ARRL International DX Contest - SSB

Coming up next weekend, March 6th - 7th, is the ARRL international DX Contest - SSB.   This is always a great contest to work on your DXCC.

Rules can be found HERE.

One rule that I don't understand is the fact that we are not allowed to run multi-operator QRP stations.  The rule makes no sense at all to me, I guess I will have to contact the ARRL and ask why this rule is there.

I noticed that propagation went into the toilet this morning, hopefully it will improve before next Saturday!

Take care out there, and stay safe !!

A Quiet Month..so far...

February around here is normally a very quiet month, and this year seems to be no different.  Of course I'm talking about amateur radio here....not trucker convoys causing mayhem across the country.

I was out a few days ago, using my KX3 and my 20m EFHW.  To be honest, I didn't notice any difference between using the EFHW with a 20m Hamstick, the end result seemed to be exactly the same.  In fact if you overlay todays map with a map from last week, or even last month...they look pretty much the same.

Temperature wise it's actually warmed up to a balmy -3C here, although I'm sure we are going to get hit with another round, or two, of snow before the end of March.  It was quite comfortable doing my last POTA activation, I really didn't feel too cold at all.  The older you get the harder it seems you handle the cold.

This year, I am planning on taking part in the ARRL International SSB DX Contest.  This is being held on the weekend of March 5th & 6th.  I will do this contest QRO with my FT-950, as I think it will be a waste of time running QRP.  The Rules for this contest can be found HERE.

Stay warm and safe out there !!

Back Out Activating...

We've had some terrible weather here over the last week.  Another foot and a half (39 cm) of snow is on the ground and some freezing rain was added to it.  Luckily both my antenna have survived the wind and ice, but not much operating was done.

So today started with this strange golden yellow ball hanging in a beautiful deep blue sky, something we haven't seen for a few weeks now.....time to get out and play radio!!

It was still very cold, -20C in the wind, and the wind was gusting to 35 kph, so it had quite the bite to it.  I chose to go to Lemoine's Point, VE-5141, which is fairly close to my QTH.  With the bad propagation we have suffered through this past week I wasn't sure how the bands would be.

Propagation this morning was:

SFI=130, SN=87, A Index=32, and the K Index=3.....so it was going to be interesting.  Lot's of very deep QSB rounded things off.

Once again I stuck with 20m using the Hamstick, KX3 and 10w.  Really, I didn't think I was going to have much luck today operating....but it was nice just to get out of the house with a radio!

What an activation I had!   I put EA1FIC, Spain, and CU3HY, the Azores, in the log along with 26 US states and 2 Canadian provinces.  It turned out to be a great day.  The QSB was pretty deep at times, and I must apologize for the couple that I just could not work because of it.

Here's todays QSO map:

I'll be back out tomorrow doing another activation as the weather looks like it will still be good enough to do one.

Stay safe and warm out there!

Propagation...

Looks like it will be a tough couple of days on the bands....

UPDATED.....1300 UTC, February 2nd

UPDATED.....0300 UTC, February 3rd

Winter Field Day...the aftermath

This weekend was a tough one for operating at QRP levels! The bands were alive with the sound of signals...all weekend...and all right next to each other. While I stuck to 20m and 40m, contacts were heard being made on every band, 10m through 160m. Both WFD and POTA operators were out in force.

Propagation numbers were:

Saturday: SFI=125, SN=77, A Index= 19, K Index=1

Sunday: SFI=125, SN=74, A Index=17, K Index=2

Conditions are now starting to deteriorate in front of the expected G2 Solar Storm that is supposed to hit us on Tuesday, 1st February.

It was bitterly cold here the whole weekend, with temperatures down around -25C. The wind chill made it feel a lot worse than that. I found I could last about 40 to 50 minutes before I was just too cold and had to go and warm up. Because of this I split my operating into two parts, the first Saturday afternoon and the second on Sunday morning. This made the cold a bit more tolerable.

This year I operated in the "1 Outdoors" category, which I may have to reconsider next year. What amazed me the most over the weekend was the amount of stations operating as "1 Home", nearly all from the deep south where they don't have the cold we have here in the north. I have never figured out why people take part in a "Field Day" (Summer or Winter) and do so from home without ever going out to the field.

Once again I was using 10w from my KX3, and a 20m or 40m mag-mounted Hamstick. It saves so much time setting up in the deep cold not having to throw up a wire antenna.

Sunday morning brought some good DX on 20m, first up was CU3HY, quickly followed by CU3BL, both from the Azores. Then it was the turn of EA1FIC from Spain, and the biggest surprise was YV1GIY from Venezuela. I'm really pleased with those contacts.

Here's the map of the weekends 40 contacts:

Stay safe and warm out there!

Good Day Activating...

It was a very cold day here yesterday, so the new PackTenna linked dipole didn't make it out of the container.  Once again I used the 20m hamstick with a mag-mount on the roof of the van to save time out in the cold.  It was -20C without the wind, and the wind was absolutely howling.

Equipment, as usual, was my KX3 pumping out 10 screaming watts into the 20m Hamstick.

Propagation was good when I started.  SFI=102, SN=71, A Index=10, K Index=2.  Shortly after I went QRT the bands died within minutes.

As you can see from the map, 20m started long and as I logged contacts it started to shorten up, and eventually disappeared.

My Bioenno battery certainly doesn't like the cold, and I have noticed that it will remain good for about 40 minutes in deep cold.  

Yesterday I shut things down after 20 minutes with 27 contacts in the log.  The battery was still fine, but it's probably time to re-charge it.

I will have both batteries charged up ready for Winter Field Day this weekend.  I'm planning on doing dual POTA and WFD activations...hopefully that will drum up more business for the log book. 😋

Stay warm and safe out there!

Winter Field Day...

Coming up this weekend, January 29th - 30th, is Winter Field Day.....you know that weekend we get to go play radio and freeze our butts off......oh...and have fun doing it!!!

The Rules can be found HERE.   There are a few changes this year, so have a read of them and make sure you understand them....especially the point about submitting logs.

Both Saturday and Sunday are forecasted to have a high of -11C, but on the plus side, there's no snow on the horizon.

I have just received today, from PackTenna, a new 20m/40m linked dipole. Winter Field Day should be a great opportunity to use it for the first time....if a location can be found where I can put it up.  

20m/40m linked dipole

Stay warm and safe out there!

A Cold Activation...

This weekend the Winter Support Your Parks event is taking place, and it coincided with probably the coldest weekend we have had yet this year.  It was -37C with the wind chill when I left for Lemoine Point, VE-5141.  Absolutely bone chilling.

The propagation, as I reported earlier in another post, was not forecasted to be very good, but it did improve enough for me to think I could squeeze in an activation.   The propagation numbers were:  SFI=83, SN=39, A Index=9, and the K Index=2.

Before I left home I checked both 20m and 40m which were very busy, with very little room between the big signals.  By the time I got to my site, 20 minutes later, the signals on 17m and 15m had totally gone, and those on 40m were quickly disappearing. So I set up on 20m and hoped for the best.

Once again it was my KX3 being used with a 20m Hamstick.  I used the Hamstick today for the simple reason it was the fastest option to get on the air, and get me out of the cold.

Now activating using QRP levels does have a disadvantage, and I knew that going in to this, but the killer today was not the power level, but the extremely deep QSB.  One minute a signal was S9 and the next it had disappeared completely never to be heard again.  

I must admit that when I set out this morning I thought, given the amount of POTA traffic on the bands that it wouldn't take too long to do this, but in the end it took me 30 minutes to make 21 contacts. That's pretty slow for me, even operating QRP.

Todays activation map is below.

Stay warm and safe out there!