Field Day and the Canada Day Contest 2014

Not long to go until Field Day this year, that Holy of Holies on the amateur radio calendar. 

This year I'll be back out at the Hay Bay site our Club always uses.  This year we will be operating from only one site, not our normal two.  We have a number of operators on the sick and injured list so we have cut back.

The plan is to operate as a 5A station, four on SSB and the fifth on digital modes.

The antenna farm will consist of a 160m OCF Dipole, two 80m OCF Dipoles, two 31' verticals, a 20m portable beam, and a 10m dipole.  At least two Buddipole sets will be available as well.

This year's rules can be found HERE.

Hopefully the confusion over the new Ontario Sections will have been sorted out this year.  Last year many US stations did not know we had split Ontario into four separate Sections, Ontario North, Ontario South, Ontario East, and Greater Toronto.  Make sure your logging softwear has been updated!

So this year we get home from Field Day on Sunday afternoon, and start the Canada Day Contest Monday evening.  It'll be a quick turnaround and hopefully the XYL will keep her sense of humour!

The rules for this contest can be found HERE.

The Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour - 2014

What a great weekend to be out playing radio!!   This year was 43rd Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour.  This cycle tour runs from Ottawa to Kingston on Saturday, and back to Ottawa on the Sunday.  The weather was fantastic, in fact it was almost too good.

Each year ham radio operators from Ottawa, Perth, and Kingston band together to provide a seamless communications system for the riders and support crews.  This year, 50 operators provided support to the tour, and another two rode their bicycles and operated mobile.

Don VE3MNE checking on the riders

The Frontenac EmComm Group has looked after the southern section of the tour route for the past 9 years, and it has become quite the fixture on our activity calendar.  We look after five locations, from Perth Road Village in the North, down Hwy 10 to Queen's University in the South.  There are lots of hills in our section and on Saturday we see a lot of very tired riders.  The route from Ottawa to Kingston is 170 Kms long.

On Saturday the first rider arrived at Perth Road Village at 1030 hrs, I'd love to know what time he left Ottawa!!  During the day it was a steady stream of cyclists through my check point, all looking for water or gatorade to rehydrate, and given the high temperatures we had they drank a lot,  In fact by 1600 hrs the Perth Road Village General Store was complely out of bottled water and other drinks, and that's a first as far as we can tell.  We finally shut down the Perth Road Village check point at 1715 hrs.  It was a pretty long hot and sweaty day, and we had to be up early to get back their on Sunday morning.

Sunday was a lot cooler than Saturday thanks to some sparce cloud cover and a cooler breeze.  The first rider headed out of Queen's University at 0500 hrs, and passed through Perth Road Village at 0600 hrs, he was pushing hard to get to Ottawa so he could get to work by 1100 hrs........I can't imagine doing that!!

This year we had three emergencies that had ambulances called to them.  The first accident was in the Ottawa Sector and involved a broken pelvis.  The second accident had a broken shoulder blade, and the third accident was a face plant into the gravel at high speed.  As bad as these were, we're glad that everyone will recover.

Thanks to the guys and gals who volunteered their time this weekend to make this a success.  Plans are already being made to make next years event a bigger success.

Saturday Perth Road Village set-up

Sunday Perth Road Village set-up

RAC and the Hallucination

I’ve been pretty quiet on the subject of the RAC Empire for the past little while.  However, having read the Blog of Peter, VE3HG, the other day, I felt I too should comment on the state of ARES in this country……not that anyone from RAC will ever listen!

Peter mentions the lack of an ARES reporting structure.   Perhaps people have forgotten that we once had in Ontario an excellent on-line reporting system that was run by our ex-SEC, Bob Gammon, VA3RX.  It was an ARES resource website that had a dedicated page were the DEC’s and EC’s could fill in an on-line form, a monthly report, and submit it. Bob even paid for the website URL and hosting charges himself, not RAC.  Bob closed down that site after he had been unceremoniously fired for no reason from the Ontario SEC position.

I guess the question that needs to be asked is if individuals are so concerned with the lack of a reporting capability, why hasn’t something been done in the four years since Bob closed down the original site to rectify this issue?  Perhaps ARES needs its own national standalone website to solve this issue? 

The one thing that a reporting structure could put an end to for good are the two and three member ARES groups that do absolutely no training and conduct no exercises.  And that, as Martha says, would be a good thing.

The other question being asked is why we do not have a VP for the Field Service these days?  I guess the answer is because the previous one quit because he must have been tired of all the constant BS coming downstream at him.   I actually like Doug Mercer, the previous VPFS.  I thought he was doing a great job, that is until he started listening to some of the Ontario SM’s and their idiotic ideas, then it went downhill from there.

RAC ARES needs to adhere to the “KISS Principle”, not the complicated and unnecessary pile of drivel that is currently being spouted by the so-called “experts”.  Some of our esteemed SM’s seem to be building empires that Julius Cesar would drool over, rather than concentrating their efforts in building a solid volunteer base to expand out from.  I have said it before and I will say it again, we are amateur radio volunteer emcomm operators, not sworn members of the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals Reserve!

