  0750L Sunday morning I heard 8N8FQ, the HQ Station for the JARL calling CQ....and got him on one call back to him.  Made my day! 

I worked just about every national HQ station I could hear, but I never heard a RAC station on the bands taking part.  Does anyone know if they did?

The IARU contest is an excellent way of working all the DX you can handle in a weekend, we never miss it, and we all had a blast!

Many thanks to the ARRL for running this event for amateurs around the world on behalf of the IARU.

2011 Canada Day Contest

Thursday evening at 2000L I started scanning 40m for the start of the 2011 RAC Canada Day Contest.  First in the log was Greg-VA3KUG from Midland.  For the rest of the evening I bounced between 40m and 80m logging mainly Ontario stations. 

In recent past year the start of the Canada Day Contest aways yielded a feast of VE1's, VE9's, VO2' and VY2's.  Not this year.  Thursday night brought very slim pickin's.  I did manage to log Jean-Pierre-VA3SG, Polar Bear No. 121, an unusual sight on SSB.  J-P is normally on CW.....but with global warming the bears must be heading into new territory J

Saturday morning came pretty early and I drove out to the cottage of VE3MNE at Hay Bay, to use the same antennas we used for Field Day, namely the 160m and 80m OCF dipoles.  It's amazing how quiet those antennas are compared to my dipoles at home.

Both 40m and 20m started the day very long, and I had no problems getting contacts into the Maritimes and out to BC.  In fact all the provinces we had trouble making contact with on Field Day kept popping up all over the place!  How typical!

15m was a pretty big disappointment.  It never really opened all day.  I did make about 10 contacts there, but I worked hard for every one.  15m was also the only band I heard VA3RAC, and of course they never heard me answering them.

I made a good, solid, contact with Martin-JW/DG5NFF in Svalbard...which is an archipelago in the arctic, constituting the northernmost part of Norway.  Bless him, he was even calling "CQ Canada Day"!! 

Other DX for the day included the UK, Poland, Rumania and Spain.  However, the best catch of the day was Jose-KP4EIT in Ciales, Puerto Rico, who I caught on 6m mid-afternoon.

I ended up with only 75 contacts, but to make up for that I had a great day in the country, lots of sun and beautiful scenary.  Next year will be better.......right?

Field Day 2011 - The Results

Another successful field day is over!   This year Frontenac ARES operated as a 5A station, covering all bands from 160m to 6m. 

Our weekend started early Friday morning when myself, Don-VE3MNE, Tim-VA3TIC and Dave-VE3DZE met for breakfast at the Star Diner on Princess Street.  After firming up some plans we left for Don's cottage on the shore of Hay Bay, about 45 Kms west of Kingston.

The gang arrived at the cottage about 0930 hrs and first to go up were the antennas.  We erected a 160m OCF dipole, two 80m OCF dipoles, a 20m Delta Loop, a 15m vertical and a 10m / 6m fan dipole, and we also put up three screen tents, two for operating and the third for eating.   It was a long busy day and we didn't stop to have lunch, about 1900 hrs we left for Picton to have supper at the Texas Grill.  This is the fourth year we have supper there, and this has now become one of our field day traditions.

The weather was hot and sticky on Friday, cloudy and unsettled on Saturday with a little bit of rain during the night.  Sunday was a cloudy day with a little bit of sun....and of course just as we started to take everything down the rain started!

On Saturday morning the rest of the crew showed up, George-VE3SIQ and Martin-VA3AKY, and got their stations put together.  Once everyone was ready we installed our notch filters and tested for interference from each other.  Everything worked well except for the 10m notch which had to have emergency surgery performed on it, but we eventually had everyone up and running.

The SFI hovered about 96 all weekend with the 'A' index around 6 and the 'K' index at 2.  The bands where, for the most part, quiet, but not really good.

The 160m and 80m station didn't fair too well.  The 160m band never opened up at all and hardly any stations where heard on it, and the 80m band was only a little better.  The 40m station, while busy with stations on the eastern seaboard, never opened up and went long to the west coast.

The 15m and 20m stations carried the load with plenty of activity and many contacts between the two stations.  Our 10m station did very well, making over 100 contacts.  Six meters was a bust however.

I would be very remiss if I did not mention that this year was the very first field day for Tim-VA3TIC.  In fact Tim (now known as the "Duke") has only been a ham for about 6 months.  We put Tim on the 20m station, and stood back in amazement as he racked up 425 contacts!  It's great to see that his many years as a CBer were good training for him as a contester!  

Overall we did 1014 contacts on five bands, and we're happy with that score.  After all the main thing is to get out there, do the set up, fix any interference issues, operate and have fun.......and we did that.  Many thanks to Don for the use of his property and for doing the cooking.

Oh yeah, the only thing with Tim is to keep him away from the trees at all cost.  He has a really nasty habit of attracting falling tree branches when we were putting up the antennas.



Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour 2011

Another great weekend playing radio!!  This weekend, June 11th and 12th, was the 40th year the Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour has been run, and this year we had 2,115 registered riders on the different routes.

