Buddipole Experiments Part 2

16' 8" fully extended whip

The last piece of equipment that got tested today was the SkyWhip Portable Telescopic Antenna that I bought from Durham Radio a few months ago.   Due to the bad weather it's sat in my Buddipole case until today.

This antenna has a fully extended length of 16' 8", and can be used for any band between 6m and 20m.   I certainly would not use it in a stiff breeze fully extended, but with the light breeze I had today it was fine.

The good thing about this piece of gear is that it fits the Buddipole parts perfectly, I don't have to carry different mounts for it.

I wanted to try the antenna on 20m, so I set it up on the 8' painter pole over average ground, just like the other tests I did today.

Using the SkyWhip Portable Telescopic Antenna and the TRSB set at 1:1, at 14.150 the SWR was 1.2:1 and I used a 15' 10" counterpoise.  It worked as advertised the very first time.  Beauty!!

So it looks like I'm all set for the planned island and lighthouse activations I have planned this summer.  Some of these antennas may even get thrown in the mix for this years Field Day.

Coming up as soon as I can find time will be the same type of article on the Buddipole 40m, 60m, and 80m antennas.

Buddipole Experiments

A dirty truck bed!!

It’s a beautiful day here in Kingston, blue skies and 17C, just a great spring day.  In fact it was so nice I decided that today would be a good day to conduct some trials with my stockpile of Buddipole parts.

I have been looking on the internet over the past few months for information on the new shock corded adjustable whips, and have found almost nothing on them, including just minimal information on the Buddipole site itself.  I did talk to Chris Drummond, W6HFP, the owner of Buddipole about the lack of resources and he agreed that there was very little out there.  I did ask Chris if he could put some baseline seeing on the company website to at least give us all a starting point to start our experiments, and he said he would.

So, armed with a copy of the book written by Scott, NE1RD, “Buddipole in the Field” I collected all my antenna parts and off to the garage and my gravel driveway I went.  If you have not downloaded a copy of Scott’s book I recommend you do.  It’s available as a free download from the Buddipole website.  This book is a great place to pick up the information to build better Buddipole antennas, and it also gives you a basis for experimenting with the extra parts.

My Buddipole parts box consists of a Standard Buddipole kit, two extra 22” arms, a TRSB, a 12’ Shock cord whip, a 9 section mini-shock cord whip, and a 5 section rigid shock cord adjustable whip.  I also have a mini-coil, two regular coils and a low band coil, and a set of 9.5’ long whips.  More than enough to build any antenna I will need.

My goal today was to figure out some workable ¼ wave vertical antennas where I didn’t have to use any coils. I wanted full sized antennas with no compromises.  Today I looked at 10m, 12m, 15m, 17m, and 20m. 

The standard items that remained constant throughout the tests were each antenna was mounted on an 8’ painter pole, and it was done over average ground.

The first test, on 10m, was done using the mini shock corded whip.  It took several attempts to get this antenna to the point it was useable.  Here are some numbers:

Using the mini shock corded whip, with no stinger used, at 28.500 the SWR was 5.7:1 with a counterpoise of 8’ 4”.

Using the mini shock corded whip, with the 9” stinger extended, at 28.500 the SWR was 7.0:1 with a counterpoise of 8’ 4”.

Using the mini shock corded whip, with the 9” stinger extended, the small coil at tap 3, and at 28.500 the SWR was 8.4:1 with a counterpoise of 8’ 4”.
 

Obviously the standard setting was just not working for me today, so I changed things up.  I used the mini shock corded whip, with no stinger used.  At 28.500 the SWR was 2.6:1 with a counterpoise of 6’ 11”.   And that was as low as I could get the SWR on 10m, but to be fair the antenna is a bit long for the band.

The next test was for 12m, not a band I use very often but I have made some great DX contacts there.

Using a 5-section rigid shock cord adjustable whip, with no stinger used, at 24.950 the SWR was 1.4:1 with a counterpoise of 8’ 4”.  No point messing with this one as I don’t think I could get it closer to one to one.

Next up was 15m, a band I use quite a bit for chasing European DX. 

