High SWR..... ?????

Having just read Mike's Blog, VE3WDM, about his high SWR problem....it as 99.9:1,  I was glad to read Mike got the problem sorted out without any damage to his equipment.

I can only recommend to him, and others, to use the following if it happens in the future.....it may help ;-)

Available at all fine Ham Radio Stores........

Upper Brewers Mill Island Activation.......Again!!

The Locks at Upper Brewers mill

OK, we're going to try and do this again......for the fourth time!

This Saturday morning between 1300 UTC and 1700 UTC the Frontenac Radio Group is going to attempt to break the jinx, and finally activate Upper Brewers Mill Island, which is located on the Rideau Canal system.

Grid is FN14uj.

Callsign in use will be the group's call, VE3FRG.

Hopefully the bands will be singing so we can get this activation over and done with.

There will be two HF station on the air, and as usual, the frequencies will be +/-........

7.250
14.250 to 14.260
21.350
28.450

I'll be using the new IC-718 and my Chillycon 31' vertical.

The Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour - 2015 Edition

The VE3CLQ Mobile on Sunday

We had perfect weather for this years edition of the Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour, warm with just a touch of wind.

As in years past my job took me to Perth Road Village were we have two stations operating at the General Store.  One station is the Net Control for the Frontenac Section of the tour, and the other station is the liaison station with the Lanark Section Net.  This system seems to work very well for us and allows the passing of important traffic back and forth between the nets without overloading either net with unwanted information.

There are times though when Perth Road has so many portable masts and antennas in the air it looks like a NATO Divisional HQ......only the camouflage is missing!

This year was a bit different in the way the Tour was operated.  For the first time we had to provide communications to two separate routes, which of course means the operators were spread over a far greater distance.  Our "normal" route follows Perth Road and eventually becomes Division Street in Kingston.  The new route followed a convoluted route from Perth through numerous windy backroads ending up on the Battersea Road and into Kingston.  Both routes end at Queen's University where the riders send the night in the dorms.

So instead of our usual five radio support locations, this year we had eight stations on our net, and surprisingly, contrary to what we thought would happen, things went very smoothly.  Thanks to Scott, VA3PTO, from Ottawa who helped out on our net from one of the new Battersea Road locations.

VE3EOG's go-box in action

The weekend is actually a lot of good fun, and we get to see old friends who man the nine mobile units that run up and down the course providing repairs and rides to exhausted riders.

It wouldn't be the Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour without some excitement and this year we had plenty.  Several ambulances had to be called for various injuries, nothing too serious though.  And, surprisingly we had two bikes that actually failed with broken frames and broke in two!

Long days and lots of fun.  If you haven't taken part in the event yet we can always fit you in.

Riders taking a break at Battersea Village

The new rig in the shack.....

Well after Sunday's disastrous island activation attempt and the death of my much beloved FT-857D, a new radio appeared in the shack this morning.  An IC-718 now graces the bench.

While I would have dearly loved to have replaced the FT-857D with another one, I really could not justify the cost.  The IC-718 was about half the price, and although it doesn't have 6m, 2m, and 440, it will do me very nicely for the portable work I do.

It's a nice compact rig that is packed with options.  I set it up right out the box, attached the antenna, tuned up, and had a QSO with JW9JKA on Bear Island, Norway, and got him on the first call.  While I only received a 51 from him, I was quite pleased as that was done with the factory settings.

The menu system is one that you set and forget.  I had Don, VE3MNE, on the air tonight on 160m and we went through some of the settings and sorted out the mic gain.  Don says the radio sounds very good, in fact the results were very similar to my FT-950.

I think it's a bit big to actually mount in a go-box which is a bit of a draw back to me, but we will figure something out to protect it while we're operating portable.

This weekend I'm out doing the communications for the Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour, and I plan on taking the radio and my Buddypole antenna with me and doing some HF DX chasing in-between the busy times.

The Island Activation that wasn't......

Today started as a dull, rainy and cold day and continued as such as Mark, VE3EOG, and I drove up Hwy 15 to Upper Brewers Mill Island on the Rideau Canal system.

We arrived and started to set up our antennas, ran the radials and coax, and then fired up the radio.......and then.......we discovered we had "issues".   It looks like I now have a dead FT-857D.   To paraphrase Monty Python......."It's an ex-FT-857D".

And so ended the island activation today.

This is the third time we have tried to activate Upper Brewers Mill Island over the past few years and each time something has cropped up and the activation has been unsuccessful.......perhaps we should take the hint and realize the place is jinxed!!

