Winter Field Day

Well, it's that time of year again.....winter field day, you know, the one were the mosquitoes don't bother you!!  As the SPAR website states: "Since emergencies and natural disasters don't always happen in the summer, during Winter Field Day, frigid winds, icy limbs and bitter cold replace the thunderstorms and blistering heat of summer." 

Winter field day is designed to test our abilities to respond to a disaster or emergency under winter conditions, and living in a part of Canada that has five good months of winter, it's probably a good thing we practice these skills.  It's a hell of a lot different setting up at -20C than it is at +30C.  In fact it takes about four times as long to set up in the cold as it does in the summer.

This years rules can be found HERE.  Read them, they've changed this year.

I will not be able to take part until the late afternoon as I must attend the first planning meeting of the communications coordinators for the Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour.  So, listen for VE3 Frozen Canadian Toes transmitting from Fort Henry Hill.

NA QSO Party - SSB

Coming up next weekend is the NA QSO Party - SSB.  The contest runs from 1800 UTC on January 17th to 0600 UTC on January 18th.

Rules can be found HERE.

Looking forward to this one as it's the first one of the year.  Time to shake off the winter blahs and get the radio humming again.    The XYL is away that weekend so I'll have no distractions or Honey Do List to impede the score this year.....I hope she doesn't read this !!

Island Activation

Just worked what I believe to be the very first island activation of 2015 here in Ontario....and probably Canada.

John, VE3ISE, from Grimsby was activating Henley Island, ON-007, near St. Catherines this morning.  He was using an FT-897D and a Hustler Mobile antenna mounted on his car, but he was a lovely S9+20 here in Kingston on 40m, but he was having issues with a S9 background noise at his location.

John was also having some issues with the weather, he had snow with freezing rain on the way.  He sounded happy to be on the air non-the-less.

For those of you interested in activating islands, or just chasing them from home.  Check out this WEBSITE, it has all the information you will need to get started.

SkyWhip Portable Telescopic Antenna

Ground mount for the SkyWhip antenna
(Photo belongs to Durham Radio)

Just picked up a new toy.  I picked up a SkyWhip Portable Telescopic Antenna from Durham Radio.

Interesting piece of kit, it's a 16' 8" whip that can be used as a vertical, or two of them can make a portable dipole.  You can adjust them for 20, 17, 15, 12, 10, and 6 metres, and of course if you adjust it properly you won't need a tuner.

The best thing about it for me is that with the adapter I bought with it, it will fit my Buddipole set as well.  This will give me even better options for island and lighthouse activations now as I will have the ability to put up multiple antennas, both vertical and dipoles.

I'm off to read Ground Systems for HF Verticals by Rudy Severns, N6LF, to get the best idea of what the best radial system will be for it.

Once I've had it on the air I'll post a full report on it.

The DX-marathon

It's January 1st, so I have just submitted my score sheet for the 2014 CQ magazine DXmarathon. 

Starting January 1 of each year, the DX Marathon is the perfect answer for the DXer who needs that extra incentive to get on the air every day. Simply work as many countries and CQ Zones as you can in each calendar year, regardless of the band or mode. 

Each country and zone counts only once, so you can concentrate on working new ones rather than working the same ones on multiple bands and modes. 

Last year I managed to work 104 countries and 26 zones.  Hopefully I can do better than that this year.