The Buddipole TRSB

Using a 5-section rigid shock cord adjustable whip, with 4.5” of the top stinger used, one 22” arm and the TRSB set at 2:1.  At 21.175 the SWR was 2.1:1 with a counterpoise of 12’. 

Next was 17m and a band I like and use a lot,

Using a 5-section rigid shock cord adjustable whip, with 5.0” of the top stinger used, two 22” arms and the TRSB set at 2:1.  At 18.136 the SWR was 1.9:1 with a counterpoise of 12’.   I messed with this antenna for quite some time moving the counterpoise length up and down, and I could not get a better SWR reading.

Last up was the 20m antenna.

Using the 12’ shock cord whip, two 22” arms and the TRSB set at 4:1.  At 14.150 the SWR was 3.3:1 with a counterpoise of 15.6’.   No matter what I did with the counterpoise length I could not get the SWR any better.

It was interesting that most of my counterpoise lengths are very different from what is recommended in “Buddipole in the Field” by Scott, NE1RD, by a good margin.  It would be interesting to hear what sort of ground Scott as using when he did his experiments.  From what I saw today it is very true that the counterpoise lengths are very critical to the tuning of these verticals.

Obviously there is still some more experimenting to do, but these are a starting point and  enough to get me on the air quickly.  Still to come are the 40m, 60m, and 80m antenna configurations.

If anyone has any ideas to make these settings better, I'd love to hear about them!

9N1 Emergency

Some New Toys .....

Received a couple of new toys today from Buddipole to add to my private stock of their parts.

I ordered the mini-coil which is perfect for use with the large collapsible whips and I also ordered the five section rigid shock-corded adjustable whip.  This whip extends from 22" to 142", and allows you to operate on 10m to 17m by itself, no coils or additional arms.  It will also cover 20m with the addition of two-22" arms.

When I use the Buddipole I very rarely ever use it as a dipole...with the exception of 10m, where it works very well, normally I use it in the vertical mode, so this one whip will allow me to pack just one whip and two arms and operate from 10m to 20m.  Bonus!!!

I have had great success over the last 10 years working all kinds of DX with my Buddipole system.  I've slowly added a lot of extra parts to the basic kit I originally bought, so it's a good job the XYL doesn't look in the shack closet very often.

You know, the only problem getting new toys like this is trying to find the time to play and experiment with them.

Busy Weekend.....

What a great weekend for the QRP to the Field event!  There were lots of QRP stations calling CQ, more on CW than SSB....as per usual, but they were out there!   I managed to put 31 in my logbook this weekend, not including the SOTA contacts I made as well.

Our weather this weekend was on the cool side, and it did in fact rain just a little.  Over all though I won't complain....it didn't snow!

The IC-703 and my Buddipole are a winning combination it seems.  There are more Buddipole parts on the way and should be here this week......and my radio club has an island activation coming up soon, so talk about good timing!

There seemed to be a good number of SOTA activations going on in North America this weekend as well, and I did manage to put 44 activator points in my log.

Unfortunately some collective efforts to get a VE3 SOTA Association up and running over the past three years have fell foul of the SOTA management team rules about only allowing peaks that are a minimum of a 150m prominence to qualify.  We don't have too may of them here, it's true that there are a good number north of Sault Ste Marie and Thunder Bay, but around where the main ham population lives in Ontario there are none.  So all we can do is chase those guys who can activate summits in their part of the world.

It's really great to see the rise in both QRP and SOTA activity on the airwaves, and hopefully it will continue as we slide down into another solar minimum.

Not Much Contest Activity

It was a pretty quiet weekend for the Ontario QSO Party.  Saturday most of the SSB activity was between 7.060 and 7.099 and stayed there until evening and then it moved to 80m around 3.730, but to be very honest I didn't hear too many stations calling for the QSO Party.

There was lots of traffic calling for the Michigan and Nebraska QSO Parties so it wasn't like the bands were in bad condition.  Saturday afternoon the SFI was: SFI-148.  SN-93. A Index-25, and K Index-2, in fact those numbers never changed all weekend.