But, just like Baldrick, we have a cunning plan..........plans are already afoot to activate it later in the summer when it least expects it, maybe that will sort out the jinx!!

Thanks to all of you who were waiting to make contact, we could hear you calling, and many thanks to Tim, VA3TIC, for relaying our 2m messages about having some issues there.

Forans Island Activation

Our old friend John, VE3ISE, will be doing a first time activation of Forans Island, FN03, near Grimsby, Ontario.  This is a small island that is scheduled to be a condo development in the near future.....so get it in your log while you can !!

This activation will take place on Tuesday, June 2nd, at 2200 UTC.

John will start out on 40m and move to 20m later.


Frequencies will be:

40m - 7.260 +/- QRM
20m - 14.260 +/- QRM

Let's all hope the propagation improves for this activation.

Island Activation coming up.....

I'll be heading up to Upper Brewers Mill Island on the Rideau Canal system this coming Sunday, May 31st to activate the island.  This is not the first time my club has tried to do this, most of the previous occasions we have not managed to make enough contacts to have it granted an official number.

The plan is to set up by the locks and operate two HF stations and a VHF station.

Timings for the activation are 1400 UTC to 1800 UTC.

Frequencies will be +/- :

7.250
14.250 to 14.260
28.450
50.125 (depending on propagation)

Callsign in use will be VE3FRG.

Bouvet Island DXpedition - 2016

Sad news today that Mark, ON4WW, will not be doing the Bouvet Island DXpedition next year.  

Mark's plan was to do a solo DXpedition and to do it over a three month period.  Over that amount of time nearly every ham who needed Bouvet Island could have had it in their logbooks on numerous occasions, and on several bands.

Unfortunately, Mark was unable to collect sufficient funding for this adventure.  For some reason the big DXpedition supporters and donors were not very interested in this event and not many donations came through.

Mark had received permission for Bouvet from the Norwegian Polar Institute, his wife (very important!!), and his employer to have 5 months leave without pay.  I'm sure Mark is bitterly disappointed that his year long planning has been all for nothing.

I think Mark's plan to go solo, although a bit controversial, is one way of keeping these DXpeditions to far away and remote locations sustainable.  If we look at the cost of doing some of the more recent DXpeditions, including K1N, they have been out of this world.  I truly believe that smaller and more compact teams are the answer to keeping the skyrocketing costs down.  

For safeties sake I think it would be a lot safer to go with a minimum of three people, going solo does seem a bit dangerous to me, but that's Mark's decision to make, as he knows his own limitations better than anyone.

One must ask if we really need five to eight HF stations on the air, all at the same time?  Or, could a DXpedition get by with just two or three?  Do we need to be spending thousands of dollars transporting beams and Yagi's to these remote sites.........when many of us work the world on simple dipoles at home with no problems?   Perhaps the whole idea of how Expeditions are conducted needs to be reconsidered and discussed in depth.  Bigger is not always better!

While I occasionally dream of doing a major DXpedition to some far off remote location, I think for now I'll stick with my own mini-DXpeditions to Wolfe and Simcoe Islands, where the most expensive aspect of the trip is buying lunch on the way back.  That's more in keeping with my budget.......

Bouvet Island from the sea

An interesting morning....

It's been a beautiful day here in Kingston, 20C under mainly blue skies.  I have been busy over the winter season trying to lose some weight, and as a result have been walking just about every day at the Cataraqui Centre Mall.  This has allowed me to walk and climb stairs and get into shape for the "season", and it's amazing just how many people are in that mall each day just walking.

Anyway, yesterday I decided that the weather is becoming far too nice to walk indoors and it's about time I switched things up and hit the K&P Trail, part of the "Rails to Trails" program.

Of course the real reason I'm exploring this trail is to find some new QRP portable operating locations.  So far it's been a bust, but there is a lot more to walk before I give up.  It was a fantastic walk today, lots of birds singing in the trees, the Trilliums are starting to bloom along the trail edges, and lots of Garter snakes out sunning on the path as well.

Of course before I went to the trail I did spend 30 minutes playing up on 40m.  I checked into the Trans-Provincial Net which meets on 7.055 MHz daily 7am to 5pm.   Not every hour slot is filled so if you don't hear a controller get on and call CQ Trans-Provincial Net, you never know who will reply to you.

Take today, guess who popped in and called me???  Yes, the Big Bobster himself, VA3QV, with a screaming 5 watts coming from his Flex-1500.  I gave Bob a 55-57 into Kingston and Tony, VE3DWI, up in Debarats also gave him the same signal report.  Not too shabby for 5w at that time of day.

All in all, a good day......and I got to chat with Bob!

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.