Field Day

Field Day, or in my case "Field Week", is coming up starting next Tuesday.  I'll be kissing the wife goodbye for six days as I head out to Hay Bay, our field day site for a week of radio fun!  This is fast becoming an annual event for Don, VE3MNE, and myself.

This year we will be back out at Hay Bay operating for Field Day 2016 as a 5A station, three SSB, 1 CW, and 1 Digital stations.  This should get us the maximum amount of points we can earn, and perhaps we can beat last years score.

There is an array of antennas up on the property, right now there is a 160m OCF Dipole, a 80m OCF Dipole, and a 40m/15m 1/2 wave vertical.  Next Saturday morning the rest of the antennas go up.  There will be another 80m OCF Dipole, a portable 25' tower with a 3-element beam, and two 31' multi-band verticals.  This gives our operators some good options in case the bands are not the best.

Most of our week will be spent relaxing and experimenting with antennas and radios to see what we can get them to do.  There might also be some fishing and a bit of reading going on as well.

So far the long-range forecast looks like there may be a bit of rain on Saturday, but it looks pretty good to me.

Have a listen for VE3FRG, 5A, ONE, and have a great FD weekend.

Richard, VA3VDP, at the digital station during FD 2015.

Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour

Don, VE3MNE

It's been a very busy weekend here in Kingston as the Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour took place and the Frontenac Amateur Radio Club provided communications for it.  Including setup and tear down time we were on the job twelve hours on Saturday and seven on Sunday, and 0445 came real early Sunday morning.....

The weather was not the warmest over the weekend and we saw very little of the blue skies we looked forward to.  In fact we spent most of the weekend in sweatshirts and jackets to stay warm.   Instead of good weather we got high winds and a bit of rain.

Thanks to the rain our setup at Perth Road Village was a bit muddy for Don and I, and the winds did not help getting the 24' mast up into the air.

We had two stations on the air at Perth Road Village.  One was a liaison station on the VHF Lanark Net and the other was our own net control on the UHF Frontenac repeater.  We had a 5/8 ground plain 2m antenna on a 24' mast and a 7 element yogi for 440 on a 16' painter pole.  Both worked as designed.

There were 2023 cyclists on the road at any one time this year.  The tour goes from Algonquin College in Ottawa to Queen's University in Kingston on the Saturday, and on Sunday it goes back to Ottawa over the same routes.

Over the weekend the communications teams only had to do two 911 calls for hurt riders, but due to the rain and cold temperatures on Sunday we had a lot of requests from the cyclists for pickups and rides as they dropped out as they were not dressed for the cold.

We have some changes to do for next year, they have moved our usual site at Queen's to a new location at the other end of the campus. Unfortunately the new location is in a very bad location for radio work.  So it looks like we have lots of testing to do.

It was great to see our old friends from Ottawa, who provide the mobile communications in the support vehicles on the route.

The RLCT 2016 is over.......and now we get ready for Field Day !!

Mike in "Repair 2" in action at Perth Road Village

The "Command Post"

Riders at Perth Road Village

Leo, VE3BLR at Inverary

Busy Weekend....

Coming up this weekend is the Rideau lakes Cycle Tour.  This year my club is providing communications from nine locations instead of our usual five, so we are spread quite thin this year.

As usual 2300 bicyclists will thunder down County Roads 10 and 11 from Ottawa and Perth to Kingston on Saturday, and return home to Ottawa on Sunday using the same routes.

The weather isn't looking too good for Saturday right now, but I'm hoping that will change over the next two days.....why not?.....the forecast has changed every day this week so far.

I've spent the past few days sorting out my portable VHF and UHF equipment for this activity.....now if I could just remember where I put the 2m/440 dual band antenna I'd be a happy camper..... It's amazing just how much equipment one of these events actually requires to make it a success.

Once this event is over it's then down to the final planning for Field Day.

What a great day !!

The SSB Station looking over the water towards Kingston

The day started off not so well........as I backed out of the garage heading to the clubs Sunday breakfast it was raining quite heavily.  Thankfully that only lasted about 15 minutes and then it started to brighten up a bit.

By the time we left the restaurant it was cloudy but really humid, and it was to stay that way for most of the day.  The ferry ride over to Wolfe Island, ON-009, was uneventful.....smooth sailing all the way for the 30 minute trip.

The propagation numbers for the day left a lot to be desired:  SFI=87, SN=31, A Index=14, and the K Index=2 at 1420 UTC.

For this activation we chose to set up at the winter ferry dock, about five km from town.  This dock is only used during the winter or other periods of low water, and is a quiet spot that nobody goes near when it's not in use.  The rest of the year the ferry arrives at the main dock near the centre of the small village of Marysville.

