In the mail today......

The mail was picked up, and I received a surprise today.......

Thanks to the guys at US Islands, I had a blast on Simcoe Island - ON022 that day....but I would be really amiss if I did not mention that Jim VE3ULC was also there working the digital contacts with me.

Island Activation

Just worked what I believe to be the very first island activation of 2015 here in Ontario....and probably Canada.

John, VE3ISE, from Grimsby was activating Henley Island, ON-007, near St. Catherines this morning.  He was using an FT-897D and a Hustler Mobile antenna mounted on his car, but he was a lovely S9+20 here in Kingston on 40m, but he was having issues with a S9 background noise at his location.

John was also having some issues with the weather, he had snow with freezing rain on the way.  He sounded happy to be on the air non-the-less.

For those of you interested in activating islands, or just chasing them from home.  Check out this WEBSITE, it has all the information you will need to get started.

Fort Henry Hill

For the past couple of weeks a group of us have spent "very early" Saturday morning up Fort Henry Hill, set up in the parking lot, playing radio.   For the past two Saturdays I have used my Buddipole as a 20m vertical.  I use the versatee with two 22" arms and a 12' military whip with a single 17' counterpoise.   In this configuration it has a great match right across the SSB portion of the band, and I do not need to use a tuner with it at all.



Old Fort Henry

Last Saturday I worked a pile of caribbean stations as well as a couple of Portugese.  The weather was great and the sunrise spectacular.  In fact things went so well we decided to do it again this weekend.

So this Saturday, instead of lying in bed enjoying the sleep in as I would have like to, it was up at 0500 hrs and drive back to the hill.  Once again the sunrise was spectacular, but the damn mayflies were out in full force. 

The SFI was down a bit from last week and the activity on the band showed it.  Tim-VA3TIC, worked 17m and made some good contacts, he also made a couple on 20m as well.  I stayed on 20m and spun the VFO up and down the band trying to work the odd piece of DX that popped up. 

Finally at 1200Z I heard a loud station and went after it.  It was JA2FJP, Ken, in Tokoname, Japan.  He had a very loud and solid signal into Kingston, a good 59 +20.  I didn't think I had much of a chance to work him as I was only running 50w into the Buddipole.  But.....at 1217Z I managed to work him. 
10,400 Kms on 50w and a Buddipole............not too shabby!!