2013 W/VE Island QSO Party

Coming up on October 19th and 20th is this years edition of the W/VE Island QSO Party.  This event is sponsored by the US Islands program, and is held each year to help promote both the Canadian and US island programs to amateurs.

This year the Frontenac Radio Group will be activating four local islands around Kingston: Howe, Wolfe, Amherst, and Simcoe Islands.  This will be the first time we have considered getting all four islands on the air at the same time.  Each island will hopefully have at least two HF stations, including 6m.

The rules for the event can be found HERE.

What is most embarrassing about all this is the fact that the US Islands program (USI) do all the work for this event, and our own Canadian Islands Award (CIsA) program does nothing at all to promote it.  In fact it is not even mentioned on the CIsA website, but given the fact that the website has not even been updated since August 2012, it's hardly surprising. 

Nobody will ever be able to convince me that no Canadian amateur activated an island this summer, and that the CIsA webmaster received no email updates advising them of any activations in 2013. 

Just for the record, over the past three summers the Frontenac Radio Group has activated over 14 islands, including three already this year.  Two weeks before every activation we have emailed both CIsA and USI advising them of the up-coming event.  Only USI has ever responded to our emails, normally within 30 minutes to an hour.  The CIsA webmaster has responded once only, and that was three weeks after the event.

Perhaps somebody should come up with another Canadian island activation association that will actually do the job....and if you think activating islands doesn't attract much attention, have somebody spot you on the DX cluster and wait for the wall of calls to hit you.

Anyway, get out there on the 19/20 October and activate one of your local islands, it may be your last chance to get out and operate portable before the snow flies!!

CQ WW SSB Contest

It's been a quiet couple of weeks around here due to the fact I've been as sick as I've ever been.  Somehow I managed to get the latest flu bug that is going around.  It's not very nice at all, you ache from head to foot, and every joint and every bone hurts, but you have no runny nose or cough.  Anyway, after a trip to the local emergency room I'm finally feeling better, and got the all clear from the family doctor today.

Coming up on my radio calendar soon is this years CQ WW SSB Contest, this year held on October 26th and 27th, and runs the full 48 hours. 

This year myself and a couple of other hams are heading up to my brother-in-laws cottage on Leggat Lake, about 60 Kms north of Kingston.  It's beautifully RF quiet up there as it is quite far from civilization. So we are all hoping to be able to hear, and work, the weak ones for a change.

Our plan is to go in to the cottage on Thursday the 24th, and stay over until Monday the 28th.  Five days of ham radio!!

There are no antennas up at the cottage so we will have to get them in the air as soon as we get there.  The plan.....so far.....is to have a 31' vertical, a 80m OCF Dipole, a 66' longwire, and what we in Kingston are now calling a VA3QV (see here).  This should do us just fine....and we will have a Buddipole, with enough pieces to build three of them!

This is the same cottage we use each year for Winter Field Day at the end of January, so we are looking forward to having running water, a BBQ, a working toilet, and hot showers this time we are there.  Of course this will just spoil us for this coming January's Winter Field Day!!

The rules for the contest can be found HERE.  This contest is always great for working DX, and lots of it. The  propagation looks good for that time period as well, so hopefully it will be a successful contest.

The cottage in mid-winter

Yes......it was Chilly!!

The view through the forest

This year the annual Chillycon gathering lived up to its name - it was pretty chilly out, especially on Friday night, in fact it got down to about 4C, way past the threshold of my sleeping bag!

The drive from Kingston was pretty uneventful and the weather looked threatening but it didn't rain on the journey.  Don, VE3MNE, and I arrived just at 2:00 pm, and the staff at Rideau River were very friendly when we checked in. I commented before about this, but they keep the place very clean, in fact it's always clean and you never see garbage laying around, and you never see dirty washrooms either.

We arrived at our site No. 179, and began to get set up.  We basically setup the same way we did last year, as that design seemed to work.  We tarped over the tent and the
kitchen area, and got to work setting up antennas......and true to form it started to rain lightly.

We set up two antennas, Don put up our usual 31' vertical with 6 ground radials with a 4:1 balun, and I put up a 66' long wire with a 9:1 Unun and two 16' ground radials.  The long wire was up a tree at about 40' and sloped down on a 45 degree angle.

Both Don and I did very well chasing DX.  The long wire netted me:

5B4AJC in Paphos, Cyprus.
JW5E on Svalbard Island.
LX7I in Luxemburg City.
EB3CW in Bellaterra, Spain.
OE2S in Salzburg, Austria.
YO3CZW in Bucuresti, Romania.
HZ1DG in Abha, Saudi Arabia.
DL0GL in Gladbeck, Germany.
MM0KLO in Scotland.
EI7M in Carrigtwohills, Ireland.

Eric, VA3AMX working DX

Unfortunately these were not enough to allow me to regain the DX Challenge Championship this year.  The winner was Eric,VA3AMX, who also won last year.  Next year I'll be bringing a secret weapon to ensure victory!  Well done Eric!!

The weather Saturday was great, sunny and warm.  Don and I took an hour off, and drove into Kemptville to buy a couple of fleece blankets to make sure we didn't suffer again that night.  They worked, we had the best sleep ever.  In fact it was very difficult to get out of our sleeping bags on Sunday morning!

Saturday afternoon several Ottawa hams came out to join us for the day, chief amongst them was the old mountain man himself, Bob, VA3QV.  You can read all about Bob's site visit on his blog HERE.  It was good to see him and have an opportunity to have a long chat with him.

You can also read the Chillycon Blog article from Michael, VE3WMB, HERE.