We had two stations on the air, both using the clubs VE3FRG callsign.  One was on SSB and the other was a digital station.  We had three other operators besides myself out for this activation, Dave VE3DZE, Brian VA3BAH, and Rick VE3ORY.

The digital station was not very successful, but the SSB station made a total of 74 contacts, of which only three were Canadian, the rest were all from the USA.  Most of the contacts were made on 20m, the other bands we expected to use were useless due to the poor propagation.

The winter ferry dock has definite possibilities for future use as it's very RF quiet there.  All in all it as a good day, a little humid perhaps, but any day outside playing radio is a good one!

VE3DZE and VA3BAH hanging around at the Digital station

Wolfe Island

Coming up next Sunday, May 29th.......... The Frontenac Radio Group will be activating Wolfe Island, ON-009.

Hopefully the weather will be a bit better than the last activation we did on Simcoe Island.  So far the forecast is for hot sticky weather with a high of 33C.

Wolfe Island will activate as VE3FRG.

Another group from the club will be activating Howe Island, ON-023, at the same time.  Howe Island will activate as VE3UDO.

Timings for both activations will be from 1400 UTC to 1800 UTC.

Frequencies will be:

7.250
14.250 - 14.260
50.125
144.200

Hope to work you guys on the air.

A cold and windy day......

The VE3CLQ mobile showing the great weather!

Today was the activation of Simcoe Island, ON-022 and despite the weather is was a roaring success.

It was very cold and windy, temperature was 4C with a west wind of 40 kph gusting to 50 kph. The low temperature coupled with the heavy driving rain made for a very cold and uncomfortable day

We managed to put 41 contacts in the log between 40m and 20m.  Radios were a FT-897D and a FT-857D.  Antennas were a 20m Buddipole set up as a vertical, and a 33' Chillicon Special.  Both did very well given the poor band conditions we had.

The numbers were:  SFI=102, SN=88, A Index=10, and K Index=2 as of 1500 UTC.  We had very deep QSB on 20m that did make life a bit difficult at times.

Contacts were mainly Canadian and American, but the 20m station did make contact with NP2/NE6V in the US Virgin Islands and with EI9JU in Ireland.  Unfortunately the Irish contact wasn't completed because of the QSB.

I am happy to report that my portable station worked as advertised after spending the past 6 months in the shack closet, but my 82ah deep cycle battery needs a few good workouts as it faded in about three hours.

All in all a great day, even if it was supposed to be spring.........

Dave VE3DZE operating 40m in his van.

A rainy & windy ferry trip.

Simcoe Island

The Wolfe Island ferry passing the Royal Military College.

Coming up next Sunday, May 15th.......... The Frontenac Radio Group will be activating Simcoe Island, ON-022.  This is our groups first activation of the year.

The Group has invited the students from the local ham course to come along and operate on HF under their supervision.

Timings will be from 1400 UTC to 1800 UTC.

Frequencies will be:

7.250
14.250 - 14.260
144.200

The operators will be operating from the Nine Mile Point Lighthouse, CAN-578, so you can get two for one with this activation.

More WSPRing...

While the propagation doesn't seem to be getting any better, and given the place we are in this solar cycle, I doubt it will, the bands were not too bad yesterday.

I had a few good PSK31 contacts into Europe yesterday afternoon which did surprise me, but their signals were pretty solid on the waterfall.   Once I had worked everyone I could I switched over and tried WSPR for a while.

Here's the results....

This was 20m at 1430 UTC.  500Mw using my 148' inverted L longwire antenna.

This was 17m at 1638 UTC - using the same antenna and power setting as above.

Given our position in this dying solar cycle, I think it's going to be very interesting to watch on WSPR - and see just what we can do with low power communications when we get to the solar minimum.   I believe this will be the first one that WSPR will be available for.

Lonely Tonight......

I thought I would do a bit of 20m WSPR tonight before supper.  So, I set things up and went off to eat.  I came back about 40 minutes later and here's what I found....

Yep, that's it.  One very lonely contact.  I have never seen 20m so empty as tonight.   Oh well, there's always tomorrow....

Monday....and WSPR

It's no secret that band conditions have not been very good for the past couple of weeks.  This seems to be a combination of the decline of Solar Cycle 24, and solar storms causing poor propagation across the board.

So, after doing pretty poorly over the weekend on the Ontario QSO Party, I decided to see just how bad the conditions were today using WSPR.

Below you can see the results of my efforts.  This was done at 500mw and using my 148' inverted L long wire which is up at 50'.

Things don't look too bad today......

40m at 0046 UTC, April 18th.

