Day Eight .......

The Keremeos Valley

Last day on the road today, and after all the rain and crappy weather I've had on the way across, today dawned bright and clear.  The final push to the coast was done under brilliant blue skies.

The drive from Grand Forks to the Coast was spectacular.  There was a good number of large hills and the old truck strained at times, but we made it.   I stopped for lunch in Keremeos, and then continued down the highway through Manning Park, Hope and Chilliwack.  Lots of changes to the road since the last time I was through this country.

Once again today I had no response to any of my calls on the local repeaters through the communities along highway 3.  So that means no 2m repeater contacts the whole width of BC.  Pretty sad!!

Plans are in the work to activate Point Atkinson Lighthouse and one of the local islands over the long weekend.  More details to follow.

Day Seven .......

It was a long day today, Fernie to Grand Forks.....with a small detour to Trail to see, Ann, an old family friend of my mother's.  I had not heard from Ann for over 30 years...until today...I found her, and had a great catch-up with her. 

Guess what? ....it rained all day again.  I'm getting use to this "summer weather" I've been driving through.

The worst part of the day was driving the Salmo-Creston Summit.  It's 1781m at the top, and it's a heck of a drive to get up there!  The actual worst part was the drive down.  It's an 8% grade downhill for 15km, and then a further 6% grade for 6 Km.  My brakes sure took a kicking today!

A quiet day radio wise, once again I had no contacts on any of the 8 repeaters I called into, nor did I get a response on .52 simplex. 

My night spot tonight is Grand Forks and tomorrow afternoon I should be at my destination.

Day Six .......

The Cypress Hills

Rained all night in Swift Current and first thing in the morning I continued the journey to Bow Island, AB, and drove the 250 Km in the rain.  No contacts made on any of the three 2m repeaters in Swift Current.

The country between Swift Current and Lethbridge is a combination of cattle and grain.  Everyone seems to drive a pick-up truck and wear a big hat.....but there's some great scenery through the Cypress Hills.

Finally a 2m contact going through Medicine Hat, on the VE6HAT repeater.  I had a quick QSO with John-VE6KEE.  I had just passed the first sign for Bow Island and I had a great contact, Denis-VE6AGE on .52 simplex!!   This was the first simplex contact for the whole trip.  Denis, originally from Hearst, Ontario, "doesn't do repeaters" and hangs out on the simplex frequencies.  Had a great QSO until I was just about out of range, great to make that contact!

Arrived in Fernie, BC, late that afternoon.  First time "home" in BC in ten years.

The best sight of the day was not any of the scenery I drove through, it was in Medicine Hat, and here it is:

$1.08.9 a litre !!!!

By the way, did I mention they are calling for wet snow through Banff and Canmore tonight ???  Hmmm...........

Day Five.....

Assiniboia River Valley

I hit the road pretty early today.  I wasn't feeling too well and wanted to get to the Clinic in Carlyle, SK, to see what was up.  The clinic was closed so I had to continue to Arcola, SK, and went to the emergency room there.  It turns out I drank some un-potable water....of course there were no signs to tell you this.

Just as I left Redvers another huge lightning storm hit with very heavy rain, and that lasted about until noon.  The rest of the day was nice, blue skies and a bit of heat.

The scenery around Assiniboia is spectacular.  This was the best of the trip so far.  There's a huge green valley just before you get to town and from the ridge line you can see for 30 km.  Just fantastic.

Gas prices have been holding steady at $1.26 for the past two days.

It's been a long day, and bad weather is coming in again, so I have detoured to Swift Current for the night and grabbed a motel.

Once again there were no 2m repeater contacts made, and nothing on 146.520 simplex either.  I hit every repeater along the route, and nothing but silence was heard.  I thought I might have made a contact in Weyburn, but that repeater is dead too.

Tomorrow I hope to make it to Fernie, BC.  Can't wait to see the mountains again.

Day Four......

Started the day trying to get out of Kenora.  There is so much road construction under way it's detour city, at the moment.   Very nice little town, and as usual heard no traffic on the local 2m repeater, nor were my calls answered.

However, I did get a call back from John-VE4OL on the Hadashville repeater, just before Winnipeg.  John told me that he heard my call on his scanner but didn't think it was that repeater, as nobody has heard a call on it for over a year!!!!  Why keep it up then??  A big thanks to John for keeping me company for a while.

Not much to see on he road to Winnipeg except trees and more trees.  About 100 km from Winnipeg it started to get very foggy, and that fog stayed with me until I was about 30 km past Winnipeg on Hwy 2.

Once the fog lifted the scenery was great, wide open prairie, just miles and miles of wheat fields.