Late on Saturday afternoon Don and I decided to compare the 31' vertical to the 66' long wire antenna.  Using an antenna switch we went around the various bands looking for loud signals and switched back and forth between the antennas checking which antenna had the better signal.  Surprisingly, the long wire won.  It certainly hears very well.

The Bar

Supper was the usual communal Pizza Feast.  Sixteen of us sat down to dinner around a pretty good fire, considering the wood was damp.  Before long the DX tales came forth and the single malt scotch flowed.  Slowly people left to go home and the party finally broke up  at 0030 hrs! 

A great time was had by all, and it's a great guys weekend.  It's a shame some of the more usual suspects don't come out for it.

Sunday morning broke and it looked like it was going to be another cloudy, wet day.  We dropped the tent and tarps, packed the trucks, had a shower, and headed over the "Charlys Place" for a good brunch.  It was touch and go that the restaurant would be open as we had a large area power outage that morning, and the power didn't come on till after the place opened.

It was, as usual, a great time, and next years Chillycon is already marked on the calendar.

More Photos.........

Don, VE3MNE, working DX

Ying, VA3YH, with coax chewed by
the squirrels.

All natural power



Michael, VE3WMB's magnetic loop
 



Chillycon 2013

Bob VA3QV on his way to Chillycon!
 

This weekend is the annual Chillycon QRP gathering at Rideau River Provincial Park, just across the river from Kemptville.

Several of the hams from the Kingston area are planning on making the trek up there this coming Friday for the weekend.  This will be our fourth year attending this great event. 

Sponsored by the Ottawa Valley QRP Society, this is "the" place for QRPers to gather before the winter hits.

Many of the guys come for the weekend, gathering at one of the camping loops at the east end of the park, and many others just coming in to join us for the Saturday.

It's very interesting to make the rounds of the various campsites during the day and chat about the different radios and portable antenna systems people have on site.....you see something, and learn something new every year. 

Saturday night is the annual Pizzafest and campfire gathering - where lies and tall DX tales are swopped.  Stay tuned for this years report and pictures after this weekend.

Frontenac County Disaster Exercise

VA3ORP and VE3MNE

Today the annual Frontenac County Emergency and Disaster Exercise was held at various locations up and down the county.  Of course being held on a work day it was difficult to round up enough operators, but thankfully 13 volunteered to take the day off from work to play radio with the Frontenac Emergency Communications Group. 

It was also our new EC's first exercise trying to control us all, thankfully we don't require much supervision.   I'm sure Mark is now realizing just what he stepped into, and will soon be taking up a new hobby.....herding cats.

This exercise was also the unveiling of our new digital network that has been built over the past 12 months.  At the moment we have almost 100% coverage of Frontenac County - from Kingston to Plevna - via VE3FRG-7 which is located 10 kms north of Kingston on a 260' tower. VE3FPN-7 located on an 100' tower at the Sydenham Fire Hall, and VE3MNE-10 our main gateway located in the west end of Kingston.  Coming on line mid-November will be VE3DTG-10 which will be a secondary gateway, and will be located in central Kingston.  Work is under way to bring on line a further two nodes, one in Plevna and the other in Sharbot Lake.  All the nodes and gateways are located on 145.070.

VA3ORP giving his briefing

Also helping us out today was the new location of our main repeater, VE3FRG.  This repeater was recently moved from the John Orr Tower in Kingston, to the same 260' tower the VE3FRG-7 node is on.  The footprint has changed significantly and we can now use this repeater from Belleville to Brockville, north to Smiths Falls and beyond.  So for the first time all of the municipal EOC's located in Frontenac County can hit the main repeater, and most can also hit the secondary repeater as well.  VE3FRG is on 146.805- with a 203.5 tone.

For the most part the exercise went very smoothly and the staff in the County EOC were very impressed with the digital messaging we can now do.  Dave, VA3ORP, gave a great briefing on the W2K capabilities we now have before the exercise started.

We had another three hams deployed early in the morning to Plevna in North Frontenac to man the EOC there.  Unfortunately things did not go smoothly there as the newly, and professionally, installed antenna had coax issues.  Dave, VE3DZE eventually worked out a compromise and managed to pass the digital traffic, but the coax needs to be looked at.


VA3ORP showing an EOC worker
how to use our system

Yours truly and Dave, VA3HFX.....(we seem to have a lot of Dave's!) spent the day at the beautiful, downtown, Sydenham Fire Hall passing traffic while huddled under a large blue tarp over the back of our two pickup trucks. No air conditioned EOC for us!  In fact it was quite disconcerting to listen to the guys deployed to the County EOC, complaining at the end-ex briefing that at the large lunch spread, in air conditioned splendor put on by the County, that the caviar was not imported, the champagne was not quite chilled enough, and that the coffee was foul.....sucks to be them!  I made do with a warm bottle of water and a half stale sandwich....sucks to be me!

This was my first exercise since stepping down as EC, and I have to tell you it was extremely nice to be able to just take part with no pressure or stress........I could grow to like this!

All kidding aside, it was a good day.  Lots of lessons learned, lots of new goals have been listed, and our Training Officer knows what path to guide the training over the next 12 months.

Thanks to Norm, VE3VY, for standing by most of the day in Westport, with further digital and HF support if we needed it......and thanks to Les, VE3KFS, who also stood by in case we needed support from Kingston.

Thanks to Derek, VE3HRW, for the photographs.

New Rig in the Shack

Last week I had to put my Yaesu 2800 out to pasture, it gave up the ghost after many years of faithful service.  It was a good little rig and did a good job for me right up to the very end.

