International Lighthouse & Lightship Weekend

I can't believe that this is my 300th Post on my Blog.......where the heck has the time gone!!

It's that time of year again when we need to start thinking about Lighthouses.  This premier annual fun event began in 1995 when the Ayr Radio Group had the Scottish Northern Lighthouse Weekend. The concept proved so popular that it was renamed and opened up to the world. 

Always held on the third weekend of August, it has steadily grown to now attract more than 500 lighthouses and lightship from about 50 countries. 

The main reason for its popularity is that the weekend is a fun event, held under simple guidelines, and in the spirit of international goodwill. 

With four weeks to go 350 registrations have been received. In 2014 there were 544, making it an average 20 a year increase over the last eight years.  In the lead so far is Germany on 64, followed by Australia 58, USA 45 and England 33. Canada is currently sitting at 11 entries.

If you want to register a marine navigation beacon for August 15-16, then please see the guidelines and online registration on the International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend website HERE.

Youth DXpedition

There was an interesting article on the RSGB Newsfeed this morning that caught my attention.   The RSGB’s Youth Committee is running a Kenwood-sponsored Youth DXpedition, DX-15, and will be active as MC0RYC from the Brecon Beacons in South Wales from 23-30 July.

They’ll be on all HF bands and VHF including satellite operations and will have six stations on the air. Throughout the week they'll be taking part in a range of activities including, activating and operating from SOTA summits.

You can support them by working the Youth DXpedition, or listening for the call sign MC0RYC during the IOTA Contest over the weekend of 25 and 26 July.

Please work the young team if you can, so they can experience the full flow of a big contest.

Congratulations to the RSGB, what an outstanding idea to get youth involved in our hobby.

IARU HF World Championships 2015

Saturday was spent taking part in the IARU World Championships.  The bands were not too bad, we've seen much better for this contest but as it's out of our control we just have to grin and take what we get.   At 1324Z on Saturday the SFI was 134, SN=131, A=25, and K=1 and it never moved from those numbers just about all weekend.

No new countries were worked, only the usual suspects managed to get into the log, in fact for a good part of the day pickings were pretty slim.  20m was the active band and I made 80% of my contacts there, a few were made on 15m and a couple on 40m as well.  I never did hear a signal on 10m or 80m for the whole contest.

The only contacts that were made on 15m were all in South America, its strange how the bands act at times.....but, considering that the only antenna I have up for 15m is a ham stick with two 11' radials sitting up at 12' on a painter pole I'm pleased with that result.

Many stations were heard calling and calling, but they were not hearing the ops calling them back.  One station from Kuwait had a huge pileup every time he paused from calling CQ......and then carried on calling CQ because he couldn't hear any of the stations coming back to him.  This happened time and time again with quite a number of stations, especially from the USA, guys transmitting further than they can possibly hear.  I guess if you have poor antennas you have to compensate by running more power....at least that seems to be their theory!!

I did not do as well as I have in the past few years on this contest, but neither did the other guys in Kingston who took part.  Is it a sign that Solar Cycle 24 is cooling down?  I know the deep QSB that we had didn't help us at all.

I'm off now to get ready for the IOTA Contest at the end of the month......there's a few islands I'm looking for!

The 2015 W / VE Island QSO Party

Storm over Simcoe Island - ON022

Each year in the Fall the US Islands Award Program sponsors the W/VE Island QSO Party. That means pick an island from anywhere in Canada from the list (HERE) and go and activate it !!

This year the date has been brought forward to allow us to have some decent operating weather, as last year we all froze to death doing it.  The date chosen for this year is August 29th 1200 UTC to August 30th 0300 UTC.  Mark your calendars and plan on attending !!

Participation by Canadian stations has been pretty dismal over the past few years and the disappearance of the Canadian Island Award (CIsA) website did not help.  However, in case you don't know, out of the ashes has grown another group of guys who have formed Canadian Island Activators with the intent to carry on from where CIsA left off from.

The one item the organizers do ask is that you submit your days log.  Last year only three Canadian stations did so.  That list is HERE.

I've participated on this event for the past four years and have had a blast and I'm sure you will too if you take time to take part.

Start getting ready !!

IC-v8000

Well, another rig appeared in the shack yesterday, an IC-v8000.....not that I needed it, but a spare 2m rig is always useful.

This rig is from the estate of Mike, VE3SIW, and it's always nice to have a bit of kit in the shack to remember an old friend by.  The loss of Mike was a pretty large shock to our small ham community here.

It works very well, and the reports on its signal and audio have been very good.  It does pump out a solid 75w at its top setting, but it does tend to get quite hot.  I have this one set at a more "cool" 25w, and while it gets warm, I can't make coffee on it.....

Marathon Island Activation - July 11th

Victoria Island, Ottawa.

The following email was received from Gilles, VE2MAM........

I will be activating four or five islands Saturday the 11th of July.

The order will be the following:

Victoria isl. ON-123    Green isl. ON-122   Porter ON-121 and North Petri ON-119.