The destination today is Redvers, Saskatchewan, a small town of about 100 people who have a neat municipal campground on the edge of town.  This campsite is very clean and very well maintained.  It was very expensive.....$10 for the night.  You can't miss the place, it's by the carved HUGE Mountie sitting on his horse, it's a good 30' tall.

After supper I set up the HF gear with the 31' vertical as the antenna, and managed to work Tim-VA3TIC, Ron-VE3GO, Dave-VE3DZE, and Don-VE3MNE, all the boys from Kingston.  It was great to hear their voices on the air.  Signals were 56 to 58 but there was a bit of QSB.

Later in the evening about 10:00 PM, you could see a huge lightening storm off to the west of us.  I got everything ready for when it hit, and hit it did about 6 hours later.  High winds and tonnes of rain.  I survived and managed to stay fairly dry in the back of the truck.
Off to Gull Lake, SK, tomorrow.

Day Three.....

Rainbow Falls campsite

A wet and a cold start to the day at Rainbow Falls Provincial Park.   It's a pretty nice park, very clean and well laid out.  The only issue is that the main train tracks are about 200m from the park, and we had train noise most of the night.

The whole trip today was done in fog and drizzle, so I didn't get to see too much.  Well, I did get to see about 5 million trees......

Now, some people may find this hard to believe, but the price of gas in Upsala at noon today was..........................$1.59.9!!!!  Needless to say I didn't gas up, I just pushed on to Dryden were the price was a more believable $1.28.9.

And another pleasant surprise today was an actual 2m contact!!  Yes, it's true, the guys in Dryden are actually very active on their repeater.  I had a great QSO with Scott-VA3EXT on the way through town.  Scott told me about the extensive repeater system they have here in the North West Ontario.  Have a look at THIS page to see the details.

Tomorrow night I'll be in Redvers, Saskatchewan.  Hopefully the weather will be better.



Sunset over Superior

Day Two......

Day two of the trip started out with beautiful skies and a cool temperature.  After packing up and leaving Massey, I headed for the Town of Spanish about 15 minutes up the road and had breakfast at the Spanish River Inn...highly recommended if you're in Spanish.

After breakfast it was off to Echo Bay an hour up the road, and an eyeball QSO with Dave-VE3EGC.  Dave and I have been chatting on the Trans-Provincial Net (TPN) for many years, but we had never met.  We have now!  Thanks to Dave and his XYL Jacki for a great time socializing and touring his extensive antenna farm....and then, all too soon, it was back on the road to Rainbow Falls Provincial Park....717 km away.

Dave will take your check-ins on the TPN - phone or CW - Monday and Tuesday, 1400 to 1500 UTC on 7.055....tell him VE3CLQ sent you.

Once again, other than Dave talking me into his QTH, not a soul was heard on any of the 2m repeaters along the way, not even in the Sault.

The scenery along the north shore of Lake Superior is fantastic!   The price of gas was out of this world at $1.49.9 in White River.  Lots of construction on the roads and too many retarded drivers to even mention....and not an OPP car to be seen all day.

After 10 hours of driving the tired truck and driver pulled up at the park, set up camp and went to sleep.

First day is done

We're 682 km closer to our destination right now.  Not much to write about today except that it rained, heavily, for most of it.   Most expensive gas put in the tank today was $1.51 a litre, and that was at French River on Hwy 69 North.

On the way here I monitored several 2m repeaters, Belleville, Trenton, Uxbridge, Lindsay, Orillia, Parry Sound, Alban, and Sudbury.  Not a thing was heard on any of them, and nobody answered my calls on them. One can't help wonder why we have so many 2m repeaters when nobody seems to use them??

The weather looks better tomorrow so hopefully I will have a more interesting day. 

Tomorrow will be a 670 km day, ending at Rainbow Falls Provincial Park, which is just past Schreiber on Hwy 17 West.

And......we're loaded

Tomorrow morning the VE3CLQ wagon rolls westward with a planned departure time of 0700 local. 

Today was a busy one with the final preparations being carried out and finally loading the truck. I wasn't sure how it was all going to fit in to be honest, between the camping gear and the radio gear there's a lot of gear.  Anyway, it's all loaded and there's plenty of room left.

The destination for tomorrow night is Chutes Provincial Park near Massey, Ontario.  That's about 98 Kms west of Sudbury.  So far the weather forecast isn't the greatest but we always hope for the best!

The route tomorrow will be East on Hwy 1 to Hwy 12 North to Hwy 400 / 69 North, and eventually to Hwy 17 West.  I'll be monitoring all the 2m repeaters between Kingston and Massey along the route, as well as 146.520 simplex. 

And.................we're off!!

The Solar Panel in action.

The Preparations Continue.....

There are six days left till I leave on the great western adventure and I've been pretty busy getting the radio and camping equipment sorted out and ready to go.