The question of the legitimacy in the way RAC ARES groups are formed was also brought up in Peter’s Blog article.  Why are we so worried about this?  Do we really need RAC’s permission to form an emergency communications group?  No we don’t !!!!  Just call it an “EmComm” or “Public Service” radio group and just get on with it!  If RAC isn’t giving you the service and support you need, move on, forget about them, there’s other ways of doing business that does not include RAC. If you guys think that the agencies you serve worry about whether or not their emergency communicators are RAC approved….think again, they’re just glad you’re there helping them out with their communications issues.

Peter’s Bog also mentions the future requirement for Police Record Checks for ARES members.  Personally I don’t have an issue with this.  As it stands with the non-RAC affiliated Emcomm group I belong to, our served agencies do not require us to have a PLC yet, but that could change if a new CEO or CEMC is hired in one of the four municipalities we support and asks for them to be done.  No big deal, we’ll get them done. 

The Blog goes on to mention that RAC “ARES may become so encumbered with bureaucratic, political and legal issues that it will be unable to function.”  I think they’re already there.  Have you seen the number of unelected appointees to the executive recently?   It’s becoming more and more evident that with Comrade Bawden also wearing the VPFS hat as well as his Presidential hat right now, nothing is being done at all with ARES, it’s simply being left to flounder along as it always has.

So the bottom line and the question that needs to be asked, is why are ARES members still supporting RAC, when it is so evident that RAC is not supporting you?  Ask yourself this, what tangible thing has RAC actually done for your ARES group in the past 12 months besides hold out their hand for your membership money?  I bet the answer in the vast majority of groups is “not a bloody thing”……which again leads us to the question, “Why are you still supporting them?” 

It’s obvious from what we see and read that RAC has no real vision for ARES, and without a vision there can be no plan to actually execute.  In closing I’ll leave you with a quote from Thomas Edison that sums up RAC  - "Vision without execution is hallucination.”

New Go-Boxes

HF Go-Box

Between planning for being made redundant at work, and a long cross-country trip I'm making later this year, it's been a busy time at the VE3CLQ shack. 

One project that is now finished is the two go-boxes, an HF one and a VHF one.  I would have liked them together in one box, but given what I want to use them for it's easier to keep them separate. Many thanks to Don, VE3MNE, for his great help with these projects,

The HF Box contains a FT-857D, an FTL Meter, a YT-100 tuner, and a 8 ohm speaker on the lid.

The VHF and HF antenna connections have been put through the lid of the box, and hidden in a top compartment.  When the box is closed up the only visible "radio thing" is the power pole connector that is on the side of the box.

As you can see there is lots of room left in the box for a headset, power cords, antenna coax, and the radio manual.  Total weight is about three pounds.

The VHF Box contains a Motorola CDM 1250 radio and a Coastal Chipworks TNC-X.  This box allows me to connect to RMS Express as well as use the radio for voice FM work.

VHF Go-Box

Again there is a lot of extra room in the box for extra bits and pieces as I have in the HF Box.  The good thing about these two boxes is that they cut down the amount of gear that I pack when I do an island or lighthouse activation, and it certainly reduces my set-up time considerably.

I'm still looking at adding items to them, I need to get small digital clocks to put in each of them, but the ones I want are not easy to find, so I'm still looking.

These two boxes will make their debut on June 7th and 8th during the Ottawa Cycle Clubs "Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour".  This year is the 8th year our Club has handled the communications at the Southern end of the Tour, and it's always a great time.

Both boxes have already been tested and work very well.  Looking forward to getting out more and using them on a regular basis.

Simcoe Island or ON-022

Sunday was an outstanding day to activate one of the local islands.  We had a beautiful blue sky all day and a temperature that eventually reached 18C.  The down side was the fact that the May Flies are out in force, getting into everything.....it's a good job they don't bite!!

It takes two ferry rides from Kingston to reach Simcoe Island, a large ferry that carries about 40 cars and another much smaller one that carries two or three, depending on their size.  So after the clubs weekly Sunday breakfast, Dave, VE3DZE and myself took ourselves off to the ferry dock to start the journey to Simcoe Island.

There's not much on Simcoe Island, a couple of working cattle farms and about 30 cottages or so.  The biggest thing on the island is Nine Mile Lighthouse, CAN-578, which we activate at least once a year, and especially for the ILLW each August.

Buddipole set up as a 15m Dipole

My radio for the day was the IC-703 QRP radio, with a Buddipole Antenna.  Dave's radio was an FT-450 with the 31' "Chillycon Special" with 6 radials.

We heard many European stations, nearly all of them 10 to 20 over S9, but they certainly didn't hear Dave or myself. The good propagation seemed to be reaching everyone but us!  There was some very deep QSB on the bands, and that certainly didn't help us at all.

Dave did manage to pull 6 contacts out of his FT-450, all of them in either the US or Canada.   It was very frustrating to hear the VE7's working S9 into Europe and nobody hearing us at all.  Oh well, any day playing radio......is better than a day at work.