I spent a day or so cruising around the ham store websites checking out what was available in 2m rigs these days, and to be very honest.....I wasn't very impressed.  Many of the ones that I thought could do the job for me had lousy reviews, or didn't do everything I wanted it to do.

I think the scariest thing was the price of some of these new 2m rigs.  A few more $$ and you could practically buy a good used HF rig!

Anyway, I ended up with the very first ICOM radio to set foot in my shack, the IC-2300H. 

I'm very pleased with it so far.  It has received some good signal reports and the locals say the audio is great.  It has four power settings: 5w, 10w, 25w, and 65w.

It's a small package, and is going to do great for Emcomm work.

ILLW - Great Weekend !!

Don hard at work

What great weather, and what even better propagation we had for this years International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend.  This year the group I belong to activated two lighthouses as mentioned in the previous posting below. 

Today, Sunday, Don VE3MNE and I activated the Point Petre Lighthouse, CA-026, and we had a fantastic time.  It was blue skies, a light wind, and 25C all day, we couldn't have asked for better weather.....and the Granville Island beer we had with our lunch went down really well.

We arrived on site about 0830 and began to set up our usual array of antennas.  Don set up his 31' vertical and got to work looking for other lighthouses on 20m and 40m.  I took a different route this year.....................

15m Vertical

Some of you will know that I have been working on getting my home QTH fixed up for 15m, as none of my current antennas seem to want to work on that band.  So before I did anything else today I built a 15m quarter-wave vertical and three ground radials.

The radiating element was taped to a 20' crappy pole, the three radials were simply laid out on the grass, and I used an LDG 1:1 balun.  The antenna was then simply leaned against the chain-link fence around the Coast Guard compound.

I should also mention that the wire used was a 25' roll of 14 gauge speaker wire that cost me $2.00 at Princess Auto here in Kingston.

It took several attempts to get the SWR down to an acceptable level, but in the end I did not really need the tuner as it matched right across the SSB portion of the band. 

Well, they always say the proof it works speaks volumes, so I'm really pleased to tell you all that it worked great on 15m.  Over the course of the day I used it to work:

EA3/DL1EHV, Albert in Barcelona, Spain.
UT7UV, Sasha in Kiev, Ukraine.
Z320T, Al in Shtip, Macedonia.
YT5CT, Zex in Novi Sad, Serbia.
RU3UR, Mike in Ivanovo, Russia.
ES5QD, Vello in Tallinn, Estonia.
S59N, Dan in Naklo, Slovenia.

Needless to say I'm pretty pleased with its performance, and it will be set up at the home QTH sometime this week.  I like working DX on 15m, and I've really missed this band over the past 10 months we have been at this new QTH, and I'm really looking forward to getting on there on a regular basis now.

International Lighthouse Lightship Weekend

Coming up next weekend, August 17 & 18, is the BIG international lighthouse weekend, sponsored by the Ayr Amateur Radio Group. 

Here in Kingston the Frontenac Group will be activating two lighthouses, one at Nine Mile Point on Simcoe Island - CA0031, and Point Petre - CA0026. 

The Simcoe Island light will only be on the air only for the Saturday, but Point Petre will be on from 1000 local Saturday, until 1400 local on Sunday.......or as long as the batteries hold out.

There's not much in the way of a camping spot there, as we have to stay outside the Coast Guard compound, but hopefully the OPP will leave us alone once they see us just operating and not causing any trouble.

With over 400 lights signed up for the event we're hoping to work a pile of them, and hopefully, this time, the propagation Gods will favour us this weekend !!

Give a listen for VE3FRG and VE3FPN and give us a call if you hear us.

Disappointing Day

It was a pretty disappointing day yesterday on Amherst Island, the propagation Gods decided to have the day off !!

The weather was perfect, lots of sun, a nice breeze and the occasional cloud drifting by.  Ron, VE3GO, had arranged with friends of his to use their waterfront property to operate from, and what a beautiful spot to operate from it was.

My antenna of the day was a 31' homebrewed vertical into a 4:1 balun, and four 16' and two 31' radials.  Ron used an Outbacker mounted on a mag-mount on the back of his SUV.

The bands seemed to be working very short, and while we could hear a lot of European stations on 15m, we worked only two of them on CW: IK3VUT, Luca in Oderzo, Italy, and HB9TNW, Celso in St. Gallen, Switzerland.  Our third CW contact was with HI3IFE in the Dominican Republic, but I'm not sure if that is the correct callsign, copy was difficult.

The SSB side of the activation was not very good at all.....two contacts were made, both in Ontario.  First up was Russ, VE3FI, in Haliburton, who was testing out a new 80m vertical, and next up on 20m was Don, VE3MNE, at his cottage on Hay Bay. Both of course had booming signals.

No signals were heard from the Colorado 14er event at all, despite spending quite a bit of time listening for them.

While not the most successful activation we have ever done, it was a fantastic day really.  We wouldn't have asked for better hosts, the location was perfect, and we got to ignore the "Honey Do List" for another day.

I'm not one to make political statements, but having seen the mess these things left Wolfe Island in, I don't want to see this happen on Amherst Island.

Amherst Island ON-21

Short notice.........but a group of us will be activating Amherst Island ON-21 tomorrow, August 4th, from 1500Z to 2000Z.

Ron - VE3GO, and Bill - VA3WOW will be joining me for a fun filled day of DX.  We will have 2 or 3 HF radios on the air, and we will be mainly on 20m, 15m, and 10m, hanging out on the usual island activation frequencies. 

Hopefully the propagation Gods will be smiling on us.  The weather is suppose to be very good, with a high of 21C expected.

