W/VE Island QSO Party

This years W/VE Island QSO Party is this coming Saturday, August 29th.  The rules for this event can be found HERE.

My plan is to activate Washburn Island, ON-289, starting about 1330 UTC and continue on until 1730 UTC.

I would like to be on the air for a lot longer, but that day is my mother-in-laws surprise 80th birthday party, and it's more than my life is worth to miss it.......if you know what I mean !!

This is only the second activation of Washburn Island so it's still pretty rare with the island collectors.

Radio will be the FT-857D with a vertical Buddipole on various bands, depending on the days propagation.

This is a busy place during the summer with boats coming and going and herds of kids fishing from the docks.  I know I will have no room to put up a dipole without somebody complaining, so the Buddipole on an 8' mast will have to do.  I'll probably start on 20m and give 40m a chance later on.

At the moment they're forecasting rain for the day, so hopefully the weather Gods will decide to smile on us and give us some sunshine instead.

Sunday on the bands.......

Loading the ferry just after dawn.

I was up before the crack of dawn today and with the truck loaded last night, it was off to Prince Edward County to activate Point Petre Lighthouse (CAN-026) for the ILLW.

To get to Point Petre we had to travel about 60 Km west to the Glenora Ferry, where I met up with Don-VE3MNE, and the ferry over the narrows to the town of Picton.  If you've never been to Picton you have to go, it's a beautiful and busy little town.

Once in Picton we had arranged to meet Bill- VA3WOW, from Belleville, for breakfast at the Lighthouse Restaurant.  We hadn't seen Bill since the Bicycle Tour last June, so it was good to catch up on things.

What a great day!!  It was horizon to horizon blue sky and the temperature in Prince Edward County was close to 29C by 1000 local.  However......isn't there always a "however"?  The propagation numbers today were terrible.  At 0600 the numbers were SFI=88,  SN=46, A Index=44, and K Index=5.  Twelve hours later those numbers have not improved very much at all, and in fact we have had a moderate (G2) to strong (G3) geomagnetic storm.

So given the above propagation news, I'm delighted to say that I managed to work a grand total of seven stations, including three lighthouses, all on 20m, and they were:

VO1OK at CAN-040, Lobster Cove Head Lighthouse in Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland.
W4LX at US-004, Port Boca Grande Lighthouse in Florida.
T41C at CU-009, Cayo Jutias Lighthouse, Cuba.
KF5WCP, John in Van Buren, AR.
K5YLJ, Terry in Trumann, AR.
VY2DAC, Dave in Charlottetown, PEI.
WY5I, Don in Port St. Lucie, FL.

While I worked 20m, Don-VE3MNE, tried the other bands starting with 40m and working his way down to 10m.  Nothing was open at all, only 20m.  There was very deep QSB on 20m, signals would be an S9+ one second and a S1- the very next.  It was an extremely hard time copying some of these stations.

Antenna of the day was a 20m Buddipole vertical up at 12', and the radio was my FT-857D which after extensive bench work, has decided to return to life and live another day!

I should also mention that if you ever decide to activate CAN-026 on a very sunny day......take a shade tent, as there is no shade and no big trees nearby to operate under.

Bob - VA3QV

Pssst.........have you been following Bob?  He's been pretty quiet lately, his XYL has a very tight grip on him.  This grip is so tight I'm convinced he's been up to no good and Liz has finally caught up with him!! J 

Want to know what he's getting up to these days? here's a new link on his up-coming QRP Mini-DXpedition...HERE.

A lot of the islands he's planning on activating have not been activated in a long time according to the records we can find, so let's get on the air and support him on this mini-dxpedition.

Hopefully we can get him out to another island for the W/VE Island QSO Party on August 29th.

NAQP and ILLW

Coming up next weekend is the North American QSO Party and the International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend, and the local plans are already well under way for those two events.  Luckily this year they basically overlap, so we get "two for the price of one".

The local club here, Frontenac Radio Group, will be activating Nine Mile Lighthouse, CAN-031 on Simcoe Island, ON-022, on Saturday using their VE3UDO callsign.  On Sunday the Club will be activating Point Petre Lighthouse, CAN-026, in southern Prince Edward County, and will use the clubs VE3FRG callsign there.

The NAQP runs from 1800Z on the 15th August to 0600Z on the 16th August, and the ILLW runs from 0001Z on the 15th August to 0001Z on the 17th August.  I'll be using my IC-718 running on a 12v 120 ah battery.  Not sure what antenna I'll be using, but I'll more than likely take three with me, the Buddipole, the 31' vertical, and a 40m OCF Dipole.