I have my FT-857D ready to go in the Go-Box, along with the FTL meter and the YT-100 tuner.  Power for the radio will be provided by a 12v 110 amp deep cycle battery that will be kept topped up with a 7w solar panel.  

Mounted in my truck I have an FT-8800, and all the repeaters along the routes I will be taking are already programmed in it.  Finding all of those repeaters took quite a bit of research as no matter what list you find on Google, you'll find another one tomorrow with different frequencies, different off-sets, or totally different PL tones.  In the end I had to search out each local club on line and use what their websites listed.

For antennas I have a 5/8 whip for my 2m rig along with a 1/4 whip for UHF.  These two antennas are fed from the FT-8800 through a diplexer.  There are not very many 440 repeaters along my route, but I have the capability anyway.

HF wise I'm taking three antennas.  The first one is my portable 31' Chillycon Special, and the second one is my Buddipole system.  I've also packed a 66' long wire and a 9:1 balun.  These antennas should do me just fine in my quest for DX.

There are a few more things to pick up this week, such as my Blue Cross coverage, and a phone roaming package.  Apart from those two items I think I'm just about ready to roll out of here.

The Red Coat Trail

The Red Coat Trail is a 1,300 km (810 mi) route that approximates the path taken in 1874 by the North-West Mounted Police in their quest to bring law and order to the Canadian West, and this is the route I'll be following on my trip out west.

I've travelled across Canada a number of time over the past 20 years, but I've always gone by the Trans-Canada Hwy, so this will be a great opportunity to see parts of Canada that the average Canadian never would in their travels.

The truck is heading into the garage tomorrow morning for a major servicing in preparation for the trip.  Hopefully things will go as smooth as it possibly can, and let's hope the weather remains good.  I have had a warning that the bugs are still bad along the North Shore of Lake Superior....so that might prove interesting.

This trip is a holiday for me, not a 'cannon ball run', so I'm looking at about 5 hours driving a day and doing a lot of touristy things along the way.  It should be a fun trip.

The route I'll be following

I'll write more on the radio equipment I'm taking along later in the week.....well, there had to be something about ham radio in this article......

The International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend

The International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend is the weekend of August 16th & 17th this year.  My local club will be activating two lighthouses, Nine Mile Point Lighthouse, CAN-578 on Simcoe Island, and Point Petre Lighthouse, CAN-788 in Prince Edward County.

This is the fifth year the club has activated theese lights for the contest, it's always a great time, the weather is usually good, and the DX normally rolls in pretty good.

If you've never activated a Lighthouse before get out and do it!!  It's lots of fun, and a great way to expose the hobby to the general public.

For the first time since we started activating these lights I won't be around to help out.  I'm leaving Kingston for a 29 day solo holiday, leaving the wife and the rest of the family here in Kingston, while I drive out west visiting friends along the way.

The portable antennas have been tweaked to perfection, extra parts purchased, 12v, 110 amp battery charged, and the go boxes ready for loading.  It's going to be a great adventure and I plan on uploading blog entries as often as I can find wifi along the way.  Stay tuned for "Bill's Most Excellent Adventure".........

New Portable Antenna

A few weeks ago I was in touch with Bob, VA3QV, to see what he's up to now that he no longer keeps his Blog up to date.  Bob's doing well, and as per usual is up to no good. 

One of the items on his QRZ.com page was a reference to the antenna he is currently using at home.  It's a longwire up as an inverted V, and he's just about finished his DXCC using it.

Here it is, corrected from the diagram on the QRZ page, as per Bob's instructions:

I'm planning on using one of these one my upcoming four week road trip (more on that later).   I will try it with both a 4:1 and 9:1 UnUn just to see what the difference is.  I'll post my results in a future posting.   If you make one, let Bob and I know how it performs for you.

IARU Contest - The Follow Up........

VE3MNE taking a break

Let me start off by stating that I've had far worse contest results..........in fact some have been so bad they became "non-contests".  This contest was not one of my better ones.  Only 71 contacts in the log from 34 countries, not very happy with that, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

Saturday morning started off with the SFI at 166, SN also at 166, A Index at 6, and the K Index at 2.   The only bands we could hear anything on at all were 20m and 15m, the other bands were just silent, the S needle never moved on them.  It was a very strange day for propagation, there were many European stations booming in at S9 +20, but they could not hear me, or the other station, VE3MNE, operating from the same site.  

I started off on 20m and worked US station after US station, but could not work a European despite them still booming in.  Eventually I managed to work GR2HQ, the RSGB HQ Station, but the band stayed at short skip distance for most of the day.  The other thing we had to contend with was some very deep QSB which just made things even more difficult.

