Thursday 26 July 2012

Islands on the Air

This weekend is the annual IOTA weekend.  Lots of great DX should be on the air for this, including CY9M from St. Paul Island...look for them on 14.185. 

The contest runs from 1200Z July 28th to 1200Z July 29th.  The rules can be found HERE.

As I can't operate from my shack this weekend I'm going to have to find somewhere local to operate portable from, and someone to come along and give me a hand.  It's going to be very nice just to have nothing to think about and to be able to just play radio.

Fort Henry Hill is no longer an option thanks to the new visitors interpretation centre recently built on the east side of the parking lot.  The new centre is equipped with 25 or so plasma information screens being used entertain the visitors and the noise floor has duly risen from S0 to S8 and S9.

Antenna of choice will be my MFJ-1910 mast with a 31 foot radiator taped to it, and six 16 foot radials and two 31 foot radials.  This antenna works very well for collecting DX with a 4:1 Balun, and it's very light weight and easy to put up.  I have a drive on mast base for it.

Hopefully the SFI Gods, and the weather Gods, will be shining on us.

2 comments:

  1. Well how did the contest go....as for me it was Murphy who showed up at the station. I got an emergency call to go into work. That just about did the whole contest in for me. I was able to get about an hour of op time in. I was very surprised at the turn out for the contest. I had never operated this contest in the past but for sure will now.

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  2. Hi Mike,

    While the bands were just hopping, and I've never seen so much action on this contest either, I had antenna issues and ended up rebuilding my 40m OCF Dipole. Not happy with this new version, but it's only temporary until we move to the new house. I've also put up a homebrewed 31' vertical for now and it seems to be working well.....time will tell :-)

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