I did manage to find a few contacts on 20m on Sunday before the contest finished but it was pretty hard slogging most of the weekend.  There was a bright spot though.....I did work VA3QV on Saturday evening!  Yes, the ever elusive Bobster is in the log once again.   For the Ontario QSO Party I managed to put a dismal total of 26 stations in the log.

The IC-703 performed as advertised and I had many good signal reports over the weekend.  Obviously the punch of the 703 and the height of my dipole is a winning combination, I think I'll leave everything as they are as I've tweaked everything as much as I can.

In between hunting elusive VE3's I also spent some time hunting SOTA activations using the SOTA Watch website (HERE), and I managed to snag three USA activations over the afternoon.   It was a lot of fun working those guys and I actually had QSO's with them, not just a quick "59, Thanks, QRZ?"

I also worked four DX stations on Sunday afternoon, R120RM in Moscow, S57V in Slovenia, J79MM in Dominica, and AO2015WRD in Spain.   Not too bad for a QRP station.

QRP To The Field

Coming up on Saturday, April 25th, is this years edition of QRP to the Field.  I always enjoy this event although I don't always submit my results.

This is one of the very few QRP events that has a SSB category so the IC-703 will be getting another workout this month.  It's funny as I was talking about selling the radio but I find I'm using it more and more these days, so it's off the market.

The event also includes the use of local SOTA Summits......which we don't have in VE3 Land, but it's still a great excuse to head out and operate portable from you favourite park bench in some little park.

SSB Frequencies to use are: 3.985, 7.285, 14.285, 21.385, and 28.885.

This event runs from 0900 to 1800 EDT......hope to work you on the bands that day.....and that means you too QV !!

Ontario QSO Party 2015

Coming up next weekend is the Ontario QSO Party.  The airways should be alive with VE3 and VA3 stations calling CQ.

I hope the propagation will be better than we have had over the past week otherwise we're in for a pretty slow and dismal weekend.

The rules for this event can be found HERE.

I had the IC-703 out today checking it out as I will be doing the contest as a QRP station using my VE3FCT callsign and handing out contacts from the "very rare" Frontenac County.  Not sure if I will operate portable or stick around the shack, I'm leaning to operate portable, but not sure where I should do that from.

Hope to work some of you guys next weekend............perhaps even that VA3QV character!!

Update on the W3EDP Antenna.......

A few years ago I wrote a blog entry on the W3EDP Antenna (HERE).  That article seems to be one of the more popular ones I have posted according to the stats for this blog.  The W3EDP is a good multi-band antenna that gets a bad rap from some sources, but it doesn’t deserve it at all.

Recently while surfing the net I can across a couple of articles written by Fred Benson, NC4FB, about some experiments he had conducted using the W3EDP antenna.  Knowing how popular this antenna is with the portable operators in Eastern Ontario, I had a good read of them.

These articles can be found here:

http://www.nc4fb.org/wordpress/w3edp-multi-band-antenna/

Http://www.nc4fb.org/wordpress/optimizing-the-w3edp-antenna/

There is some interesting information in those articles and I decided to experiment on my own.  I build my first W3EDP several years ago, and have used it mainly for Winter Field Day and Chillycon, places I want to get a working antenna up fast.

I chose to try the twin radial version, one radial of 33’ that is put in line for use on 80m and 40m, and a 17’ radial that is used for 20m to 6m.  Only one radial at a time is used.  Used with a 4:1 balun with these radials the antenna works like a charm.  I’ve also tried it with a 9:1 balun with success as well.  I’m going to use my analyser and record the difference between the two different baluns, and I will post that information here.

This antenna can be set up in any fashion that you like, inverted L, inverted V, sloper, or as a flat top, it works very well in any configuration.   It’s definitely worth while building and having in your antenna arsenal.

Another good article can be found HERE

More real experimentation is needed on this antenna.  Once the weather warms up I can get back at this..........hopefully next weekend! 

CQ WW WPX Contest 2015

Well, it's over for another year............let's hope CQ Magazine manages to survive and sponsor it again next year.