20m at 1336 UTC, April 18th.

It was great to see VY0ERC on the air from Eureka, Nunavut.  I was at Eureka for three summers while I was flying on Chinooks with 450 Squadron back in the 1980's.  Lot's of good memories from up there at "Fort Eureka"....

VY0ERC is the station call of the Eureka Amateur Radio Club, now proudly claiming to be the most northerly ham club in the world.  

This and That......

Not much going on in the VE3CLQ shack these past few weeks, getting over another bout of Kidney stones and generally just not feeling too good.......so ham radio has suffered.

I have built a new 4:1 Balun for the 31' vertical in order to be ready for the first portable operating session of the year, this coming Saturday on Fort Henry Hill.   Long time readers will remember that operating on Fort Henry Hill used to happen on a regular basis until a few years ago when the new interpretive centre opened on the Hill, and the dozens of inter-active plasma displays installed there caused the background noise to go from S0 to S9+ overnight.

That interpretive centre and displays cost the tax payers in excess of $20 million.......now, three years later the noise has gone away as the plasma displays have all failed and have been quietly removed.

Next Saturday is forecast to be sunny with 15C, a welcome change from the crap weather we have been having over the past month.

So I'm going to blow the cobwebs off the gear and see what we can do from the Hill.  Hopefully the propagation will cooperate, although I doubt it will given what has been going on with it for the past few weeks.

Next month is shaping up to be pretty busy so far, with at least two island activations on the books, but more about them later.

CQ WW WPX SSB Contest

Lots of fun over the Easter Weekend taking part in the CQ WW WPX SSB Contest.  It seemed to me that participation was down this year, perhaps due to being held over Easter?

The propagation was also not the best.  The numbers were: SFI=85.  SN=25.  A Index=7, and the K Index=1.  I guess as we get close to the bottom of the cycle we can expect to see more and more poor to non-existent propagation.

There did not seem to be very many "new ones" on the air, but I did manage to put one new country in the log, I managed to work a station in Palestine, never heard them on the air before.  Other than that it was nothing too special.  There was lots of some pretty deep QSB on some of the bands which caused some issues.

Now it's time to do the annual maintenance on the antennas and get ready for the Ontario QSO Party coming up next month.  I also have a couple of island activation planned for May, can't wait to get out and start operating portable with no snow on the ground....

The Weather.......

Given today's weather forecast of almost 12 hours of freezing rain, I'm hoping that my two wire antennas both hold up and are ready for this weekends CQ WW WPX SSB Contest..........somehow I doubt they will remain in the air, that's a lot of ice coming down.

Rules for the contest, and other information can be found HERE.

I'm hoping that this is winter's last kick at the can before spring really arrives......the propagation also has to improve a great deal before the start time as it's been total crap the last week.

Saturday late afternoon WSPR'ing........

As of 2053 UTC the propagation numbers were: SFI=89,  SN=29,  A Index=8, and the K Index=4. Not the best numbers we have ever seen or worked under, but not the worse either.  I thought I would give WSPR a try and see what I could do.

Conditions were FT-950 at 5w into the 148' Inverted L long wire.   I had zero returns on 10m, 12m, 15m, and 17m after 30 minutes on each band.

Here's what 20m, 40m, and 80m looked like:

20m at 2123 UTC, March 19th.

40m at 2225 UTC, March 19th.

80m at 2359 UTC, March 19th.

Hopefully the propagation numbers will improve a great deal before next weekend when the CQ WW WPX SSB Contest starts........one can only hope and pray !!

Monday Night WSPR

Given the bad band conditions last night I was surprised to work a pile of stations across the Atlantic, and out to the west coast, on 80m.

The big surprise came at 0340 UTC, again on 80m, when I had a return from V51B in Namibia, that's 15, 844 Km from me......on 5 watts.  Not too shabby at all !!

Radio in use was the FT-950 with power turned down to 5w, and my 148' inverted L long wire antenna.

WSPR - Monday morning

I have a couple of hours to kill before a round of doctors appointments today, so I decided to WSPR for a while.  I really wanted to see if the propagation of the weekend was as good as it seemed.

Here's the screen capture from 1330 UTC, March 7th.  This was on 20m.

And that is my very first VK WSPR contact.  Ian, VK3AXF, live north-west of Melbourne.  So, it looks like the bands are still wide open.  

These contacts were done with at 500 Mw using the 80m OCF antenna up at 40 feet.

What a Contest !!!!

What an incredible 48 hours on the bands!!  It has been a long, long, time since I have done that well in a contest, especially as QRP.  In fact the only part of the world I did not hear, or work, was the middle east.