I had two antennas to play with, a homebrew 80m OCF Dipole and a homebrew 31' vertical.  Both worked very well and tuned great on all bands.  The radio in use was my FT-857D with the YT-100 Tuner.  Looking back now I think using the FT-857 was probably my biggest mistake, but it was convienient and I was too lazy to take the shack apart to bring out the FT-950 again.

It was not until about 2300 UTC that the bands really came alive and DX could hear us.  Most of my contacts were made on 15m, the rest on 20m, and the very last four contacts were made on 40m. 

While disappointing radio wise, it was still a great weekend to be out playing radio. 

The next radio activity on the horizon will be the Sunday, July 27th, Brewer’s Mill Island activation. This is our clubs third attempt at getting this island activated. I'll post more details of this closer  to the date.....you never know.......VA3QV may just try and help us out with a contact!

IARU HF World Championships - 2014

This weekend, the IARU HF World Championships takes place.  This contest is always a great one for rare and strange DX, and I try to never miss it.

This year I'll be operating portable back out at our Field Day site on Hay Bay.  We purposely left the dipole antennas up for this contest as they are up in the air at about 100'. 

So far the propagation for the weekend doesn't look like it's going to be very good for us, but hey, it's a radio weekend so it can't be all that bad.....right ??

Not sure which radio I'm going to use, I might try and just use the new Go-Box, and the FT-857D for this contest, that way I don't have to rip  the shack apart again as I did for Field Day.

Stay tuned for the results!

Field Day - 2014

Richard- VA3VDP  in the "Digital Shack"

What a weekend we had!  The weather was just about perfect, and the rain stayed away…what more could we ask for?

Many thanks go out to Don, VE3MNE, for once again hosting the team at his property on Hay Bay.  I’m not sure what we would do if we didn’t have access to the “Ranch”.

Wednesday afternoon and most of Thursday was spent cleaning up, mowing the huge lawn, and pulling out various pieces of equipment and old antennas to see what we needed to fix and repair. The big job we did first – fixing the 160m OCF Dipole that had come down over the winter.

Thursday evening we worked some good DX while testing out the dipoles.  I managed to work V63YM, Silvio in Yap, Micronesia, and VK3QD, Aubrey in Melbourne, Australia.  Not too bad with a 100w into a wire antenna.

Sunset on Hay Bay Friday evening

By Friday afternoon most of the team had arrived and had set themselves and their equipment up in various locations around the property.  Tim, VA3TIC’s set-up had to be seen to be believed….there’s not too many mobile 30 foot towers with three element beams about……but Tim has one.

Friday evening we all left for Wellington, and the Sandbank’s Grill at 1700 hours for our traditional supper out.  The beer was cold, the food was good, the stories flowed......and we all had a great time.

Saturday morning was spent doing antenna and interference checks between the five stations, and after a few tweaks and at least one total antenna change we were ready at last.  1400 hrs came and the bands erupted in near total chaos as Field Day kicked off.  It truly was, as Dave, VA3ORP, would put it, a very high electronic warfare environment.  It took me about 30 minutes to get my ears adjusted to the noise and the rhythm of the bands. 

Saturday afternoon the bands were all very short and we were not getting any distance out of them.  The 40m station was only getting out about 200 Kms, and the other stations were much the same.  By about 2000 hrs the bands started to get a bit normal and we started to see the movement out west. 

Richard, VA3VDP, our resident digital mode guru did very well this year, just about doubling last years score.  He must have been helped by the fact he had the "coolest" position of the weekend....and the view wasn't too bade either.

One of our Club members is on vacation in New Brunswick this week, we did hear him operating as a /VE9 on a couple of occasions.  We never did have a QSO with him, but that was due more to the shock of hearing him on SSB instead of CW !!!

Derek - VE3HRW getting the 10m position ready for launching

Making contacts got more and more difficult to do, even though the SFI numbers kept improving!!  By Sunday morning we were struggling to find contacts on fairly busy bands.  Unfortunately, the propagation God’s never really smiled upon us, but the good news is that the propagation God’s never smiled upon anyone else either.

I don’t have a definitive score yet, but it’s around 1019 before we tack on the extra points we are eligible for.  We have done very well over the past 5 years, consistantly placing in the top 4 clubs in the 5AC category.  So we are hoping to at least equal our standing of the past few years.

There were a number of visitors to the site over the weekend, Ted, VE3KEH and his XYL Margaret, VE3WIR.  It was good to finally put a face to Ted after talking to him many times on the our repeater.  Matt, VA3OZI, came out to the site twice!  The second time he brought out the whole family.  It was very nice to see everyone.

All in all it was an excellent radio weekend…….and only 364 days to go till the next one.

Our 2014 Field Day Map showing the result.

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