Tomorrow is also the 2013 Colorado 14er event, so we are hoping to make a pile of contacts with the guys on the top of the really big hills......the 14,000 foot "hills".

IARU HF World Championships

The last week has been a bit of a blur around here.  I have been attempting to get a LDG S31 vertical antenna in the air ready for the IARU contest.  The main reason for this is that my 80m OCF dipole does not allow me to tune on 15m, even with a manual tuner, and as a lot of the DX action happens on that band.... I needed to be able to operate there to get a good score.

Apparently the Gods were totally against me.  The S31 went up in the air, the radials were laid out, 4:1 balun hooked up, a brand new 100' of RG-213 was connected, and.......the antenna tuned every band but 15m...... !!  Now, it's not like I haven't put up a 31' vertical antenna before, in fact I use a homebrewed version of the S31 when I operate portable, and it works great.

The other interesting fact is when comparing signals between the vertical and the dipole, there was a huge difference.  An S9+20 signal on 40m using the dipole was a measly S1 on the vertical....and it was that way over every band when I compared the antennas to each other.

So, over the course of three days I changed every part of the antenna, the coax, and added many more radials.  Nothing changed, it was a crap antenna.  Several emails went to Bob, VA3QV, who has this type of vertical looking for advice, but Bob couldn't understand what was going on either.

In the end I used my 66' long wire, 9:1 Balun, and two 31' radials and worked a good portion of the world with it.

Band conditions were not that good, we had very deep QSB for most of Saturday afternoon which made things difficult.  My first five contacts were Iceland, Russia, Hawaii, Greenland, and Moldova....after that the DX disappeared and only US stations were heard until very late afternoon.

It was a lot of fun but a tough slog, but in the end I put 122 contacts in the log, including a new one for me, TC3HQ in Turkey.

Oh yeah, the S31 vertical.......apparently the issue was a broken, but brand new, right out of the box, MFJ RF Isolator that I had put in line......I've removed it from the run of coax and ....the antenna works fine now, as advertised, because the contest is over !!

Field Day 2013

It's Monday evening and I'm just recovering from this years field day.......I even took the day off of work !!

I left for the Hay Bay site early Friday morning with the new guy, Mark - VE3EOG in tow.....for his first field day experience.  This was the seventh year we have used the Hay Bay site, thanks to Don - VE3MNE, who owns the outstanding spot.

Friday was spent getting the antennas out of storage, the cobweb's blown off them and getting them back up in the air.  This year we used one 160m OCF Dipole, two 80m OCF Dipoles, two 31' verticals, and a single 44' doublet......as well as a tri-bander on a 20' section of tower, mounted on the back of Tim's station wagon.

This year as in the past, we planned on operating as a 5A operation, four SSB and a digital station, and of course this means setting up operating places for them.  Lucky for us we had enough screen tents for everyone to use.  And every one of them had a million dollar view of the Bay.

By late afternoon we had everyone set up and some of the initial radio checks carried out.  As is our tradition we cleaned up and drove via the Glenora Ferry to the village of Wellington in Prince Edward County for a relaxing dinner and a couple of cold ones.

Saturday dawned dark and overcast, and we knew we would be in for some rain later in the day, so the race was on to get everything finished and the screen tents tarped over for protection.

The morning was spent checking coax connectors, bad patch cords, and sorting radio issues out. 

The SFI for the start of field day was: SFI-136; A Index-17; K Index-2, and the SN-135.  Oh yeah, the rain started at 1430 local but only lasted a few hours before it cleared up.

Field day kicked off at 1400 local to a lot of confusion of the new Ontario Sections. Most of the US stations were logging us as Ontario, not Ontario East.  Even after we explained the situation to them they continued to log us as simply Ontario.  Oh well, at least our logbook is correct.

Antenna repairs

For our U.S. friends, there is no longer a Section in Canada called "Ontario".  Instead we have been split into four individual sections, Ontario East, Ontario South, Ontario North, and Greater Toronto Area.  Hopefully next year this issue will have sorted itself out.

Ron-VE3GO came out very early Sunday morning and spent the day operating CW for us.  The CW station filled in some missing gaps in our state and province count.  In the end we only missed having contacts in Wyoming and Manitoba.

The weekend went quickly and before we knew it field day was over.  We ended up with 1156 contacts, including a DX contact to Jamaica on 6m. 

Thanks to Don VE3MNE for hosting the weekend.

The Bike Tour......

What a great weekend we had for the 2013 Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour.  Saturday was cool and cloudy with a little bit of rain late in the day, and Sunday was a glorious sunny day.

Don, VE3MNE, and myself operated two VHF stations from the parking lot of the Perth Road Village General Store.  We arrived on site at 1000 Local, and setup our equipment.  One station acted as Net Control for the Frontenac Section of the tour, and the other is a liaison station with Net Control for the Perth Section located in Westport.

We had issues both days getting into the Christie Lake repeater, VA3TEL.  Normally we can hit it from anywhere in Perth Road Village with a 5/8 mag-mount, but not this weekend.  In the end a 22' mast with a 2m antenna lashed to the top did the job, and even then conditions deteriorated over the course of the day to the point we had to shut down the liaison radio.

On Saturday the first rider came through Perth Road Village at 1123 local, and after that it was a steady stream of riders and support vehicles until we closed things down at 1700 local.  This is an hour and a half earlier than any of the past 7 years we have provided communications support to the tour.

Thanks to Tim, VA3TIC, for paying us a visit and delivering Timmies coffee to us.

We dealt with two accidents on Saturday, both minor. Thanks to the drivers of the support vans things were looked after very quickly.