There were so many stations calling from the US Virgin Islands I believe a discount airline must have had a seat sale to that destination.

I managed to get contacts on every band except 160m, and while I could faintly hear stations calling "CQ Contest" on that band, I could not hear them well enough to work.

10m while not that busy, was indeed steady.  I must have worked a quarter of my contacts here.  It wasn't crowded and the stations were well spaced out.

15m was pretty good.  It started off quiet and then, when operators realized it was fully open, it got very busy.  My 148' long wire inverted "L" worked great here.  In fact I broke through the wall to get a JA station on Saturday evening, not bad for a QRP station !

20m was a total zoo.  Signals on top of signals which were right next door to an extremely loud signal...and so the band went.  Having said that though I found it very easy to make contacts once I kicked in the FT-950's Notch Filter.....not sure what I would have done without that this weekend !!

The downside?  LIDS tuning up on top of stations in QSO, at one point I counted 7 tuner uppers on top of a VK3....all at the same time.  Many American stations operating SSB out of band around 7.060 - 7.090.  You guys know you're not allowed there....so why do you do it?  The stupid thing is they were way out of band and calling with their callsigns, and most of the DX stations were also working split up into the US portion.  Just stupidity at its finest, that rare station isn't worth losing your ticket over!!

My other big bitch is the stations that didn't know the exchange, come on guys, read the rules.  You need to know about allowed band changes, how much time off must you take, the exchange, and a whole other pile of other information.  It was obvious that many had not read the rules at all.  I'm a firm believer that contests like this one is not the place to practice on if you're a beginner.  It's very fast paced and most of the ops seem to have little patience for those who fumble along.

On that subject I have to praise OY9JD in the Faroe Islands, who battled with ops from a certain country who obviously don't know their ABC's or 123's.   I was waiting my turn to call him and was listening to his rhythm as he was calling for "the station with Alpha Juliet".....Holy Cow, the frequency just exploded with every callsign in the book....other than the "Alpha Juliet".  I don't think that op ever made it through the wall, I know I didn't.

That's another basic contesting skill that's becoming very rare: LISTEN to the DX station, he runs the show.  I can't figure out why some ops insist that when the DX Station calls for "Threes", they think it means them.  All you hear is "Nine", "Seven", "Two", and every number under the sun.  LISTEN.

Overall it was a great weekend.  I managed to put 129 countries in the log, which I believe is a record for me during a contest.   We will have to see if we can beat that at the end of the month during the CQ WW WPX Contest.

ARRL Int DX SSB Contest

Coming up this weekend is the ARRL International DX SSB Contest.  Thus kicks off at 0000 UTC on March 5th and runs till 2359 UTC on March 6th.

Rules can be found HERE.

Things are all set here at the QTH, the FT-950 is working perfectly and both antennas are working very well.  Given the amount of high winds we have had here this winter I'm surprised they're both up in the air!!

I'm just awaiting a leave pass from the "Honey-Do" list and I'll be all set!!   I always enjoy this contest as there is always lots of good DX to be had on just about every band.

Maybe I'll even here, and perhaps work, the ever elusive VA3QV this weekend.....

CQ 160m Contest

I thought I would try the CQ 160m SSB Contest on Friday evening, I've never taken part in this contest before.

Using my 148' inverted 'L' and my 80m OCF Dipole, both antennas tuned up quite well on 160m.  The band seemed to be in great shape.  It was wall to wall signals right across the band, and doing the "Hunt & Peck" system it was easy to pick the stations off.

You will see from the map below that both of my antennas are compromises on 160m, but I did get out, only to the eastern side of the continent, but still not bad for two antennas that are not cut for that band.

Best DX of the contest for me was either PEI or Florida, and I must be honest, I never heard any mid-US to west coast stations at all.

So this rounds out a very quiet month here, interrupted only for my 60th Birthday celebrations.....I have to tell you all, I don't feel 60, in fact I don't feel any different than when I was 40....and hopefully it will remain that way for a long time !!

I am already gearing up for next weekends ARRL International SSB DX Contest...starts at 0000Z on March 5th till 2400Z on March 6th.....AND.....don't forget the clocks go ahead next Saturday Night !!

Busted Weekend

Last weekend both the Vermont and British Columbia QSO Parties were held......except I never heard anyone from either place on the air, SSB or Digital.

What was it....lousy propagation or a lack of participation?

Seems strange that I wouldn't hear anyone from either location, especially as I was working stations from all over North America, both on SSB and PSK31.

Oh well, as they say: "Better Luck Next Year".

