This and That......

Not much going on in the VE3CLQ shack these past few weeks, getting over another bout of Kidney stones and generally just not feeling too good.......so ham radio has suffered.

I have built a new 4:1 Balun for the 31' vertical in order to be ready for the first portable operating session of the year, this coming Saturday on Fort Henry Hill.   Long time readers will remember that operating on Fort Henry Hill used to happen on a regular basis until a few years ago when the new interpretive centre opened on the Hill, and the dozens of inter-active plasma displays installed there caused the background noise to go from S0 to S9+ overnight.

That interpretive centre and displays cost the tax payers in excess of $20 million.......now, three years later the noise has gone away as the plasma displays have all failed and have been quietly removed.

Next Saturday is forecast to be sunny with 15C, a welcome change from the crap weather we have been having over the past month.

So I'm going to blow the cobwebs off the gear and see what we can do from the Hill.  Hopefully the propagation will cooperate, although I doubt it will given what has been going on with it for the past few weeks.

Next month is shaping up to be pretty busy so far, with at least two island activations on the books, but more about them later.

CQ WW WPX SSB Contest

Lots of fun over the Easter Weekend taking part in the CQ WW WPX SSB Contest.  It seemed to me that participation was down this year, perhaps due to being held over Easter?

The propagation was also not the best.  The numbers were: SFI=85.  SN=25.  A Index=7, and the K Index=1.  I guess as we get close to the bottom of the cycle we can expect to see more and more poor to non-existent propagation.

There did not seem to be very many "new ones" on the air, but I did manage to put one new country in the log, I managed to work a station in Palestine, never heard them on the air before.  Other than that it was nothing too special.  There was lots of some pretty deep QSB on some of the bands which caused some issues.

Now it's time to do the annual maintenance on the antennas and get ready for the Ontario QSO Party coming up next month.  I also have a couple of island activation planned for May, can't wait to get out and start operating portable with no snow on the ground....

The Weather.......

Given today's weather forecast of almost 12 hours of freezing rain, I'm hoping that my two wire antennas both hold up and are ready for this weekends CQ WW WPX SSB Contest..........somehow I doubt they will remain in the air, that's a lot of ice coming down.

Rules for the contest, and other information can be found HERE.

I'm hoping that this is winter's last kick at the can before spring really arrives......the propagation also has to improve a great deal before the start time as it's been total crap the last week.

Saturday late afternoon WSPR'ing........

As of 2053 UTC the propagation numbers were: SFI=89,  SN=29,  A Index=8, and the K Index=4. Not the best numbers we have ever seen or worked under, but not the worse either.  I thought I would give WSPR a try and see what I could do.

Conditions were FT-950 at 5w into the 148' Inverted L long wire.   I had zero returns on 10m, 12m, 15m, and 17m after 30 minutes on each band.

Here's what 20m, 40m, and 80m looked like:

20m at 2123 UTC, March 19th.

40m at 2225 UTC, March 19th.

80m at 2359 UTC, March 19th.

Hopefully the propagation numbers will improve a great deal before next weekend when the CQ WW WPX SSB Contest starts........one can only hope and pray !!

Monday Night WSPR

Given the bad band conditions last night I was surprised to work a pile of stations across the Atlantic, and out to the west coast, on 80m.

The big surprise came at 0340 UTC, again on 80m, when I had a return from V51B in Namibia, that's 15, 844 Km from me......on 5 watts.  Not too shabby at all !!

Radio in use was the FT-950 with power turned down to 5w, and my 148' inverted L long wire antenna.