Regardless of the fact that we didn't work any DX, it was still a great day out. 

Update......

Well seeing how its been over a month since I updated my blog I thought I should get my act together and get on with it!!

It's been an interesting month to say the least.  The big news is that I will be made redundant from my job at the end of June.  This news has "sort of" taken the wind out of my sails, but we will survive and move on with things.

I must thank Tim, VA3TIC who came over and re-strung one leg of my 80m OCF Dipole that had slipped way down in the high winds we have recently had.  Tim managed to shoot a line about another 20' higher in the tree, so we're back up on that leg at 45'.

There has not been too much amateur radio work done around here for a few weeks, to be honest I have had other things on my mind, and radio has taken a back seat. But, having given myself a kick in the ass, plans are already under way for a few activities.

In fact the first activity will be tomorrow with the activation of Simcoe Island, ON-022.  The plan is to be on the air from 1400 UTC till 1800 UTC on the usual island activation frequencies...shown below:

7.250, 14.250 - 14.260, 21.350, 28.450, 50.125, and 144.200.  The club call sign, VE3FRG will be used.

And.......in other news it was very nice to be told that with my entry of 12, 096 total points in the 2013 ARRL November Sweepstakes, I have been awarded Top in Canada in the QRP category.  Thanks to all those stations who took the time and the effort to dig my small signal out of the mud!!

See you on the bands!

RMS and Packet Radio

Over the past 14 months the Frontenac Radio Group has been busy building up an RMS Packet system for use by the Frontenac County Emcomm Team.  This system now comprises of four Nodes and two Gateways.   This will now allow us to move digital traffic all over the county.

As well as our digital system, the hams in Westport and Perth who belong to Leeds - North Grenville ARES have also built up a smaller system that ties into the Frontenac system.  They have one Node and two gateways up right now and another couple in the works.

In the past 3 months the hams from the Prince Edward County ARES have also jumped aboard and now have one Node and one Gateway built and operational.  This allows us to move Peer-to-Peer traffic from Belleville to East of Perth.

Red Dots are for the Frontenac system.  Orange for Leeds-North Grenville, and Blue for Prince Edward County.

To get started with RMS Express, a good website is HERE.   These systems are accessable via 145.070.

What's Up....??

Saturday started out just beautiful here in Kingston, blue skies and a temperature of about +12C......almost heaven after the weather of the past 5 months!

In fact it was so nice, I decided that after coffee I would take a detour on the way home and look for some new operating locations for use later in the spring and summer.  I managed to find one new location.  It's very quiet, no RF interference, and it's kind of off the beaten track.  This place has been right under my nose for some time, I just have never been there to explore what was available.

It's located on the east side of Portsmouth Olympic Harbour, at the end of a small gravel track, right alongside of the old Kingston Pen wall.  Twelve months ago the guards would have told us to move on.....but the place has now been closed down and the guards are the ones who have been moved on.  The spot is within the red circle on the above photo.

If the weather holds I'm planning on operating from their tomorrow, Sunday, 13th April, with the Buddipole and the IC-703. 

CQ WW WPX SSB Contest

Another great weekend on the bands, even if I did have to shut down a few hours early. 10m was very active both days, but Sunday morning was just outstanding on that band, with most of Europe calling CQ there it seemed.

Friday evening was a feast of the South Pacific, on 10m  I managed to work JA3BOA, JR3NZC, JA1ZGP, and JI2ZEY in about 4 minutes.  After I cleared with the last Japanese station I was called by an Hawaiian station, and managed to work three of them in a row, and then I snagged ZL4PLM in Christchurch, New Zealand.  I don't think I've worked a ZL in the last two years.

I didn't work steady at it on Saturday, just a few hours here and there.  I'll be very honest and tell you all that I just wasn't into it for some reason.  No idea why, my mind was just elsewhere.

Sunday morning I was back at it with renewed vigour, obviously a good nights sleep helps a lot.  Two new countries dropped into the log before noon, UA2F in Kaliningrad, and 4V1JR in Haiti.  Both stations were caught on 10m.

I managed to work stations on 80m through 10m, but I mainly stayed on 10m.  I'm also going to have to rebuild my 15m vertical dipole, it's not working as well as I thought it would, and it also seems very "hit and miss" with its contacts.  I think I'll switch it to a regular dipole and see how that works out.

The FT-950 was the rig in action this weekend, along with the 80m OCF dipole and the 15m vertical dipole.

QRP to the Field

I stumbled on this while looking for information on this years event.........

QRP to the Field will be held two weeks later this year so it can be held in conjunction with International SOTA Day and the 10-10 Contest.  This will give us more available contacts and a chance at some good DX.

The new date for your calendar is: Saturday, May 3rd, 2014.  Timings are 1200 UTC to 2359 UTC.

2m Challenge

Had a great day today on Fort Henry Hill....believe it or not.  The new information centre is closed and because of that the 30 or so plasma screens are shut off and the local noise level is back down to zero.