Sunday started real early at my house.....0400 Local !!  After loading a freshly charged battery into the back of my truck, it was off to pick up Roy, VE3VJF, and then a slow drive back up to the village.  It was a slow drive due to heavy ground fog and lots of deer on the road.

Roy VE3VJF in control
 

After setting up the antennas and radios it was just a matter of sitting around and waiting for the riders to come by heading home to Perth and Ottawa. 

The first rider left Queen's University at 0500 Local, and came screaming by us, without stopping, at 0626 Local.  Many of the riders did not stop at the General Store on the way home this year, those that did enjoyed some cold water, clean toilets, and lots of grass to lay about on in the warm sun.

It was 1100 Local when the last rider left the village and we closed down the net.  We passed Net Control off to Westport and the boys of the Lanark-North Leeds ARES Group.

As usual this was a great weekend and lots of fun to do.  It's really great practice for ARES and Emcomm groups, it allows us to deploy to locations we don't normally operate from, and it gets us to pass real message traffic that actually means something, not just the usual fake exercise traffic. 

After it was all over it was off back down Hwy 10 to the Star Diner in Kingston for a very late breakfast, and around the table the planning for next years operation was begun.

A huge THANK-YOU goes out to the owners, and extended family, of the Perth Road Village General Store for their great support of the Bike Tour.  We look forward every year to see their smiling faces, and the communications team appreciates very much what they do for us over the weekend...........and they have the best coffee !!!!!!

The working space
 

It's all over for this year!!




 

Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour 2013

The 2013 Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour is nearly upon us again.  This year it falls on June 8th and 9th. 

Once again over 2000 riders will scream down the roads from Ottawa to Kingston, spend Saturday night, and then slowly peddle their way back home to Ottawa on Sunday.

My local club will be providing operators to look after six radio check points on both Saturday and Sunday.  The Frontenac Club looks after the Perth Road Village to Queen's University sector. 

This is the 30th straight year that amateur radio has looked after the communications for this event, something of a record I think. 

So far the long range weather forecast isn't looking too good, but we have a week to go yet, and you all know how bad the weather guys are at forecasting.

Washburn Island

VA3ORP arriving

It was a very successful island activation today, and the weather cooperated....somewhat! 

Tim, VA3TIC and I arrived at the Island about 0930L under cloudy sky, but no wind and it was fairly warm.  The bugs weren't too bad either.

Dave, VA3ORP was kayaking down the canal from his QTH in Inverary, and he arrived about 1000L, operating /MM/QRP all the way down the canal.  Dave used a Rockmite for CW and a FT-817D for SSB contacts.  His antenna(s) were a choice of various ham sticks.

Tim and I setup in the parking lot across from the lock station.  Antenna of choice today was a 66' long wire with two 31' radials into a 9:1 balun.  Radio was the FT-857D running off of a 12v 120 amp gel cell.

Thanks must go out to N4DSP for posting the activation of the DX Cluster, and to W4IOW for correcting the call on the cluster.  N4DSP listed us a VE1, not the VE3 we operated as.

Around 1100L it started to rain quite heavily, so with 35 confirmed contacts in the log, 4 Canadian, 2 Spanish, and 29 from the USA, we quickly packed up and high tailed it home. 

The numbers today at 0900L were SFI 133;  SN 146; A Index 21; and K Index 2.  The bands were noisy but workable.

Washburn Island has now been issued its official number - ON-288.

Here are some more photos from today..........

VA3ORP arriving at the lock with his Rockmite
between his legs and the key on his thigh!

 



Picture of Dave's antenna setup

Island Activation

Frontenac Radio Group will be doing a first time activation of Washburn Island, North of Kingston, Ontario, on Sunday, May 19th.

They will be at Lock 45, which is Lower Brewers Lock.  Timing will be 1400 UTC till 1800 UTC.

Frequencies will be 7.250 and 14.250.  Both frequencies will be +/- QRM.  They will have an 80m capability as well if required.  We are hoping the SFI improves a bit as the numbers are not looking good at 2100L on the evening of the 18th May.

Radio will be a FT-857D and the antenna will be a homebrewed 31' vertical.   We will also have a long wire and a 9:1 balun with us to try.  Keep an ear out for us!

This and That

Things have been pretty quiet around the VE3CLQ QTH for the past little while, and as a result the Blog has been quiet as well.

Two weeks ago the 80m OCF Dipole came crashing down in a wind storm after the wire snapped.  The winds that day were a steady 40 KPH with gusts up to 80 KPH, and that brought a lot of branches down as well.  Tim VA3TIC came over a couple of days later and helped me repair the antenna and get it back up in the air.  It was pretty gusty and cold that day as well, but up it went.

Twelve hours after it went back up in the air Tim left for Cuba for a 10 day holiday.....and the antenna came down again in another high wind storm.  This time I took it completely down and scrapped the old wire I had been using.  So it was off to Home Depot to pick up 50m of No. 10 wire and some stainless steel wire clamps.

So then we had the "mini-ice storm" here last Friday that did some major damage to my big trees.  The local arborist was called, and bless them, they were on scene within the hour on what must have been an extremely busy day for them.  Kingston had a lot of trees down that day.

Anyway, on Saturday, with the help of Tim VA3TIC...once again...the antenna is back up at about 50 feet, about 10 feet higher than it originally was, and working like a charm ready for this coming weekends Ontario QSO Party.....of course as I write this we are having another high wind storm here in Kingston, so we will have to see if it survives this time!