The long range weather forecast looks good for next weekend, and if the propagation improves a bit we should have a great time.

Make some plans and get outside, enjoy the weather, and operate a radio!

Contesting and Cheating!!!

I just came across this article on another website.  Cheating during a ham radio contest......REALLY??  You have to win that certificate for your wall so badly you have to pad out your log book??  

Those of us who contest on a regular basis know just how hard it can be at times, especially when the propagation is not so good and that much needed multiplier just does't hear you, but hears everyone around you.  

Yep, it's frustrating, and it's difficult to compete when you can't have a beam and only have wires up in the air.  But I can't imagine padding out my logbook with fake calls just for the thrill of "winning"......what the hell have you won??    Read on, there wasn't just one of them......there was over 50 (!!!!) of them that got caught, and more importantly, which isn't discussed, how long has this been going on??!!

Well done to CQ Magazine for making this public.  I only hope that they name and shame these idiots!!  Here's the article from CQ Magazine:

CQ WW Contest Committee to Review Past Entries for Evidence of Cheating

“The CQ World Wide DX Contest Committee is making a concerted effort to crack down on cheating. 

After disqualifying more than 50 logs from the 2014 contest and banning one station from competing for the next five years due to alleged “log padding” – or adding contacts that were never made – the committee said it would test new software designed to detect the practice by running it on all logs submitted in the past four years. 

Any logs that show evidence of adding unverifiable QSOs will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, according to a post on the CQWW blog by Contest Director Randy Thompson, K5ZD. See August CQ‘s “Contesting” column for an in-depth discussion of honesty and cheating in contesting.”

Hopefully this will now get the ARRL to start checking their past log entries a lot closer. Because you know if they have been cheating on CQ Contests and getting away with it, they have to be cheating on ARRL contests!!

I guess the question is will CQ give the ARRL the names and callsigns so the ARRL can check them out as well, and if found to have cheated......will the ARRL ban them as well ??

The bottom line here is that there are hams out there who worked hard, won a contest fair and square, and have been denied their moment in the spotlight.  I hope the results in the affected contests are being recalculated to correct this.

Sunday on the air

Beautiful Hay Bay

It was a beautiful day here in Eastern Ontario yesterday, the temps got up to 29C under a brilliant blue sky.  Don, VE3MNE, and I drove out to Hay Bay, our Field Day site which is 50 km west of Kingston, and used the antennas we keep set up out there.  I used the 160m OCF Dipole which is sitting up at about 90' with a north - south orientation.  Radio in use yesterday was my IC-718, which performed very well considering I'm still figuring things out on it.

As suspected the propagation wasn't the best for the Colorado 14er event and the only SOTA contact I made all day was in Utah !!  Ryan, K7ODX, was activating W7U/SU-019, which in English is Monroe Peak in South Utah,  a 3422m high peak and worth 10 points to we chasers.  It was a rough contact as Ryan was only a 41 at very best.

Next up was Earnest, J69Z/p in St. Lucia, judging by the background noise he was operating from the beach, but was a very solid S9 into Hay Bay.  There were many US and Canadian stations in the log over the course of the day, and it was amazing how many of them commented on the poor band conditions they were having.......I was having a blast making the contacts I got.  Many of the US stations were running kilowatts, and given the very sad state of their signals I presume they were operating into less than optimal antenna systems. In fact there was one US station, a K0, that was running so much power he was splattering over half the 17m band, and didn't take too kindly to being told that.

Whatever happened to the days when hams cared about what their signals sounded like?  A number of stations told the K0 what their panadaptors were seeing with his signal, and all they received in return was a "yeah, so what, it's the way I run my rig".  Oh well..........you can't fix stupid.

At 1844 UTC I heard 9K2NO on 20m at about S9+40.  He was working all sorts of Europeans but very few North Americans.  I tried for about 15 minutes, but it was a waste of time as I just could not get a signal that could be heard into Kuwait.   My last contact of the day was with GD6IA, Alex, on the Isle of Man.  I had a great rag chew with him about my memories as a small boy of the TT Motorcycle Races that take place annually on the Island.

As I cleared with Alex the dark clouds started to form up over us and we packed up, had a fast BBQ supper and then high-tailed it home.  The heavens opened just as I was unloading the truck in the garage.....perfect timing.

Propagation numbers for the day were:  SFI=101.  SN=70.  A Index=10.  K Index=2.  If anyone is looking for a reliable propagation site, have a look HERE.

It was a good day.  Great weather for the majority of it, good contacts, and good food.  I'm looking forward to the next adventure on the weekend of August 15/16, which is both the NAQP and the ILLW weekend........the batteries are on charge!