Today was the Frontenac Club's 2m Challenge.  A simple contest 1 point per contact using both SSB and FM.

We could have done with a few more stations on the air, but those who did take part had a good time.

I decided at the very last minute to head up to Fort Henry and I didn't take that much gear with me.  It was a shake the winter cobwebs off type of day.  It was still cold, -12C under a brilliant blue sky and about a 25 kph wind.  Lots of kite flyers up on the hill today.  My feet froze in my winter boots for some reason, but any excuse to turn on the engine and pump some heat into the truck cab.

Anyway, rig of the day was the FT-857D, and the antenna, which is shown below, was a very simple 2m dipole made from Buddipole parts on a 18' painter pole........and it worked very well.  This was the first time the 857 has been out of the box since last October's County Emergency Exercise if I remember correctly.  It doesn't get used very much, and as a result everytime I do use it, it becomes a learning experience all over again, and of course it hardly ever gets used for VHF use. 

Got to work several 2m QRP stations today, which is always nice to see, and had the winter cobwebs blown off.  Hopefully spring is just around the corner and more portable ops will be on the table.

A very dirty VE3CLQ mobile station

10m action

What an amazing day on 10m!   The band has been wide open into Europe and the Middle East just about all day, and the stations have been wall to wall.   As well as 10m, 12m and 17m have been very active as well today, with lots of great DX showing up.

I was very pleased at 1555Z to have Dattatry, VU2DSI, from Ahmednagar, in Central India pick me up, and on my first call to him.  Made my day!

I cannot remember ever actually hearing an Indian station on the air.  I've seen lots of them posted on the DX Cluster, but to work them on the very first call is just amazing.

The past few months have been fantastic on 10m, I remember my Dad, the "original" VE7CVQ, working the world on 10m back in 1992/1993.  Let's hope these conditions last until months end and the next big contest!

The Weekend Round-Up

What a great weekend on the bands! The ARRL International SSB Contest certainly brought hams out of the woodwork and on the air.

When I looked at the SFI numbers on Thursday to see what was going on, I thought we would all be twiddling our thumbs on Saturday and Sunday, but instead it turned around and the conditions where pretty good after all.

40m didn’t make me smile very much; I only managed to make a total of four contacts on that band all weekend long. I was hearing lots of stations, the problem was nobody was calling “CQ Contest”, and nobody was answering my CQ calls either. Both 20m and 15m sort of got left behind in the rush that was 10m. I made 31 contacts on 20m, 30 contacts on 15m, and 261 contacts on 10m.

Furthest contact of the weekend was with JA2AXB in Shizuoko City, Japan on 10m.

The Band Police must have taken the weekend off as I didn’t hear any of them about all weekend. However, there is one gentleman, and I really do use that term loosely, who spent a couple of hours Saturday afternoon jamming contesters on 14.235. Apparently it was his personal frequency and he objected most strongly to anyone who got close. His foul mouth and racist rants had to be heard to be believed. I hope somebody caught his callsign and managed to tape him so the FCC can also hear him. He certainly doesn’t deserve to be a ham with his attitude.

Let’s all hope the last weekend of the month is just as good for the CQ WW WPX SSB Contest.

ARRL International SSB DX Contest

Coming up in two weeks is the ARRL International SSB DX Contest.  Contest runs from 0000Z, March 1st  to 2400Z, March 2nd.

Looking forward to getting back on the air, both HF antennas seem to have survived the long winter we have had this year, and are both working well. 

Looking at my logbook entries for last years contest it seemed that the European stations were in the majority on the Saturday, and the South Americans and Caribbean stations were the majority on Sunday, We’ll see if it’s the same this year.



 

Trying another way to publish in this blog

 

This is a test posting using Windows Live Writer

AND……..obviously we have a winner   So we will continue to use this blog now that we have the picture posting issue fixed.

Posting Issues

Has anyone else had trouble trying to upload pictures to their Blogs on Blogger?  For some reason I can no longer do this. 


I can post text....obviously, but no pictures at all, no matter what format I try them in.


HELP !! :-)

Kidney Stones...

No operating in the NA QSO Party today for me.  I'm out for the count with a bout of kidney stones.  I thought I might be able to handle it, but the pain is pretty bad and sitting around just makes it worse.  Good luck to all who take part!

Hopefully this will be over in a few days......until then we just keep trying to smile!

2014 Plans.......

Trees to hang antennas - Check!
Salt water - Check!

Well another year has come and we're off for another rollicking 12 months of ham radio fun....but what fun to have?

Like most of you reading this the expense of doing a major DXpedition is really out of the question, but with so much money tied up in equipment you have to do something or SWMBO might get upset!   So what to do?

I've decided that first up will be the activation of three local islands, two of which I have not activated before, ON-175 Block House Island in Brockville, and ON-177 Treasure Island in Gananoque.  I'll also finally attempt a first time activation of Upper Brewers Mill Island, just south of Seeley's Bay.