2016 Winter Field Day.....the aftermath

Winter Field Day this year was a great success!  This has to have been the year with the most participants ever.  The bands seemed to be alive with people calling "CQ WFD" on both SSB and PSK31.  Not as busy as Summer Field Day, but just as much fun.

Many of you will know that WFD was at one time sponsored by SPAR, the Society for the Preservation of Amateur Radio.  That organization folded up late last year and a new organization was quickly formed to keep the idea alive.  I have the privilege to sit on the Executive of that organization as the sole Canadian representative.

It was a lot of work to get WFD up and running this year, but it was really worth it, and obviously from the result we have seen this weekend, I think we did a good job.

Just a note on WFD 2017.....there will be some rule changes coming as a result of what we learned this year.

At 1645 on January 30th, just before it all started, the propagation report was: SFI=114.  SN=49.  A Index=3. and K Index=0.  Not bad, but we have had better....but given that the solar cycle is dying we can't complain.

About 80% of my contacts were done via PSK31.  This is the very first contest I have done using any digital mode, but it won't be my last....I have a great time with it.  My contest macro's worked very well, and I only had to make two very small changes after I started.

Not only North American stations took part.  We had stations from Cuba, Belgium, France, Holland, the UK, and Poland take part which was really nice to see.

Over all I had a total blast and can't wait for summer field day in June......even if it does mean mosquitoes !!

Provinces and States that I worked this weekend.

Saturday, 1700 UTC January 30th to Sunday, 1700 UTC January 31st. 

Winter Field Day 2016

Also coming up at the end of the month is Winter Field Day........this year it's under new management as SPAR has folded up and faded away.  Taking the place of SPAR as the sponsor is the Winter Field Day Association....Link HERE for the rules, etc.

This will be the eighth year our Club has taken part in this event.  The cottage we had booked for this event was cancelled on us, so the club is not sure what we are going to be doing, but we will be doing something......probably at one of the members workshops.

Winter Field Day also has a very active Facebook page HERE.

This is a great opportunity to operated for 24 hours under less than adequate conditions and to test your emcomm capabilities under winter conditions.  Given the fact that this large country of ours has many months of ice, cold and snow a year, it's something we need to practice.   Not every emergency happens in summer.

It should be noted that Winter Field Day is NOT just for North American stations.  Feel free to participate no matter where you are.

NAQP 2016

Coming up this weekend is the SSB portion of the North American QSO Party........I'd almost forgotten about it to be honest....

Last year I didn't do very well in this contest so I'm hoping for a large improvement this year.  I think with the second HF antenna up in the air the I should do OK, at least I'll have 15m this year....

Brought to you by the fine folks at the National Contest Journal, it lasts for only 12 hours, and runs from 1800 UTC January 16 to 0600 UTC January 17.

The up-to-date rules can be found HERE.

WSPR....Again

Another bad weather day here in Kingston, heavy blowing snow and winds up to 70 kph, not a nice day to be outside, but a perfect day to be in the shack.....  The snow was drifting up to three feet in my driveway, so it was a busy afternoon of shovelling as well.

We are expecting this sort of weather for the rest of the week, so the chair in the shack will be occupied a lot....

Since Christmas I have been spending a lot of time playing around with digital signals, first with WSPR, and now with PSK31.  In the last two days I've managed to work 29 countries on PSK31, including Panama and Israel.  It took a while for me to get used to the macros, and getting them set up correctly, but now that it's working as I want it to work I'm having a blast.

The big thing that sticks out for me is the lack of DQRM, LIDS and Band Police.  Maybe it's early days for me yet, but I'm enjoying the peace and quiet compared to SSB.

Today I also spent some time back on WSPR to see how the propagation was doing.  The picture below shows the results for 1820 UTC today.  The SFI was 109, SN=41, A Index=14, and the K Index=2.  This was done today with 1w.

2016 Plans...

Happy New Year to everyone, hope your holidays were quiet and full of good DX...

Things have been pretty quiet around this QTH apart from some PSK31 operating.  Plans are currently being made for some "micro-DXpeditions" in 2016.  There are a couple of islands and lighthouses that I would like to get on the air this year, but trying to fit it all into the family schedule is getting harder to do.

The "pre-pre-planning" for Field Day has already started.  Our club will once again be running two separate FD sites, and we're sorting out who's going where in order to make sure we have full capabilities at both sites.

Winter Field Day is also nearly upon us, that takes place on January 30th - 31st.  Link for that event is HERE.   Field Day doesn't always take place in the good weather!

I'm sure this year will be a busy one.  I have decided that once the weather warms up I'm going to operate portable at every chance I can get.  I missed out on a pile of rare DX last year, so my goal this year is to try and get as much of that rare DX as I can.

Where I want to spend next summer.......