Winter Field Day - 2018

Coming up quickly is the 2018 Winter Field Day!

Not only during summer field day in June, do the bands come alive with improvised signals proving the ability to respond to emergencies.  Since emergencies and natural disasters don't always happen in the good weather, during Winter Field Day, frigid winds, icy limbs, and bitter cold replace thunderstorms, mosquitoes, and the blistering heat of summer.

Rules for the event can be found HERE.

Remember to give yourself and your team a lot longer to complete the site setup, it can take up to four times longer than in the warm weather.

Make sure you watch out for each other for signs of Frostbite and Hypothermia.  Stay safe out there!!

December QRP in the Park...

VE3ULC operating and dressed for the
weather today.

Great day on the bands today !!!   Jim, VE3ULC, and I went to Lake Ontario Park and operated QRP portable for a few hours, probably for the last time this year as the snow is due to start coming down next week.

The propagation numbers today, at 1730 UTC were:  SFI = 70, SN = 0, A Index = 4, and K Index = 0.    The bands were very quiet and luckily we had an absolute S0 noise floor in the park.  Just about every signal we heard was just booming in to us.

One of our goals was to work Rick, VE3ORY/W4 in Florida, as he's emigrated down there for the winter.  Jim managed to work him on 40m with Olivia 8-500, and again on 20m using PSK-31, and we both worked him again on 20m SSB.

Best contact of the day for me was with GI0AIJ in Northern Ireland who was a solid S9++ to me and he kindly gave me a 56 in return...not too bad for 5w into an MFJ 17' collapsible whip antenna.

I also managed to get KC0ZNI in the log.  Phil is in Paola, Kansas, and was activating one of the state parks today.  Booming signal from him, and I received a 57 from him....again, not too bad for a QRP signal.

All in all a great day outside playing radio.

VE3FI operating today at Lake Ontario Park....dressed for the Ontario Winter.

VE3ORY/W4 operating today in Florida....dressed for the heat wave down there !!!!!

2017 ARRL Sweepstakes

Starting this Saturday afternoon, at 2100 UTC, this years ARRL Sweepstakes starts !!   Since winning the 2013 Canadian Division trophy for QRP I haven’t really tried hard at this contest….but this year I might give it a good push and see what I can do, but I want to have a good look at the upcoming propagation first.

The link to this years Rules are HERE.

Propagation wise we could be in for an interesting time.  One of the sites I frequent has this to say about the next few days:

"No G1 (Minor) or greater geomagnetic storms are expected.  No significant transient or recurrent solar wind features are forecast".

Hopefully everything will go smoothly......but you just never know.....

Good Luck to everyone!