I'm also going to activate a couple of lighthouses.  The first one will be CAN-815 Portsmouth Harbour Light, which has not been activated within living memory from what the local hams tell me, and then off to CAN-767 Prescott to activate the harbour light there.

These are what I'm going to call "micro-dxpeditions"

Of course sitting here watching the winds blow the loose snow across my backyard as Kingston suffers in a bone chilling -37C with the wind chill, a major DXpedition to Fiji looks pretty good right about now......and damn the expense!

RAC Winter Contest - The Results!

Well, Bob, VA3QV is no longer that elusive!!  He was my 10th contact of the night, caught him hanging around on 80m SSB.  It was a very hard contact to complete, he was truly about a 41 and he was way down in the mud, but we managed to complete the QSO.  Made my day !!

Friday night was a pretty hard struggle, lots of noise on the band, and of course the antennas were still coated with thick ice making tuning "interesting".  However, over night the temperature rose to a balmy +2C by 0300, and by 0700 it was sitting at +3C.  The end result was the ice melted, the trees sprung back, and my dipole ended up about 15' higher by morning than I started with.....all good news.

Saturday morning with the dipole back up at 50', the contacts started to come on a regular basis with 20m being the band of choice to start.  The morning and afternoon was spent switching back and forth between 10m, 15m, and 20m depending on conditions and the very deep QSB that was going on. 

About 1700 local the bands started to change and I switched to 40m, bouncing every now and then to 80m.  I even managed a couple of 160m contacts, not bad for QRP on an 80m OCF dipole!

I managed to work just about all the multipliers, but saw no sign of the VO2's or VY0's.  So obviously that lone ham in Nunavut is back in Florida for the winter!

Summary sheet:

2m SSB – 1 contact VE3

6m SSB – 2 contacts VE3

10m SSB- 11 contacts VE5, VE6, VE7, VE8

15m SSB- 8 contacts VE4, VE5, VE6, VE7, VE8

20m SSB- 25 contacts VE1, VE3, VE4, VE5, VE6, VE7, VE9, VY1, VY2

40 SSB- 17 contacts VE2, VE3, VE4, VE6, VE7, VE9

80m SSB- 21 contacts VE1, VE2, VE3, VE6, VE9, VO1, VY2

160m SSB- 2 contacts VE3

All in all it was a great time, and I bettered my score from last year.  Next on the calendar is the NA QSO Party on the 18/19 January.

RAC Winter Contest

The 2013 RAC winter contest kicks off on the 28th of December, 0000Z and runs until 2400Z.  Most years I do not contest this one very seriously, but I'm going to give it a good try this year.  Hopefully I'll get the ever elusive VA3QV in the log this year !

I tested the ice covered antennas last night and managed a good QSO with Mark, SQ2GXO in Gdansk, Poland.  They seem to be working and tuning well on all bands.  Hopefully with the +1C heat wave we had today, even more ice will have been lost.

Hope to work you all on the bands tonight.

Merry Christmas

May peace, happiness and goodwill be with you and your family not only on Christmas,
but throughout the year and beyond.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a

Happy New Year for 2014.

 

 

The Ice Storm of 1998......er, 2013

It's been an interesting couple of days here in Kingston.  Since Friday night we have about 1.5" of accumulated ice from the freezing rain, and about 4" of accumulated ice pellets on the ground. 

We still have light freezing rain falling Sunday afternoon, and the weather Guru's are telling us this will continue until midnight Sunday.

While this is not as bad as the 1998 Ice Storm, we still have large area power outages and trees down all over the place.....including in my backyard.  The roads in the city, have for the most part, been quite drivable, but some of the more rural areas they were not drivable. 

Ron, VE3GO, ran a weather net on our repeater for most of the weekend, providing weather updates and driving information to the local hams.  Most of the local hams checked in so we knew who was available in case we had a full repeat of the 1998 storm.

This morning (Sunday) was supposed to be our Club's Christmas Breakfast.  Four of us braved the roads to attend.....and thanks to Don, VE3MNE, for picking me up as my driveway was a total mess.

It looks like both of my verticals have survived, and my 80m OCF Dipole is looking pretty sad with the ice load on it, but at least it hasn't  come down, and I just might be able to get on the air with it for the RAC Winter Contest.

Nothing to do now except pack away the go-kits and get ready for Santa's arrival :-)



And in other news.....A huge WELL DONE to the SAR Crew from 424 Squadron, CFB Trenton. 
An amazing rescue showing the shear professionalism of these guys!!
 

ARRL 10m Contest.....Day Two

Here in Kingston we woke up Sunday morning to a pretty intense snow storm that left us about 10" of snow on the ground.  So, foolishly, I jumped into my truck and drove downtown to have breakfast at 7:00 am with the other Frontenac Radio Group members at the Star Diner. 

