2017 Island QSO Party

VE3ULC hiding under his umbrella

A great time was had by one and all!!!

This year Jim VE3ULC and I decided to go over to Simcoe Island, ON-022.  Simcoe is a relatively small island and has no RF noise at all, our meters showed S0 on the noise floor.

Lots of signals were heard on the bands, although we were mainly on 20m and 40m.   That weekend, besides the Island QSO Party was also the weekend for the Kansas and Ohio QSO Parties, so lots of traffic out there for us.........lots of LIDS and people tuning up on top of ongoing QSO's as well.

Jim operated PSK31 and I operated SSB, which worked out quite well for us.  Jim's rig was an FT-817ND into a multi-band sloper antenna held up by my 33' MFJ mast at one end.   I operated my FT-897D into a MFJ 17' collapsible whip antenna up at 8' off the ground, with two 16.5' elevated radials.  Both systems worked as advertised.

VE3FI's antenna

The WX was great, hot and sunny with just enough of a breeze to keep the worst of the bugs at bay.

Between us we managed to work 10 islands, including a couple of local ones, and another 40 contacts from people hunting the islands.

All in all it was a great day, and we're going to have to do this again before the snow flies....maybe in late October if the bands behave.