Chillycon

Bob-VA3QV suited up for Chillycon.

Chillycon is coming up next weekend, September 12th & 13th, and looking at the long range weather forecast it looks like we're in for some great weather that weekend.  In fact, this looks to be the warmest one in a long time.

For those that don't know, Chillycon is a gathering of QRP operators from Eastern Ontario, and is sponsored by the Ottawa Valley QRP Society, and held at the Rideau River Provincial Park just across the river from Kemptville.

This will be my sixth year attending the event, and every year it gets better and I learn something new to take home.

This year I'm taking my old FT-857D and the new IC-718 with me which will give me an opportunity to compare them against each other on the air.  I've been meaning to do this for some time, in fact ever since the FT-857D came back to life.  Antennas going with me will be the Buddipole, the 31' vertical, and the 84' longwire.

So this coming week will be spent getting all the camping gear together, checking it over, getting it packed into the Rubbermaid containers, and getting ready to roll next Friday morning.

The weekend also gives us all a chance to catch up with old friends, and make new ones, and I'm really looking forward to it.

September....ALREADY !!!!!!

I cannot believe that today is the September 1st........where has the year gone??  Mind you September is going to be a busy month from what I see written on my calendar!

Coming up on the 12th & 13th is Chillycon, the annual gathering of QRP'ers in Eastern Ontario.  Held at Rideau River Provincial Park which is about half way between Smith's Falls and Ottawa.  If you can't make it for the full weekend, come on out for Saturday.  VA3QV will be there, in person, signing autographs from the back of the "mobile love shack".....don't miss that!!

That same weekend is also SOTA Weekend in North America.  So I would imagine the guys at Chillycon will be chasing the SOTA guys up and down the mountains.

The 19th is QRP Afield, the details for this years event have still not been published on line, but I imagine they will be shortly.  Details will be found HERE.

And lastly on the monthly calendar is the 2015 Boy Scout Brotherhood Event.  Held this year at Morrisburg, Ontario.  Details HERE.   Our club has been asked to go along and provide an radio display and an operating shack for the Scouts to visit.

It's going to be interesting trying to fit this lot in with the amount of gardening still to be done at this QTH !!

Island Activations

I'm always looking for a good island to activate and I was very surprised to find four of them near Kingston that have never been activated before at all.

They are:

Nut Island at grid FN14eo
Waupoos Island at grid FN14md
White Island at grid FN14do
Ram Island at grid FN14 ld

All four of these islands are located in Hay Bay, 20 Km south of the town of Napanee.  Right now we're trying to figure out good dates and who is available, and work shifts.....and of course the weather.   Hopefully we will get to them soon.

W/VE Island QSO Party

This years W/VE Island QSO Party is this coming Saturday, August 29th.  The rules for this event can be found HERE.

My plan is to activate Washburn Island, ON-289, starting about 1330 UTC and continue on until 1730 UTC.

I would like to be on the air for a lot longer, but that day is my mother-in-laws surprise 80th birthday party, and it's more than my life is worth to miss it.......if you know what I mean !!

This is only the second activation of Washburn Island so it's still pretty rare with the island collectors.

Radio will be the FT-857D with a vertical Buddipole on various bands, depending on the days propagation.

This is a busy place during the summer with boats coming and going and herds of kids fishing from the docks.  I know I will have no room to put up a dipole without somebody complaining, so the Buddipole on an 8' mast will have to do.  I'll probably start on 20m and give 40m a chance later on.

At the moment they're forecasting rain for the day, so hopefully the weather Gods will decide to smile on us and give us some sunshine instead.

Sunday on the bands.......

Loading the ferry just after dawn.

I was up before the crack of dawn today and with the truck loaded last night, it was off to Prince Edward County to activate Point Petre Lighthouse (CAN-026) for the ILLW.

To get to Point Petre we had to travel about 60 Km west to the Glenora Ferry, where I met up with Don-VE3MNE, and the ferry over the narrows to the town of Picton.  If you've never been to Picton you have to go, it's a beautiful and busy little town.

Once in Picton we had arranged to meet Bill- VA3WOW, from Belleville, for breakfast at the Lighthouse Restaurant.  We hadn't seen Bill since the Bicycle Tour last June, so it was good to catch up on things.

What a great day!!  It was horizon to horizon blue sky and the temperature in Prince Edward County was close to 29C by 1000 local.  However......isn't there always a "however"?  The propagation numbers today were terrible.  At 0600 the numbers were SFI=88,  SN=46, A Index=44, and K Index=5.  Twelve hours later those numbers have not improved very much at all, and in fact we have had a moderate (G2) to strong (G3) geomagnetic storm.

So given the above propagation news, I'm delighted to say that I managed to work a grand total of seven stations, including three lighthouses, all on 20m, and they were:

VO1OK at CAN-040, Lobster Cove Head Lighthouse in Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland.
W4LX at US-004, Port Boca Grande Lighthouse in Florida.
T41C at CU-009, Cayo Jutias Lighthouse, Cuba.
KF5WCP, John in Van Buren, AR.
K5YLJ, Terry in Trumann, AR.
VY2DAC, Dave in Charlottetown, PEI.
WY5I, Don in Port St. Lucie, FL.

While I worked 20m, Don-VE3MNE, tried the other bands starting with 40m and working his way down to 10m.  Nothing was open at all, only 20m.  There was very deep QSB on 20m, signals would be an S9+ one second and a S1- the very next.  It was an extremely hard time copying some of these stations.

Antenna of the day was a 20m Buddipole vertical up at 12', and the radio was my FT-857D which after extensive bench work, has decided to return to life and live another day!

I should also mention that if you ever decide to activate CAN-026 on a very sunny day......take a shade tent, as there is no shade and no big trees nearby to operate under.