Bates isl. ON-283 will be activated the last if all goes well with the others.  Since I go on Bates isl. a few time each week it will be easy to make a sked if I skip Bates because of time constraint.

I will be on Victoria isl. at 9 AM (1300Z) and transmit on 7.250 (plus or minus) until there is no more takers. Then to 14.250 (plus or minus) again until no more takers. I will then move on to the next island.

It will be the same for every islands, 40M then 20M. The exchange will probably be contest style.

Victoria, Green and Porter are close to each other so it won't be too long between each of them.  North Petri is a bit farther, maximum one hour to get there.

One QSL card from you will be OK to confirm one or all the islands. I will send back one card that will confirm one or all the islands. QSL info is on QRZ.com

The order of the run could change or be cancel because of weather or for reasons that are unknown at this time.

It should be a lot of fun !!!   Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Gil  ve2mam@gmail.com

Field Day 2015 - - - - - We Survived !!

The portable beam goes up.

Field Day was an interesting experience this year.  From lousy weather and bad propagation, we had it all.  Field Day actually started for me on the Wednesday before when Don, VE3MNE, and I went out to Hay Bay to the property Don owns out there.  Wednesday and Thursday were great, the weather was warm, hardly any bugs.

This year, as we normally do, we operated as a 5A station, made up of four SSB and one Digital positions.  We did change up the antenna list this year.  The line-up was an 80m OCF dipole, a 160m OCF dipole, a 20m beam,  two 31' verticals, a 10m/15m fan dipole, a four element 6m Yagi, and a ten element 2m beam.  Friday and Saturday morning was spent getting these antennas in the air.  

During the lead up to Field Day we had three CME hits, which of course threw the good propagation out the window.  The numbers at 1320 UTC on June 27th didn't look good at all: SFI=100, SN=28, A Index=10, and K Index=2.  Those numbers, while changing a little, stayed almost constant throughout the weekend.

We also spent Saturday morning tarping the tents after seeing the projected weather forecast, two of the SSB stations and the Digi station where located in tents, and there is not much shelter out at Hay Bay from the elements.

The 6m and 2m "tower" made from a 32' ladder.

At 2000 UTC on Saturday the driving rain and strong winds hit, and it rained and blew heavily for the rest of the weekend.  But, nobody got wet, the tarps did their jobs, and all the radio's survived!   Things were so wet and windy out there we actually left everything setup out there when we left Sunday afternoon, and we will go out Monday morning and take everything down in the beautiful weather we have today...........now that Field Day is over !!

Even with the poor propagation we still managed to better our score from last year.  The 20m band was our top scorer with over 500 contacts, the 40m and Digi stations did pretty well too.  Unfortunately the 15m and 80m stations didn't have much activity on them, both of those stations made a respectable amount of contacts - but nowhere near normal, and we only managed to make a single contact on 6m.  

The second Field Day site our club operated was near Odessa at the QTH of George, VE3SIQ.  They also did very well over the weekend, especially as Geoge only moved in to this QTH a few weeks ago.  This year due to the number of ops who wanted to take part we had to do two sites, and we hope this trend continues.

Overall it was a successful weekend at Hay Bay, finishing with a total of 1385 contacts.  I think we may have kept our standing from last year, but we will wait and see what the final scores are when they are published later in the year by the ARRL.

Tarped up and waiting for the rain at the Digi station.

2015 Field Day Map.....only Newfoundland is not filled in!!

Remember........364 days to go till next Field Day !!!!!

Solar Flux.....

As 30,000 hams all patiently wait for Field Day to arrive it looks like the Propagation God is playing a dirty joke on us all.   If you haven't seen the SFI numbers today you're in for a shock!

Currently at 1811 UTC, the SFI is at 127, the SN is at 77, the K Index is at a whopping 54, and the A Index at an unbelievable 6.

And, it could get worse, as the forecast speaks of another possible earthbound CME due to hit sometime on June 25th, following a M6.5 flare on Monday.

Hopefully things will have settled down enough by the 27th to let Field Day be a good one with lots of contacts.  I'll be out at beautiful Hay Bay running the 40m station, and using the clubs VE3FRG callsign.

For those of you heading out to Field Day, have a great and safe one, and for those of you who are not going out to Field Day...........you don't know what you're missing !!

Have fun everyone!

Island Activating

How many of you get out in the spring, summer, or fall and activate islands.....or even lighthouses?   It seems over the past few years that this aspect of our hobby has fallen to record new lows.

Some of us who do activate Canadian islands on a regular basis blame the last administration of the Canadian Islands Award (CIsA), which disappeared about 2 years ago, after they failed to administer the program in an efficient manner.  In fact the truth of the matter is that the webmaster just failed - period!

CIsA was quickly replaced by Canadian Island Activators (CIA) to make sure the database of Canadian Islands was not lost, and the CIA website can be found HERE.  Or, If you're on Facebook you can read about forthcoming activations HERE.