Conditions when we kicked off at 0000Z Saturday were just great.  Within minutes I had worked ZL2IO in 10m and got him on the first call with 10w.  New Zealand was quickly followed by Moldova, San Marino, French Guiana, Japan, and Morocco, and I had a blast!

After a few hours sleep and coffee with the boys, it was up and at them again Saturday morning.  The propagation numbers for the morning were SFI=137. SN=109. A Index=8, and the K Index= 3.  Bands were very noisy and had some QSB.  On 20m I could only hear US stations calling for Europe, 15m was full of Europeans calling North America, but they weren't hearing us calling them.  The only decent band was 10m and that was full of Caribbean stations, and I think I worked them all.

Again my three big bitch subjects have to be mentioned.....Hispanic stations giving their callsigns at triple the speed of light.  These guys need to understand that if we can't make out your callsign we are not going to work you.  Then there were the LIDS tuning up right over the calling stations....why do they do this?  And then there were those "Alligator" stations again who were all being received here at 59+++ yet they couldn't hear the stations replying to them at all.  More proof that 1500w is no better than 100w at times.

The main band in use on Saturday was 10m and it was pretty good.  I had the occasional foray to 15m and 20m but really didn't have enough luck there to stick around.  40m opened up in the evening and I made a few good contacts into Europe there.

Sunday was a waste of time.  The bands never seemed to open here, and when they did they had some pretty good deep QSB on them.  The propagation numbers on Sunday were the same as on Saturday.  10m and 15m seemed to be totally dead most of the time with not a station to be heard on them, and 20m was full of US stations calling CQ looking for Europe.

My final score was 134 contacts with 110 multipliers, and I worked 81 countries.  So I guess overall it wasn't that bad.....the lack of constant action just made the weekend drag on and I found that it just wasn't very enjoyable this year for me.

So, when's the next contest ???????

Problems with an IC-7000

One of the members of the Frontenac Radio Group, my local club, had an issue yesterday with his ICOM 7000.........the radio would turn off as soon as he modulated on transmit.  After an incredible period of frustration checking coax connectors, RF feedback in the shack, too much mic gain, too much compression and reading the service manual for clues he ran across an article in QRZ that mentioned a possible voltage drop.

Interestingly, as soon as he spoke into the mic on full power (100 watts) the current should be about 15 to 25A and the voltage should remain constant at 13.8 to 14.0 volts, if not , the ICOM shuts down and then reboots in a few seconds.

The ICOM power cord has two (2) 30A inline fuses. The article suggested that one should pull them (they are auto style bayonet type) and check the lugs for any corrosion or water damage.  He pulled both fuses and thoroughly cleaned the lugs and reinstated them back in the power cord. Voila, he had full power and the rig did not turn off.

It seems the ICOM is very voltage sensitive below 13 vdc and will automatically shut off. When he tried to power up the transmit mode there was a demand for high current and the resistive contacts made by the fuse blades dropped the voltage below 13 volts and the rig shut down. 

So there you have it, an easy fix to a very frustrating issue.  Hopefully Derek's experience will save you from learning some new swear words if this happens to you and your IC-7000.

WL2K Mobile

The VE3CLQ digital Go-Box

It was a pretty good day yesterday, the Frontenac Emcomm Group held their first WL2K deployed exercise of the year after doing a lot of RMS Express classroom work, and I deployed up to Perth Road Village, about 28 km north of Kingston.

We had eight stations up and running on the air, several from their home QTH and several from deployed locations around Frontenac County.  Over the past 18 months we have been building up a digital network here so we can stop using the archaic ARRL message forms and take Emcomm into the 21st Century.

So far in Frontenac County we have the following Gateways and Nodes:

VE3UDO-7, located in Clarendon Station this Node covers all of Northern Frontenac, most of Northern Lennox-Addington County, and a good portion of Lanark-North Leeds.

VE3FPN-7, the Node is located at the Sydenham Firehall and covers all of Central Frontenac as well as most of Central Lennox-Addington County.

VE3FRG-7, this Node is located in South Frontenac and covers all South Frontenac, the Frontenac Islands, the City of Kingston, South Lennox-Addington County, and Northern Jefferson County in New York State as far south as Watertown.