This is my 4th year as coordinator for the Frontenac County - Kingston section of the race and it was by far the best.  This year the weather actually cooperated......well, it did for the most part!  Mainly warm and sunny with just a little bit of rain late Saturday, but by then the vast majority of the riders where already safely at Queen's University.

The way the route is laid out it's about 356 Km for the round trip. The tour starts Saturday morning at Carleton University in Ottawa and returns their Sunday afternoon after an overnight stop at Queen's University in Kingston. The Frontenac County - Kingston section looks after Perth Road Village to Kingston, about a 33 Km section of the highway, manning communications check points at Queen's University, Glenburnie, Inverary, and Perth Road Village.

This year our section had 13 operators involved over the two days, including two guest operators from Belleville, Bill-VA3WOW and Bob-VE3QWB.  I'd also like to specially thank Ron-VA3ACZ from Ottawa, who stepped in at the last minute and helped out as a mobile unit on Sunday morning. 

We also had two operators working from home, keeping us up-to-date with weather reports and standing by to make phone calls as required.  Many thanks to Ron-VE3GO and George-VE3GWS for doing this for us.

Saturday the first rider came through Perth Road Village at 1045, not a bad time at all considering the distance they had ridden, and they arrived at Queen's University at 1145, so not a bad run for them.  Most of Saturday was pretty cloudy, though warm, but at about 1600 local the heavens opened and we had huge downpour for about 45 minutes.  It could not have been too nice being on the road in that, and it was a good thing that 98% of the riders had already arrived at Queen's by that time.

Sunday was a very early start, we had to have an operator at Queen's by 0530 to advise the check points down route when the riders left and how many remained.  Unfortunately the first rider left at 0500, and we past him on the highway about 18 kms north as we travelled to Perth Road Village to set up there.  He eventually went through Perth Road Village at 0610 flying down the highway at great speed back to Ottawa.....he shouted that he had a date in Ottawa for noon.......I hope he made it!

Perth Road Village Store

This was the first year we operated using the VE3FRG repeater, owned by the Frontenac Radio Group, and it worked a real treat.  No problems and a solid performance far beyond the footprint we thought we had with it.  I think everyone was very pleased with it.

For the past 38 years Keith Fish-VE3XKF and his XYL Sally-VE3YSF, have coordinated the communications for this tour.  They starting out with just a couple of CB radios provided by the Ottawa XM11 club, to this year where we had 62 ham radio operators using three separate repeater systems.  This year is their last year doing this job as next year is their 50th wedding anniversary as they will be away over the dates of the tour on a well deserved cruise, and they have both decided that this is a good time to call it quits.

Sally and Keith I don't know what we will do without you guys out their on the course next year, but because of what you have both built and put together over the past few decades I'm sure we will do OK......but we'll be thinking of you guys!

Wanted: A "hug patrol" replacement.  Must be cute, cuddly, and give out great hugs!  Please apply to Don-VE3MNE, Official Hug Tester for Frontenac Radio Group.

Field Day 2011

Field Day is nearly upon us again and we have had to change our plans for this year.  Instead of going to Whispering Pines Scout Camp near Perth, we will be going to Hay Bay to the cottage of Don-VE3MNE.

This year we will operate as a 6A operation covering all bands with SSB, CW stations, as well as an all band Digital station.  This will be the first time in a number of years that we have had that many stations operating on the property.

Antenna wise we will have a 160m OCF, a 80m OCF, a 40m-15m vertical as well as dipoles for 20m, 15m, 10m, and 6m.

Hopefully the SFI will improve so we can get into places we have not been able to over the past few years.  We're also praying for good weather given all the rain we have had this month!

So far we have 8 amateurs lined up to attend so it should be a good time.

A Different Antenna

Early Monday morning saw Tim-VA3TIC and myself back up on Fort Henry Hill......rumour has it that we're up there so often that the Fort is about to issue us both scarlet tunics!!  The weather was great, but the wind was up and gusting to about 40KPH.

It was a disappointing morning for myself as I chose to operate 2m SSB and did not hear a thing anywhere on the band.  I even tried 2m CW and still didn't get a response to my CQ's.  In the end I went back to the FM portion and checked into local and distant morning nets.  It's amazing just where you can get into from that location.

VA3TIC/Mobile

Tim, on the other hand, was trying out his new "sputnik antenna".   He has homebrewed a magnetic mount that enables him to have a 102" whip for 10m as well as hamsticks for 15m, 17m, 20m, and 80m.  It tunes up nicely on all bands, and he managed to make a solid contact into central Kansas, about 1600Km away.  So not to shabby. 

We all know hamsticks are a comprimise antenna and will never replace dipoles or other portable antennas, but in an emergency we'll take what we can get.

Hopefully the bands will start to pick up again before too long. It's not nice being back down with an SFI of 84 after what we have had in the last month.  Let's hope it improves a great deal before Field Day.