Friday 5 August 2016

Carribean Tropical Storm Earl - Emergency activities

Tropical Storm Earl is currently heading across Central America affecting the countries of Honduras, Guatemala, Belize and Mexico

IARU Region 2 has requested that attention is drawn to the following frequencies used by nets in North and Central America to track and deal with the consequences of these severe weather events.

Radio Amateurs in Region 2 play their part in gathering and distributing information for the weather and emergency services as they do every year.

Radio Amateurs are reminded it is possible to cause unintentional QRM to these nets so please listen carefully if operating near these frequencies, which have alerted due to Tropical Storm Earl:

Mexico: 7.060 & 3.690 MHz
Guatemala: 7.075 MHz
Belize: 7.177MHz
USA Hurricane Watch Net: 14.325 MHz

For the remainder of the Atlantic hurricane season, Radio Amateurs are reminded of the following frequencies which have been notified from previous seasons:

Caribbean Emergency & Weather Nets: 7.162 & 3.815 MHz
Eastern Caribbean Narrow Band Emergency System Net: 7.036 MHz USB (Olivia & MT63)
Caribbean Emergency: 14.185 MHz
Republica Dominicana: 7.065 & 3.780 MHz
Cuba: 7.045, 7.080, 7.110, and 3.740 MHz
Central America: 7.090 & 3.750 MHz
Nicaragua: 7.098 MHz
Panama: 7.085 MHz

USA:
Maritime Mobile Service Net: 14.300 MHz
Salvation Army Team Emergency Radio Network (SATERN): 14.265 MHz

Other local emergency communications groups may also activate if a hurricane approaches their area and those frequencies would be announced at the time.


Tuesday 2 August 2016

W / VE Island QSO Party

Lots of advanced notice being given here.........

This event is for US and Canadian island activators.  Over the past few years Canadian involvement has been getting less and less.  In fact in 2015, only Jose, VA3PCJ, bothered to submit a log sheet.

This country has so many islands I doubt we could ever count them, and with the constant complaints we hear about RF noise being too high to operate at home, this is the perfect opportunity to get out and do some great operating with a zero noise floor.

So, this event takes place from 1200 UTC August 27th till 0300 UTC August 28th.

The rules for this event are HERE.

Let's give this event a kickstart and breath some new life into it.  Pick an island and get out there and get it on the air.  You'll have a pileup in no time.

Sunday 24 July 2016

Colorado 14er Weekend

Each year I try to take part in the event, some years I have been successful, others not so much.  Hopefully this year I'll have more luck than last year when I got skunked !!

Amateur Radio operators from around Colorado will be climbing many of Colorado’s 14,000-foot mountains and Summits On The Air (SOTA) peaks to set up amateur radio stations in an effort to communicate with other radio amateurs across the state and around the world.

Join in on the fun this year during the 25th annual event and see how many of the mountaintop stations you can contact. This year the event is expanded to include the entire weekend, August 6 & 7. However, many mountaintop activators will hit the trail early with the goal of being off the summits by noon due to lightning safety concerns.

Activity can occur on any amateur band including HF and VHF.  Some of the frequencies that will be in use are:

For CW:

7.032
14.060
18.092

For SSB:

50.125
7.185
14.345
18.158

You can check the SOTA Watch spotting site HERE for updated frequencies and active callsigns.

Here's a couple of shots of the event from recent years........





Friday 22 July 2016

Incredible !!

Wow......just saw the stats for my Blog.  As of today I'm at 100,026 views!!   Thanks to everyone who reads my rantings, I really appreciate it.

Hopefully over the past few years somebody may have learned something useful from reading this site.

Well, let's crack on with getting the second 100,000 views !!


Tuesday 19 July 2016

Comings and goings.....

Not much going on in the VE3FCT shack at the moment.....summer seems to be getting in the way!!

However, this coming Sunday the Frontenac Radio Group will be activating Amherst Island, ON-021.  Amherst hasn't been activated in a good number of years so we;'re hoping it will attract a bit of attention.

We will be on from 1500 UTC till 1900 UTC, unless propagation is in the toilet again and then we'll call it quits early.

Callsign will be VE3FRG, and the frequencies will be:

14.250 - 14.260
21.350
50.125
144.200

I have been doing a bit of WSPR with not much success.  Here's the map from last night at 2230 UTC showing the slim pickings on 20m.