VE3MNE-10, this Gateway is located in West Kingston and covers a very large area.  The Gateway is able to connect to all of our Nodes.

VE3DTG-10, this Gateway is located in Central Kingston and is able to connect to our Nodes.

The Frontenac Club recently authorized the purchasing of equipment to build two portable Nodes which will help fill in a few holes in our coverage, and they will be able to be moved and placed where they are most needed to extend our coverage in an emergency.

All of our WL2K Gateways and Nodes operate on 145.070 and are on the air 24/7/365.

My Digital Go-Box consists of a Motorola CDM-1250 VHF radio along with a Coastal ChipWorks TNC-X and a ACER Notebook.  It performed very well.

We had a few learning experiences, we found that the Gateways will support heavy traffic with little problem.  The Nodes did get overloaded so we have a few issues to work out there.  Overall we passed the traffic we were supposed to with only a few hiccups.  It was a good training exercise and I'm looking forward to the second half of it in April.

Aurora Bounce

Interesting times on 6m tonight.  I spent a pleasant hour bouncing signals off the Aurora.  There were many stations calling from all over the US and this was the first time I have ever heard the Aurora Flutter.


Aurora Flutter normally occurs when radio signals are reflected from the auroral curtain.  SSB signals that are reflected sound very raspy, sound like the other operator is talking in a quiet whisper, and are difficult to understand and tune in.


At 2300 UTC the A Index was at 100 and the K Index was 7.  I have never seen the A Index that high before.

Your Answer To Your HOA.....

Once in a while a person's HOA gets a bit "uppity" about the supposed "stealth" antennas you're using, especially when a neighbour complains about it.  Well have I got an answer for this for you !!  

How about a portable antenna system that is mobile and can be folded, and rolled away.  This allows you to use it at night when those complaining neighbours are fast asleep.  

This system is available for a good price at your local friendly Russian Army Surplus Store.  Order it quickly, they're going fast!!

P5 Activation February 2016

This just in:

That Dom 3Z9DX had written permission to operate amateur radio from a VERY wanted DXCC entity. Today, we can reveal that entity is North Korea (P5).



Dom 3Z9DX explains he has received a further letter from authorities in Pyongyang inviting him to a final meeting to discuss [and for he to accept] rules by the North Korean military and the relevant telecommunications department.



This meeting will take place in December with activity planned for January or February 2016.

According to P5 telecoms, Dom will be permitted only three bands (20-15-10) likely using a multiband vertical from a secured place in Pyongyang with two government supervisors over-looking 24/7.

Activity will last for 5 days.



At the moment this is a solo expedition to the #1 Most wanted entity using SSB only. He is working hard behind the scenes to get one more op (CW) to join him.



Please realise this project is a work in progress and to understand that it may only be Dom who operates from North Korea.

More updates / website throughout 2015.

I never expected to see this activation in my lifetime, but I don't think very many of us will get this P5 callsign in our logbooks. As this solo DXpedition is only for 5 days, and it is the number one most sort after country, and has been for many years, I can only imagine the pile-ups, deliberate QRM, LIDS, and band police that will be out and about in full force during those 5 days.  I hope I'm wrong, but history has shown (K1N for example) I'm probably right.

The Ottawa Trip......

Had a great day yesterday, a road trip to Ottawa was on the menu.  It was good to finally get out of Kingston for a day after months of freezing cold weather and numerous feet of fallen snow.  The trip up to Ottawa was great, bare dry roads and a beautiful blue sky.  The temperature actually rose to +8C.......a heatwave !!

2m was pretty active, and I managed contacts in Perth, Westport, Franktown and Ottawa.  Much different results from last summer's cross Canada road trip.

First on the agenda was to drop three sealed gel cells off to Bob, VA3QV, at his QTH.  He's a scruffy looking bugger these days as he hasn't shaved all winter.  I will be taking up a collection later to buy a package of disposable razors to mail to him........  I know Bob appreciated getting the batteries, and I was surprised to hear from Liz, his XYL, later in the day just how happy she was when they were dumped in the middle of her living room......Oh Robert, you may need the mobile love shack a lot sooner than you know !!!!!!!