There are two new antennas going up shortly.  One is an Arrow Dual Band J-Pole which I used at the old QTH.  This antenna will be used for my new Packet Station.  At the same time my S9v31 31' Mk II multiband vertical antenna will also be going up at the far end of the property, next to the large fir tree.

And that's all the news that's fit to print!

QRP to the Field - 2013

Good news on the 2013 version of QRP to the Field, they have changed the rules to finally include SSB.  Allowing SSB and the twinning of the event with SOTA will certainly bring in more QRP'ers and make for some interesting contacts.

I'm not sure where I'm going to operate from this year, a lot will depend on the weather and what sort of shelter I'll need.  My batteries are already on charge, and I just have to select which antenna I'll use.  I'm really excited to see SSB added to this contest.

Rules and dates for this years QRP to the Field can be found HERE.  Hope to work you on the day!

CQ WPX

Another great contest is now over, perhaps not under the finest of band conditions, but it was a blast.  The 'K' and 'A' index were both through the roof on Friday evening, and really didn't get better until just as the contest was over on Sunday evening.

I managed to put a couple of new ones in the log, HP1/IZ6BRN in Panama was first up, followed by H27A in Cyprus.  Lots of contest regulars on the bands, and it was nice to hear many "Happy Easters" as signal reports and serial numbers were handed out.

Once again I'm very happy to report the absense of LIDS and Band Cops.  I didn't hear a single act of bad behaviour on the bands this weekend, everyone was in such  good spirits......spring must have sprung!

Main workhorses this weekend were 10m and 15m, and considering the SFI numbers that was a huge surprise.

Next major contest for me will be the Ontario QSO Party on 20/21 April, but I haven't decided where I'm going to do it from.

Ground Waves

Interesting morning today, it was the first Emcomm deployment practice and exercise of 2013 for Frontenac Emcomm Group, and it was almost perfect weather for it. 

Homebrewed 80m Coil on 31' vertical

We set up four HF stations, all about 20 to 30 Kms from Net Control, and each other.  The object was to establish contact on 80m and successfully pass traffic using HF ground wave.   We also checked the 2m repeater coverage between us and tried to establish contact using 146.520 simplex. 

I drove to Piccadilly, just north of Verona on Hwy 38 and setup in the parking lot of the North Frontenac Rec Centre.  A busy hockey "hot spot" this morning.  Larissa VE3KGC and myself got more than our fair share of funny  looks from the crowd as we got ready and laid out the cables and wires.

The HF antenna system used today was the homebrewed 31' vertical on a collapsible MFJ mast with four 16' radials and a 4:1 Balun.  Also used today, for the first time, was the 80m homebrewed coil.   The coil is made from 15 turns of No. 10 wire wound around a 3" PVC coupler.  The coil must be removed to work any other band. 

FT-857D in action

I was really pleased and surprised at just how well this worked.  I at least anticipated some issues and had my toolbox standing by...but it wasn't needed.  The antenna tuned up perfectly using the LDG tuner on the FT-857D with no issues at all.

I'm sure there are some good losses using the coil, but for Emcomm work and passing traffic around Frontenac County it works just great. 

The repeater check went well, but the simplex check....not so good.  We could hear Net Control but the others were really too weak to work.  It might be interesting to try this on 2m SSB in the future. 

The topography of Frontenac County is that of rolling hills and valleys.  You're OK if you're on top of the hill, but the valleys are terrible for getting a signal out....which is why we practice HF ground wave comms. 

It was nice to get out and let the winter cobwebs get blown away this morning.......I now feel that spring must really be just around the corner.  A lot was accomlished and a lot of "lessons learned" filed away for future use. 

The next two monthly exercises will see us checking out the new digital network we are in the process of building up in the County.   So far we have two Nodes - VE3KER-7 in South Kingston and VE3FPN-7 in Sydenham, and a WinLink Gateway on VE3FRG-10 in North Kingston.  Future plans call for at least another two Nodes in the North part of the County. 

The Portable Activators Blog

Once again I must plug the Portable Activators Blog for the upcoming 2013 season of island and lighthouse activations.  This blog fills a much needed gap in that it's announcements are timely, not done after the fact.

The blog can be found at http://ve3.blogspot.ca/.  It's brought up-to-date as the Blogmaster receives the information, and sometimes that isn't until late on a Friday afternoon, but the information is made public as soon as they can, and always before the event.

I make it a habit of checking it on a Friday afternoon to see if there is anything new to look for on the bands for the weekend.

So, all you island, lighthouse and SOTA activators send in your information and let's make 2013 a good year for activators and chasers.

The Gong Show.......

I have been sitting here for a number of weeks now reading emails, letters, and other material on the recent RAC fiasco, getting more and more disgusted as the days have gone by.  I have refrained from posting anything about it on my Blog as I felt it was important that individuals do their own research on the matter and come up with their own conclusion.

However, as Peter VE3HG has now made several outstanding postings on his Blog on this issue, I felt it was time, as a current RAC member, to publically register my complete and total disgust with the RAC board and executive

RAC has ceased to be a real national association.  It did so a couple of years ago when it decided that non-members where not good enough to bother with and shut down their RAC email address without warning, stopped their use of the outgoing QSL Bureau, and stopped sending them what little information it allows to be given out.  Perhaps this is why most RAC elections these days are now unopposed and are by acclamation.  Members are just fed up with the stupid backroom politics going on and do not wish to waste their valuable time, and more importantly, their reputations by running for RAC office.

Many years ago Charles de Gaulle wrote: "Silence is the ultimate weapon of power."  We RAC members see this all the time.  These days we get very little information from RAC except for generalities and "feel good" stories dispensed from on high.  Did the current RAC board and executive really think that the news of this fiasco would be simply swept under the carpet and everyone would keep their mouths shut?