The roads were disgusting and I don't think the City of Kingston plowed at all overnight.   I really should have just turned around and went home.  Most Sunday's we get 11 or 12 out, this Sunday we had three :-) 

Safely back home by 9:00 I had a quick look at the antennas to make sure all was well with them...and it was.  So off to the shack it was to check the SFI on Solarham.com and the numbers were not too bad considering the minor geomagnetic storm we had going on.  SFI was at 164; SN was 163;  'A' Index was 16 and the 'K' Index sitting at 1.

First contact of the day was with TM1A in Provins, France, and for the next 2.5 hours it was a feast of non-stop European stations.  Most of these signals arrived here at about a true S5 or S7, and during that time I never heard a single US or Canadian station.  One would have thought it was a European 10m Contest :-)

At 1130 I went and made a cup of tea, and when I arrived back in the shack 5 minutes later, the Europeans had all disappeared and the band was now full of US and a few Canadian stations.  It was amazing just how fast the band shift happened, but it was that way all day, shifting East-West and then North-South and back again in a matter of a very short time.  As an example, within a 7 minute period I worked OG2A in Finland, KH6LC in Hawaii, and then PY5DC in Brazil. 

We had lots of good openings into the West Coast and I racked up dozens of contacts into California, Oregon, Washington, and BC.  I even worked three Alaskan stations - one after the other!  Best catch of the day for Sunday was either V55V in Namibia or VY1EI in Whitehorse, I can't decide which.

Most of the strong signals on the band, especially those coming in S9+, all seemed to  have great trouble hearing the stations calling them back.  Perhaps this is a result of too much power being used, and transmitting far beyond what they could actually hear?  It sure sounded that way, and many of the local Kingston hams all thought the same thing.  Most of these powerful stations called all day to little effect.

The radio used this weekend was the FT-950 with the Heil Pro-6 headset.  The main antenna in use was the 80m OCF Dipole.  100w into a piece of wire and 12 hours of glorious fun.  Ya just can't beat it!

I'm now getting ready for the RAC winter contest on the 27th and I'm hoping that the lone ham in Nunavut is not on vacation in Florida like he was the last few years :-)  I'm also looking forward to trying to make that ever elusive contact on 40m with Bob VA3QV.  We will see if we can do it this year!

ARRL 10m Contest

Great day on 10m today for the contest!  The band was wide open into Europe this morning with many call signs all calling "CQ NA".  I must have worked over 70 European stations and really enjoyed myself.

In the afternoon 10m swung to work North-South and we started to hear the Caribbean and South American stations.  I managed to work V55V in Namibia, and got him on the first call.....which was totally unexpected given the pileup he was working at the time. 

About 1600 local the band changed again.  This time it was working well in all directions and I managed to work KH6LC in Hawaii.  Not too bad for a SFI of 164.  A SN of 141.  The 'A' Index at 16 and the 'K' Index at 4, and the band noise was going from bad to worse. 

It looks like we are in for some minor geomagnetic activity over the next 24 hours, and at 1920 local the Solar Wind is at 400+ Km/s.

There are still some of the big guns calling CQ on the band but it's almost impossible to work them now.  I doubt we will have the fun we had today in the morning, but we can hope!!

RCAF Moose Milk

Drinking "fortified" Moose Milk at Christmas has been a time honoured tradition in the Royal Canadian Air Force for many, many years. 

For those that don't know what it is, Moose Milk is a magic elixir that makes fighter pilots look much more handsome, Aurora crews much smarter, and the Chinook crews much more rugged..............but it seems it doesn't do much for the Hercules or the CC-150 Polaris crews!

Most non-Canadians will not know the first thing about how to go about catching a wild Moose so you can milk it, and I must confess it can be a very dangerous sport if you are not extremely careful.  This is one of the few jobs we leave to the Flight Engineers as they tend to be much more responsible than the pilots, and the Loadmasters just get in the way and drink the stuff.

So to make it easier for my friends from overseas the following recipe is as close as you can get to drinking real Moose Milk.....

 

Recipe credit: www.badenremembered.com

 

Flight Sergeant Jack Moore, is credited with concocting the original mixture on the instructions of the RCAF Station Borden CO, in about 1943, for guests to "have a good time."  A couple of 40-pounders (Dark Rum and Canadian Rye) providing the kick makes it a rather enjoyable drink.  Some substitutions include a brick of ice cream in place of the whipping cream.

 

Please remember to drink and drive responsibly!!! 

If you're caught the Police will never believe you drank Moose Milk!!

2013 ARRL Sweepstakes

Yet another great weekend on the bands!  It was the perfect storm.....the wife is away on a 10 day cruise - so she can't bother me, and the propagation Gods were smiling on us.  You couldn't ask for better!

After looking at the numbers I decided to do this contest as a QRP station, and I'm glad I did....I don't think I've ever had such a good result in a contest.  The IC-703 was brought off the shelf and hooked up to power and coax and away we went.

I took it fairly easy, giving myself plenty of time off the air for breaks, and you can only submit the first 24 hours of the log anyway, so there was no need to kill yourself and go crazy.  I ended up working 63 out of the 83 ARRL and RAC Sections.  Not too shabby for a screaming 5w.