A lot of work by a lot of amateurs was very nearly lost when the CIsA website was suddenly taken down with no warning by its webmaster.  Pages of reference material and island numbers were saved by using the Google "wayback" machine.

We need to get this aspect of the hobby built up again.  At the moment it seems there are very few who do go out and spend a few relaxing hours activating the odd island, and very few of the activations are past on to be advertised on the CIA sites.  As a result of that, people don't know what's out there to work, and the activators get fed up with getting no traffic and eventually give up doing it.

CIA has a "sister" club in the USA with whom they work very closely.  Down there they have US Islands, (USI) and they too have both a website and a Facebook page.  The website can be reached HERE, and the Facebook page HERE.

When activating an island we find it gets more attention if the notice goes on all four sites, and you will be amazed at just how many people read them looking for new and unusual islands to work.

Rules for the CIA can be found HERE.  Give it a go, you might enjoy it!

Sad News Today

Those of us in Kingston received some very sad news first thing this morning.  Mike Lambert, VE3SIW, became a Silent Key last night, he was 61 years old.

Mike VE3SIW

Mike has been a good friend of mine since I moved to Kingston 10 years ago.  He was a 32 year veteran of the Frontenac County Ambulance Service.   Mike retired early due to issues with PTSD.

Mike was a gentle giant who would give you the shirt off of his back if you needed it.  He was an extremely compassionate and caring person, and this was true right till the very end.

A long time ham, and a long time member of the Frontenac Emcomm Group, Mike's presence will be greatly missed by the ham community, especially at our Saturday coffee gatherings and our Sunday breakfasts, where he always was telling stories and joking around.  Mike was also a net controller on several US nets, including Sully's International Rooster Roster which is held daily on the Watertown repeater.

Mike, you're going to be missed buddy !!!

VE3SIW...........SK.

Field Day.......are you ready?

It's that time of year again, and Field Day is just around the corner.   Once again we're off to glorious Hay Bay in Lenox and Addington County for our 9th consecutive year.  We're quite blessed that one of our members owns 2.5 acres of water front property on the bay, and that it's ringed with 100' high trees, or as we like to call them: "Natural Vertical Antenna Support Structures", and he insists we hold Field Day there.......actually for us it's more like "Field Week".

Richard, VA3VDP, and the 2014 Digi station

As usual we will be operating VE3FRG as a 5A station - four SSB and one Digi station.  We have one station on 40m, one on 80m/160m, an all-band Digi station, a 20m station, and a 10m/15m station.  As well we will have the 2m/6m station this year.

This has worked out very well for us over the years, and our result last year in our category was the icing on the cake, and proved to us we have a winning system.

Our antenna system is comprised of a 160m OCF Dipole, a 80m OCF Dipole (both OCF's are up at 100'), a 31' vertical for use on 40m and 15m, a "Chillycon Special" for the digi station, and a 10m/15m fan dipole.   This year, for the first time, we are adding a VHF station with a 10 element 2m Yagi and a 5 element 6m Yagi.

One thing we do look forward to is our traditional visit on the Friday night to the Sandbanks Bar & Grill in Wellington.  We've always found the beer cold and the food good and the outdoor patio is a great place to relax before our ears start to ring with the cries of "CQ Field day".

I'll be on the 40m station as usual, and will be listening intently for the ever elusive VA3QV/qrp.  I'm not sure but I don't think I have ever worked Bob from Hay Bay......hopefully this will be the year as I hear he's going to be active from the new mobile shack.

The view over the bay.

This year we will also have a "part-time" CW operator dropping in.  Ron, VE3GO, will come out during Saturday and spell off the SSB operators on their bands, and pound the key for a while racking up some needed points for us.

Hopefully the propagation Gods will be smiling for Field Day weekend and we start to see an improvement from what we've been seeing over the last few weeks.  All the numbers we have seen and studied seem to point to the fact the numbers will be fine for the day.........now, if we can just get the weather man to get things sorted out everything will be perfect!

It's done!

Yes, after two years and four attempts, the activation of Upper Brewers Mill Island was finally completed this morning.  Upper Brewers in now officially designated as ON-294.

The bands were not in the greatest of shape today, both 40m and 20m were very noisy and both had quite deep QSB.  40m was very short as well.  Despite calling CQ on 10m and 15m we managed zero contacts on those bands.

There was lots of juggling frequencies this morning as there always seems to be a net in Spanish on 14.250, and they're there 24/7, as well as the ECARS Net which sits slap bang in the middle of the IOTA calling frequencies at 14.255.  By the way, the language from the ECARS Net Controller this morning left a lot to be desired, and yes, he did actually give his callsign. There seems to be far too much foul and abusive language on the air these days, and there is no need for it at all.

The majority of the contacts were done on 40m using a 31' vertical and a FT-857D.  The other station ran a IC-718 into a 20m vertical Buddipole.

This will be the last of the island activating for a while........Field Day is a coming !!

Many thanks to all those we managed to work today, we appreciate your being there!

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!