So let me tell you why I believe Bill Gade's side of the story (HERE) vice the "feel good" story put out by RAC (HERE). If what Bill Gade originally wrote on January 15th 2013 was not true, or consisted of a list of inaccurate facts, half-truths, or outright lies, surely RAC would have the grounds to legally go after him and sue him for slander, liable or worse.  Are they?  So far it appears they have not.........which speaks volumes and also tells you something.

If RAC wishes to be a true national association it must fully represent all Canadian hams, members or not. It must be fully transparent. We must have full democracy, that is direct elections of the board, executive, and most importantly, the President. The hands of total power must be removed from the board. Only then will RAC become a real, workable, national association.

William Pitt the Elder, Earl of Chatham and British Prime Minister from 1766 to 1778, said in a speech to the UK House of Lords in 1770: "Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it."  Kind of sums things up, doesn't it?

After the contest.....

What an excellent weekend!!  For the most part the bands behaved, even if they were pretty noisy at times.  Saturday at 0930L the SFI was sitting at 109, the SN at 88, the 'A' index at 27, and the 'K' index at 1.  Not the best numbers to start with.

I managed to work a total of 112 DX entities, including a few I had not worked before.  An interesting fact is that 98% of the calls I worked were 4 letter calls, and it's getting very difficult to compete against them and it doesn't seem like its a level playing field anymore.  Has anyone else noticed this?

The big workhorses of the weekend had to be 10m and 15m, both bands went long early and stayed open late.  Both of these bands had a great number of DX stations on them all calling CQ, but they were nicely spread out, not all bunched together.  20m was overcrowded as usual, just wall-to-wall splatter and noise everytime I went  there.  Not sure how anyone made many contacts there.

40m was good at night, as usual, but I never found it too busy, and 80m was not good to me at all, I only made two contacts all weekend down there.

Good points from the weekend?  Very few LIDS were heard, good behaviour abounded, the Police had the weekend off, and I had a great time and my new antennas have performed far beyond what I thought they would do.

Bad points from the weekend?  Too many stations on the air with bad audio...doesn't anyone check this anymore?  Several Italian stations calling "CQ Contest" on 17m, and not stopping when asked to, and in fact got down right ugly over it.  And a final point.....too many radios being overdriven and splattering all over the band.

Overall it was a great weekend.....and I can't wait for the end of the month for the CQ WW WPX SSB Contest on March 30th and 31st....hope to work you all then.

Getting ready......

This weekend is the ARRL International SSB Contest and I've spent the last few days putting the finishing touches on the shack and getting it ready for the first BIG contest of the year.

I've had an issue with the 80m OCF dipole that I have up in the air.  It works extemely well from 6m to 80m, with the exception of 15m which it just refuses to load on using the ATU on the FT-950.  So, obviously 15m will be a big player in this contest I had to do something........

All attempts to get a dedicated 15m dipole in the air this week has been sabotaged by heavy snow and freezing rain.  The only answer I could come up with was to go digging in the garage through some of the still unpacked boxes from the move, and dig out my trusty MFJ-949E manual tuner.  No sooner was it connected and I was having a 15m QSO with Elana-RC5A in Moscow and almost right away with Larry-VP2/KE2VB in Tortola, British Virgin Islands.  Things seem to be working good enough for this weekend.

Speaking of the weekend....have you seen the SFI numbers?  Currently at 2245Z the SFI is 113; the SN is 63; the 'A' Index is 28 (!!!!); and the 'K' Index is 4 (!!).  One can only hope that those numbers will improve as the contest progresses.

RaDAR-America Contest

Marcus KD0JKM is organising a RaDAR-America Contest - an event aimed at promoting the use of Rapidly Deployable Amateur Radio stations throughout North and South America. This contest is for all licensed radio amateurs.

A choice is made prior to the contest to participate in one of the defined categories. The points system is so structured as to encourage portable operation, especially moveable stations.

This contest will take place at the same time in South Africa (the Nation from which the idea originated), as it will here in the Americas - the first Saturday of April (the 6th) and first Saturday of November (the 2nd) starting at 14:00 UTC and ending at 18:00 UTC (4 hours operating time)

Information on the RaDAR-America Contest, can be found on their website HERE.

For those of you who might be interested in taking part in this contest, but have no experience in this kind of radio activity, Bob VA3QV has put together a superb article on his blog (HERE) that shows you several excellent points on operating QRP portable.

Let's hope the weather is a bit warmer on April 6th than the -17C it was here this morning.

NCQP 2013

Coming up on the February 23th/24th weekend is the North Carolina QSO Party.   This is always a very well supported QSO Party, and it's a good weekend to work that part of the world.  
Of interest to the guys in Kingston is the fact that Ron-VE3GO will be operating aboard the retired US Battleship, USS North Carolina for this QSO Party.  She's berthed in Wilmington, NC.  Ron will be taking part with the local ham club and the call they will use is NI3BK.   So give a listen for Ron.

The rules for the NCQP can be found HERE.

Hopefully the SFI numbers will be fine for it as well.

Warmth....at last!

 The 2013 SPAR Winter Field Day is over for another year, allowing us time to thaw out before the next one arrives.  This year myself, Don VE3MNE, and Bill VA3WOW chose to go to a small uninsulated summer cottage on the shores of Leggat Lake, in Central Frontenac County for the weekend and operate from there.