August is going to be a busy month !!

It's hard to believe that August arrives tomorrow.  I don't seem to be able to wrap my mind around that yet.  Before we know it we'll be carrying out the usual annual preventative maintenance on our antenna systems before winter hits!!

August is always a busy month for we hams, trying to fit in the many portable operating opportunities and juggle our family summer obligations.......and this August is going to be no different from years past, despite the crap propagation we seem to have been getting over the past month.  Surely it's got to end and get better sometime!

I've already posted the information about the upcoming Colorado 14er Event this Sunday, August 2nd, but the rest of the month has a number of excellent opportunities for portable operating and catching good DX.

The weekend of August 15th & 16th is a busy one with both the North America QSO Part (NAQP) and the International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend (ILLW) taking place.  The rules for the NAQP can be found HERE, and the rules for the ILLW can be found HERE. My plan for this weekend is to operate from Nine Mile Lighthouse on Saturday, and Point Petre Lighthouse on Sunday, and take part in the NAQP at the same time.

The last weekend of the month, the 29th & 30th is the new date for the W / VE Island QSO Party.  This event has been taking place for quite a few years, but over the past seven or so the Canadian participation has slipped away to almost nothing.  Many of us believe that this is because the management team of the now defunct Canadian Islands Award Program never really advertised this event and many hams didn't know anything about it.

The new organization, Canadian Island Activators is pushing hard to advertise this event and build it up so it will be viable event.  The event used to be run near the end of October, and the US Island Award Program, the guys who actually sponsor this event moved it forward to the end of August so that we Canadian's wouldn't have to operate outdoors in the cold weather we normally get around the end of October.

Last year it sure wasn't any fun at all sitting out on Simcoe island with the winds 25 gusting 45 kph, and the temperature, before the wind chill factored in, sitting at 7C.  So go and select an island and get involved!   Late August is a beautiful time of year to be operating portable from a local island and as a bonus, the bugs should be gone by then!

I'm off to get the "Honey Do" list finished so I will have time to take part in everything this month!

Colorado 14er Event

This Sunday, August 2nd, is this years Colorado 14er event.  This is were the hams in Colorado climb the states many 14,000' peaks and spend three hours operating their rigs.  Since 2012 this has also been a SOTA event, and allows the chasers the chance to grab a few good peaks and points.

Last year the propagation was not the best, and I have an idea that it may be the same this year, but I'll give it a try anyway.  I figure if those guys can carry their gear and batteries up a 14,000' mountain, the least I can do is drive to our Field Day site, set up, and hunt for them.  Keep your eye on SOTA Watch for these guys, this is their version of "DX Summit".

The event only runs for three hours, from 1500 UTC till 1800 UTC.  This allows the climbers to be off the mountains by early afternoon in case of thunder storms and lightning, which frequently happen at this time of year.

The suggested HF frequencies for the event are:

CW Frequencies -

28.060;
21.060;
18.092;
14.060.

SSB Frequencies -

28.350;
21.330;
18.158;
14.345.

Upcoming Events......

This weekend seems to be shaping up to be a busy on.  Saturday and Sunday see the RSGB Islands on the Air Contest, which is always good for picking up DX.  The Rules are to be found HERE.

Also on Saturday, Dan, VA3MA, and John, VE3JQX, will be activating Pelee Island, ON-002  from approximately 1300 to 1900 EDT.   Dan and John will be on the usual 20m and 40m island calling frequencies.

They might also have time to activate the islands lighthouse during this activation.  This Lighthouse is known as Can-370.

There will be a special certificate or QSL card available for all QSO's. Contact details via QRZ.

Peel Island Lighthouse

Portable for the evening....

Last night it was off to Lemoine Point Conservation Area for our local clubs "Summer Meet Up".  We do this every year, instead of holding our meeting indoors we meet outdoors to operate and talk radio.

It was a beautiful evening, not too hot, and the Mozzies were not too bad if you had bug spray on!

I got to the site a couple of hours early, only to find Don, VE3MNE, already there eating his supper.  I quickly set up my IC-718 and Buddipole for 17m, I "guesstimated" the radial length, and it tuned up great.  So I starting spinning the VFO, the band was actually pretty quiet and I only managed to make two contacts.

The contacts were:

EA2KR, Oscar in Navarra, Spain.
EA5BYP, Elmo in Alicante, Spain.

Both gave me a 55 and they were both a very solid 59 into Kingston.  I did hear John, HK3C, on 20m who's signal was the usual S9+40, but I could not break the pile up he was running.   By the time these contacts were made the rest of the guys had shown up, and the meeting began.

All in all, it was a good night.

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!