10m was wide open for most of the contest, as was 15m.  I ended up working stations on 10, 15, 20, 40 and 80m at one time or another, but 10 and 15m were my "go to" bands during the day.  I didn't get onto 20m until late Sunday afternoon as the runs on 10 and 15 were just so good!

I heard no LIDS and no band police this contest, but it was such a friendly atmosphere there was no need for them to hang around and try and make us miserable.  It was also very nice to be hunted, apparently Ontario East (ONE) is very much sought after.  I guess there are not many contesters in this Section.  One other point did stick out, and that was the number of YL's on the air.  I can't remember hearing as many on the air as I did over this weekend before.

Many thanks must go to the great operators who took the time to work me, it must have been difficult at times for them I'm sure. 


The worked Sections from my contest logger

 

Remembrance Day 2013

 

In Loving Memory of the

Officers, NCO's, and Men

of

2816 Squadron, RAF Regiment

December 1941 -  June 1946

LEST WE FORGET

 

 

 

 

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Sad News

For those QRP'ers who followed the adventures of Rooster and Peanut, the pack goats of Steve, WG0AT, as they climbed all over the Colorado mountain ranges, there is some very sad news today.  Rooster the pack goat has passed away. 

I have always enjoyed Steve's videos of his adventures as much for the antics of the two goats, as I did for his set-ups and DX contacts.  In fact it was watching these videos that first got me hooked on QRP.

Our condolences go out to Steve and Pam, they've lost a true loyal friend.

RIP Rooster, we'll miss you.

Rooster, Steve, and Peanut.

Upper Brewers Mills Island Activation

Upper Brewers Mills Lock

Next Sunday, November 10th, the Frontenac Radio Group will be trying to activate Upper Brewers Mills Island.  This island has not been activated before, although we have attempted to activate it on one previous occasion, but were unsuccessful because of very poor propagation.

We plan on being on the air between 1530 UTC and 1800 UTC, and the frequencies in use will be 28.450;  21.350; and 14.250 to 14.260.  All frequencies are +/- 10 Kc.

Radio will be an FT-857D and the antenna will be a 31' vertical.

Hopefully the weather will cooperate!

What a weekend......

The weekend in one word?  Outstanding!  The bands were just simply incredible with both 10m and 15m just rocking with wall to wall DX.

It started early Thursday morning when Don VE3MNE and I hit the road and travelled up Hwy 38 to Leggat Lake, about 75 Kms north of Kingston to my brother-in-laws cottage.  Leggat is a medium sized lake and sort of remote.....well, it's off the beaten track. It's very quiet electrically there with very little to no noise like we get in the city.

Once we had arrived and unloaded our trucks it was time to get the antennas up.  Don used his Chillycon Mk.2 antenna with six 16' radials.  We also put up a 2m 5/8 ground plane antenna so we could hit our local repeater and talk back into Kingston.  My initial choice of antennas are what we now call the VA3QV, first seen on Bob's Blog.

Now Bob uses this antenna all the time and has good results with it.  I couldn't get it to work to save my life.  Don was working DX hand over fist and I couldn't get the VA3QV to even tune.  I even added and then subtracted radials and changed the coax, but still it did not work for me.  The radio in use was a FT-857D with a LDG YT-100 tuner.  By this time Bill VA3WOW had arrived from Belleville, so outside we went and swapped the VA3QV for a 66' long wire with a "pile" of 16' and 31' radials.

While the 66' long wire worked, it was not to my liking and the tuner was taking forever to tune.......I knew I could do much better, and it was now getting dark, Don was still working DX hand over fist, and frustration was starting to settle in!  Outside we went again, only this time it had started to rain, and put up my 31' antenna in a sloper configuration with, once again, a "pile" of 16' and 31' radials.  Hallelujah, it worked just fine, and the DX started to roll in. 

Thursday evening was just a feast of DX as everyone was on the air testing and checking out their antenna systems for the weekend contest.

Most of Friday was taken up with more tweaking of the antennas, adding and subtracting radials, elevating them, and putting them back on the ground.  We also took time out to explore the other side of the lake, and had a good long walk doing so.

Bill VA3WOW chowing down!

Don BBQ'ed a great steak supper on Friday night and as he did so the bands went very quiet.  Other contesters were also off to eat a good meal and grab an hour or two rest before it all kicked off at 0059 UTC.   Steak, mushrooms, peppers, and a very nice red wine were on the menu. 

After supper we stocked up on dry wood for the stove and got things cleaned up ready for the contest.

At 0059Z the bands just exploded!  I started off on 15m and Don was on 10m.  We just never stopped logging stations.  15m was simply wall to wall DX, with hardly a gap between them.  It was actually quite hard to sort things out at first as our ears were not used to the deafening calls of "CQ Contest".

It was  great to hear so many hams on the bands, I can't remember when I heard a contest kick off like this one did.  Because of the great band conditions and superb propagation we had many inexperienced contesters on the bands working.  This is great to see, but many of them didn't even know what a "zone" was.  You would think before entering a big contest like the CQ WW SSB Contest a person would read the rules, and hopefully listen.........and listen again........and listen again to what the other guys are exchanging.....but many did not do that.