Don VE3MNE working DX

The first surprise of the weekend was the lack of snow in Central Frontenac at this time of year, normally there is a couple of feet down, this year it barely covered the gravel on the road.  On the positive side this made it a safe drive in to the site......which is always a bonus.

The propagation numbers didn't look too promising as we left on Saturday morning.  They were SFI-101; SN-44; A Index-6; and the K Index 3.  But it actually wasn't that bad for us, most remote operating sites are very quiet, and Leggat Lake was no different.   In fact we had a probable gain of 5 to 6 db compared to our home QTH's, as we had no background noise to fight at all at the lake. 

First item on the agenda upon arrival at the cottage was to get the stove going, the place hadn't been used since last October was absolutely freezing.  It took nearly 5 hours to finally get the place comfortably warm.......but we suffered through it.

We operated two HF stations, both of them FT-857D's, into simple wire antennas.  The antennas of choice this weekend was a 31' foot vertical with nine 16' radials laid out on the snow, and a 66' longwire.

 

The 66' longwire was a bit of a last minute decision.  Don and I had originally planned to use a 44' Doublet, and in fact had it in the truck to use, but we had also recently build some 9:1 Baluns for use with long wire antennas and this was the perfect opportunity to try one out.

The longwire went from the top of a 25' TV tower and was sloped down to lake level where it attached to the 9:1 Balun.  A 31' radial was attached and simply laid out on the ice 90 degrees to the wire. The balun was actually just sitting on top of a 18" log out on the ice.   Both antennas were up and ready by 1130, just in time for the 1200 start of the event. 

Over the weekend we heard, and worked quite a few stations working winter field day.  In the past we have been lucky to work one or two.  Perhaps this is a sign that the event is finally catching on!   We did work DX station after DX station, if we could hear them we could work them.



This shows the 9:1 Balun location for the 66' long
wire out on the ice.

Both antennas work superbly, well beyond any of our expections. In fact the highlight of my weekend was working ZS6DJD in Meyersdal, South Africa on the 66' longwire.....the happy dance went on for quite some time.

The propagation figures for Sunday were SFI-97; SN-55; A Index-18; and K Index 1.  To be very honest we didn't notice any change in the bands or propagation on Sunday.

Besides South Africa we worked: Cuba, Azores, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Mexico, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Latvia, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Puerto Rico, UK, USA, Canada, and Russia......but alas, no VA3QV!!

It was a great weekend, good food, good wine, and a warm fire....just what the doctor ordered.

It's obvious that the Winter Field Day event needs a lot more advertising done to roust out more operators.  It's a good time and has several options that will allow you to take part in it....and no, you don't have to operate from the field outdoors if you don't wish to.   It was born out of the idea that not all emergencies and disasters happen in the middle of summer,and that we must be prepared to operate under all conditions...good and bad.  It deserves to be better supported by the Emcomm community at large.

Thanks to Ross and Vicky for the use of their cottage.

Winter Field Day

After a week of temperatures in the -20C's, and as far down to -34C with the wind chill, it seems quite insane to be going away this weekend to take part in the SPAR Winter Field Day.  We will have to see what weather the weekend brings. 

This will be the fifth year our ham group has taken part in Winter Field Day. But, this is Canada, and they don't call us the crazy Canucks for nothing I guess!!

Myself, Don-VE3MNE and Bill VA3WOW will be going to Leggat Lake in Central Frontenac County Saturday morning to a completely un-winterized summer cottage, that thankfully has electricity and a woodstove.......but no wood we have been told.  We will survive!

We plan to operate two HF rigs, both FT-857D's, one on SSB and the other in digital mode.  Antennas will be a homebrew 33' vertical into a 4:1 Balun, and an 80m OCF Dipole.  This will give us coverage from 80m to 6m, and should cover all bases.

The rules for Winter Field Day can be found HERE.  Hope to work you on the bands.

NAQP

Going great guns on the NAQP Saturday afternoon.  Lots of contacts to be had, especially on 10m.   It looks like the new antennas are really working well, with lots of great signal reports (not your usual 59).

Best signal on the band this afternoon was John - HK3C from Bogota, Columbia.  However,  why do the lids have to tune up right on the frequency?  Then, there was the N4 station who kept calling John over his QSO's, and good for John for not going back to him. 

Overall a good afternoon.  Off for supper and then back at it.

UPDATE........

Yesterday evening the bands seemed to be in pretty good shape with lots of east-west propagation.  Lots of calls from California and Washington states, funny though, I never heard a VE7 or a VE6 all day. 

Ten and twenty meters stayed open for quiet a while, and then pretty rapidly I had to move to 40m and eventually 80m.  I even managed a single 6m contact during the day as well.

Today the bands didn't seem to want to work.  I actually made very few contacts., and those that I did where all in Europe. 

Now that NAQP is over it's time to get the gear ready for this coming weekends Winter Field Day.  More on that later.

 
 

A surprise in the mail......

Normally I don't submit my log sheets after a contest, for me a contest is just a fun thing to do, and I don't collect "paper'.   However, I might have to start collecting now!

Today, a certificate arrived in the mail from the ARRL for the 2011 10m Contest (I don't even remember submitting my log!!), awarding me 4th place in Canada in the QRP category.

 



This was totally unexpected.......and it's going to look nice on my wall!

Contest Coming Up!

It's that time of year...when the weather keeps us closed up indoors, so it's a perfect time to take part in the North American QSO Party. 

The following dates should be in your calendar:

CW: 1800Z January 12 to 0600Z January 13, 2013 (Second full weekend in January)
SSB: 1800Z January 19 to 0600Z January 20, 2013 (Third full weekend in January)

The Contest Rules can be found HERE.