The gang at the Newport.
Picture (C) Chris VA3CME

After taking care of some business in town it was off to 322 Churchill Ave North, the location of the Newport Restaurant.  Outstanding Pizza, and the beer was good too !!   This spot is the monthly meeting place of the Ottawa Valley QRP Society 

Now normally I only get to see these guys once a year at Chillycon, so it was a real treat for me to be able to arrange my trip and get to see them all last night, all 17 of them which I understand is a bit of a record for attendance.  Nice to see the QRP community growing!

Bob, VA3QV said it best on his blog today....and I quote:   "You can only imagine what the QRM level is like inside the restaurant when you have 17 hams all describing their last DX contact, their latest antenna and how they did in the last contest all at the same time…".  It was a great evening.

Being back in Ottawa was interesting for me, I was stationed at CFB Ottawa South (Uplands) in the 1980's when I was flying on 450 Squadron.  What changes have gone on, how the ethnic makeup of my old stomping grounds have changed, and how the City has contracted urban sprawl!!  Yeah, I know things change, I'm just not convinced it's all for the better.

The 2m rig was pretty quiet on the way home, most hams must have been in bed!  Luckily the VE3FRG machine in Kingston was active and I spoke to Richard, VA3VDP, and Leo, VE3BLR.....and so ended a great day.

2015 ARRL International DC Contest - SSB

What a great weekend on the bands, over 600 contacts in the log and I'm ready for bed.   The main workhorse of the weekend was 10m....as usual.  20m wasn't far behind, and I also managed a pile of contacts on 15m and 80m.

The opening propagation figures for 0000Z 7 March was: SFI=127. SN=31. A=13. K=3.  Not too bad, we've all worked with a lot worse than those numbers.

Best contact of the weekend was with Herik, FR5DX, on Reunion Island, AF-016 in the Indian Ocean.  100 watts both ways using dipoles.....who needs beams???  It was an interesting contest this year as a lot of the usual suspects didn't show up for it.  I heard no JL's and no middle east stations.  One station I have worked every contest I have ever worked, D4C in Cape Verde, was also conspicuous by his absence.

The usual idiots were out in force, those that whistling over QSO's, and tune up right over the on-going QSO.  I'm sure they would just love it if we did it to them!

My other pet peeve was also out in force this weekend, those operators that insist on giving their callsign at triple the speed of light.  You hear them all the time calling and calling and calling....and all the time getting no response while all around them people are working stations hand over fist!  They never get it.

The other telling item was the very large number of stations working a kilowatt.  My experience was that those running a Kilowatt had, for the most part, crap signals and they were transmitting far beyond what they could hear.  I think the power they run is to compensate for poor antenna systems they may have.  They fail to memorize the first rule of ham radio.......put your $$ into the antenna system, not the radio!!   The stations running 100w had cleaner signals and were easier to understand and work.

I had great success with my 15m vertical.  This antenna is a $20 hamstick attached to a painter pole, and it sits up at about 11'.  It also has two 11' 8" radials on it.  With this antenna, if I could hear them I could work them.  It went beyond my expectation, especially as it was only put up as a stop-gap approach over the winter.  It may stay up now!!

Overall it was a great weekend, really enjoyed myself, and we'll do it all over again on the last weekend of this month for the CQ WW WPX Contest SSB.

And the Season Starts.........

The 2015 contest season officially kicks off this coming weekend with the ARRL International DX Contest (SSB).  This contest starts at 0000Z on March 7th, and end at 2359Z on the 8th March.  Always a great contest for getting those DX stations in the log.

Of course the weather is perfect for radio sport activities right now, as it is not exactly conducive for outdoor activities unless you're a very well dressed Inuit.

Rules are HERE.

Having seen the SFI numbers over the past few weeks I think this contest will  be done by VE3FCT as QRO.  So let's hope the propagation Gods smile this weekend.

Good luck to everyone taking part!!

February - A Quiet Month

February is one of those strange months, you know, one without any major ham radio contest in it, and I'm sure we're all getting quite fed-up with the cold winter and piles of snow about the landscape.