VE3FCT in front and VE3MNE on the far side

On Saturday evening, just as the grey line was going through us, Don worked 15 Japanese stations one after the other.  He thought he had died and gone to DX heaven!

We also worked seven Moroccan stations between us, and over 20 Brits.  There were also a good number of Scottish stations we worked, including one in the Orkney Islands and another in the Shetland Islands.

Many stations, and especially those from one particular country, were running so much power that they were talking way past what they could actually hear.  I doubt very many of the stations calling them actually got through to them, the big guns called CQ over and over with little response.  Perhaps one day these guys will learn that you can do wonders with 100w and a long piece of wire up in a tree. 

My Philosophical question of the weekend is why is it that the station you "need" is always weak, and is always parked right next to a super station pounding out a 1.5k signal into stacked Yagi's ??

Of course it wouldn't be a contest without hundreds of "band police" on the bands.  They seemed to be everywhere on the weekend, and of course the LIDS were also out in full force.  Why, for the love of God, do these idiots insist on tuning up right over a QSO?  Do these individuals really think that's how things should be done?  I'm sure if we tuned up over one of their QSO's  they would all scream loud and long!

My prize for the most polite operators must go to the Germans. It was a delight to work them.  It was always please and thank you from them. The Romanians were also very polite as well.  One Romanian ham actually apologised to me for his poor English......which was perfect by the way.  I told him if he thought his English was bad he should hear my Romanian!

This weekends total was 131 countries worked, including three new ones:

C37NL from Andorra
UP2L from Kazakhstan
9K2HN from Kuwait.

Just an outstanding weekend!

Don VE3MNE cruising the bands

Hmmm....which wire goes where?????????



The quiet before the storm






 

There's No Life Like It !!!!

It was another great weekend on the bands!  As well as operating from the home QTH shack, many of us here in Kingston went out on Saturday and Sunday to activate the local islands for the annual W/VE Island QSO Party.

On Saturday Tim, VA3TIC, and Derek, VE3HRW, activated Howe Island, ON-023 and Dave, VA3ORP activated Washburn Island, ON-289.  Both activations were a great success and both had many QSO's, both local and DX.

On Sunday myself and Dave, VE3DZE, took the Wolfe Island ferry right after the club breakfast.  Dave activated Wolfe Island, ON-009 and from what I hear had a blast, especially after he was posted on the DX Cluster.  Dave was using his FT-450 and a 31' vertical with four 16' radials.

I carried on and went to Simcoe Island, ON-022, via the small three car cable ferry.  At the last minute I chose a different route, I used my IC-703 with 10 screaming watts, and a Buddipole erected as a 10m dipole on a 16' mast.  The 10m band conditions were superb!  The European DX was right across the band, and I had an extremely hard time finding a spot to call CQ.

Over the next three hours I made eight DX and a pile of local Ontario contacts.  What amazed me was the fact that every DX contact was made on the first call!  DX stations in the log today are:

SP7UWL -Tomasz in Bodzentyn, Poland
LY75RMD - Club Station in Vilnius, Lithuania
G0MTD - Steve in Workington, UK
F4EPR - Dave in Chalindrey, France
G4ZWY - Steve in Bromyard, UK
M0VKC - Nige in Malpas, UK
M0DZH - Malcolm in Barnsley, UK
GM4SSA - Hans in the Shetland Islands, Scotland

CQ DX - CQ DX - CQ DX

It was a beautiful day, 14C under blue skies with a little wind.  This is the second year I have operated this event from Simcoe Island, it's very peaceful and the cows don't bother you at all.

Dave and I met up on the way home and missed the big ferry home causing us to have an hours wait, but that just gave us time for a coffee and a chance to compare notes.  Off we went to the General Wolfe Hotel and enjoyed the chat (guess who the island is named after?).

This week will be spent getting the portable gear ready for this coming weekend and our five day weekend at the Brother-in-Laws cottage on Leggat Lake.  VE3MNE, VA3WOW, and myself will be taking part in the CQ WW SSB Contest from there.  I'm really looking forward to this coming weekend.  Stay tuned for a full report.

The neighbours come visiting!

The view of Wolfe Island from the small ferry

Buddipole in action




 

Great Weekend on the bands

Finally, the propagation Gods smiled upon us this weekend!!  The HF bands have been just singing with signals, and mostly good DX signals. 

The best band all weekend just had to be 10m.  In fact I spent most of my time there on Sunday and Monday.  There were many comments about not hearing 10m open world-wide like this for many, many years.  There were times it was a challenge to find an open spot to call CQ the band was that busy.

Lets hope we have a repeat of this in two weeks for the CQ WW SSB Contest.....wouldn't that be a blast!!

Best contact of the weekend?  It had to be TX5D in Raivavae, French Polynesia.  Broke the pileup and got him on the first call.....made my day!