I'm hoping that March will be much different with two major contests during the month, the ARRL International SSB DX Contest on March 7th & 8th (Rules HERE), and the CQ World-Wide WPX SSB Contest on March 28th & 29th (Rules HERE).

I've also been looking at the calendar planning my spring, summer, and fall portable activities.  The problem is there is little new around here to do.......all of the islands have been activated, several times over the last few years, as have all the local lighthouses.  So it looks like I will have to travel further afield this year.....well, not as far as last years trip to the west coast.  My bank account is still recovering from the fuel bill!!

There are the regular annual items already on the calendar, Field Day, International Lighthouse Weekend, Chillycon, and the W/VE Island QSO Party.  These are pretty staple now, but they've all been done before.  So there needs to be a weekend mini-DXpedition on the horizon and I'm going to have to start looking for ideas so I can get planning.

Oh well, back to the maps and atlas to see what I can conjure up..........

Is spring coming soon ????????

SPAR Winter Field Day

Many of us over the past nine years have enjoyed participating in the SPAR Winter Field Day.  It was another opportunity for us to gather our gear and head for our favourite spots to play portable radio....as if we really need an excuse to do that.....even when the temperatures where down below zero, and in some cases, way below zero.

This year, 2015, was the ninth year Winter Field Day has taken place, and it was this year that it finally seemed we had reached critical mass, and had enough operators on the bands calling "CQ Winter Field Day" to actually stay busy.  

After Winter Field Day this year reports started to appear that the electronic log submission system was bouncing and nobody could submit their logs.  Many people posted questions on the SPAR Forum about this, but there was no response from any of the SPAR team.  However, today we sadly learn that Walt, W5ALT, who was, and always has been, the driving force at SPAR behind Winter Field Day, has had a stroke and is unable to look after things and probably won't be able to for a long while.

There has been a suggestion on the SPAR website that another organization will take over the running of Winter Field Day.  Let's hope this event does continue and that another organization will take over the management of it.  It's a pretty valuable tool in the Emcomm war chest.  Yes, there are issues we overcome during the annual ARRL June Field Day, mainly bugs and heat.  But nothing proves your Emcomm group is ready for anything that can be thrown at it if you can set up and complete a Winter Field Day in sub-zero temperatures.

I wish Walt a speedy, and a full recovery from this stroke.  Hopefully we'll hear him on the bands soon.

How to Spot Made in China Food Items

ALWAYS READ THE LABELS ON THE FOODS YOU BUY--NO MATTER WHAT THE FRONT OF THE BOX OR PACKAGE SAYS, TURN IT OVER AND READ THE BACK---CAREFULLY!

With all the food and pet products now coming from China, it is best to make sure you read the label at the grocery store and especially Walmart when buying food products.

Many products no longer show where they were made, only give where the distributor is located.

ALWAYS READ THE LABELS ON THE FOODS YOU BUY--NO MATTER WHAT THE FRONT OF THE BOX OR PACKAGE SAYS, TURN IT OVER AND READ THE BACK---CAREFULLY!

It is important to read the bar code to track it's origin.  How to read Bar Codes .... interesting!

This may be useful to know when grocery shopping, if it's a concern to you.

GREAT WAY TO "BUY USA & CANADA " AND NOT FROM CHINA!!

The whole world is concerned about China-made "black hearted goods".  Can you differentiate which one is made in Taiwan or China?

If the first 3 digits of the barcode are 690 691 or 692, the product is MADE IN CHINA.

471 is Made in Taiwan.  This is our right to know, but the government and related departments never educate the public, therefore we have to RESCUE ourselves.

Nowadays, Chinese businessmen know that consumers do not prefer products "MADE IN CHINA ", so they don't show from which country it is made.

However, you may now refer to the barcode - remember if the first 3 digits are:

690-692 ... then it is MADE IN CHINA

00 - 09 ... USA & CANADA

30 - 37 FRANCE

40 - 44 GERMANY

471 ... Taiwan

49 ... JAPAN

50 ... UK

BUY USA & CANADIAN MADE by watching for "0" at the beginning of the number.