Another upcoming Amateur Radio Event

Internaional Lighthouse/Lightship Weekend (ILLW) will be held on
August 15 and 16, starting at 0001 UTC on Saturday and finishing at 2359 UTC on Sunday.

The purpose is to promote public awareness of
lighthouses and lightships and their need for preservation and restoration.  It’s not a contest — lighthouses and lightships are encouraged to make contact with any amateur radio stations worldwide.
For more information visit:

www.illw.net

Picture on the left shows the lighthouse at the Museum of Science and Technology in Ottawa Ontario.

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Above shows the approximate location of the lighthouse at the corner of St Laurent and Lancaster and Gladwin Cres.

In the past few years I have participated in this and other Lighthouse events from this location with the last being April 2009.  Check out my Survivorham Blog for more details

The last operation was with the Special Event Prefix XL3 which if I remember correctly was for the anniversary of the St Lawrence Seaway.

More on this event closer to the actual date…

73bob

I think the antennas are working….

Defination of an optimist…

“An Amateur Radio Operator trying to test out his 2m loop antenna and a 6m dipole when there is no band openings and a couple of days before the contest starts…”

Well that was me yesterday…  The SWR on the antennas was fine…  According to the radio there was no fold back on the power output and the radios were drawing the right amount of power on transmit…

However no one would admit to hearing my signals…  so to be honest I am hoping everything is working fine…  Putting a small antenna on my FT817 and using it as a monitor lets me know that the audio levels are fine but its hard to figure out signal strength when the radios are only seperated by about 40 feet or so…

(Warning… Non-Radio Content follows…)

That however was about as far as I got on the radio side of things as we left home around 5pm and headed off downtown for Trisha’s Birthday Dinner…

The company was excellent with a good mix of family and friends (ours and Trishas) and the food was great.  Its very unusual for me to actually recommend an eating establishment but I must honestly say that the food was excellent and well priced for what we had.

Tuckers in the Byward Market in Ottawa has Roast Beef on their Buffet Table to die for…

On the way home we even had a free show from a very talented Street Busker while we were walking from the restaurant back to our bus stop…

By the time we got back home and I got back into the shack the 3730 group was just winding down and so the rest of the evening was spent in a  “non amateur mode”  but it was a great way to spend the rest of the day…

Hopefully today there could be more radio activities in the forcast.

73bob

Antennas installed for CQ WW VHF contest

Well today (so far) it has not rained so I thought I would take advantage of this rare event and get the antennas up in the air for the CQ WW VHF Contest which runs this weekend.

CQ WW VHF Contest

Begins: 1800 UTC Saturday, July 18, 2009

Ends: 2100 UTC Sunday, July 19, 2009

Even though I am still concidering taking the FT 817 out and competing in the “Hilltopper” catagaory I am leaning towards just operating from home,  run my maximum power and just have fun, give out some contacts and see how many Grids I can get.

As I have said in the past… if us “Little Guns” don’t get on the air for these contests then who will the “Big Guns” have to talk to…

So in anticipation for a home station event (subject to change) today I brought down the FM Dual band J Pole and put up the 2m full wave VHF Loop in a Horizontal configuration.

The 6m dipole was brought down from its vertical polarisation and re installed in a horizontal configuration favouring South West  and North East.  Its not that I like those directions other than thats the easiest way to get things aimed given the accessability of my maple tree branches.

If I stay at home the rig will be my FT 847 (above) although right now I am doing the testing with my FT 897 (below).

I always like to try and sneak this in to see if my kids read the blog so…

Happy Birthday Trisha

From this blog a year ago today….

“Trisha is the daughter who has helped me out at more than a few “Talk to Santa” events at the local museum and has happily donned “a set of antlers” and “elf like costumes” to make a child’s eyes light up when they talk all the way from Ottawa to the North Pole ….  AH YES….The magic of radio!!!!!”

Now back to Amateur Radio for a bit…  Since the antennas are attached and the SW(EA)R is good I will be monitoring on 50.125 USB for a while just incase anyone wants to give me a signal report.  Right now the band seems not to be open but that can change at any time….

73bob

Ottawa to Manitoba on 5w

Today I decided to play around a bit…  In anticipation of the family Sunday Night BBQ I installed my HyGain 18AVT in the back yard and tied it into the radial system for the Inverted L.

I then hooked up my Yaesu FT 817 along with a small SLA  pack.  I set the tap on the antenna for 20m and spun the dial.

When I found 14.140 I heard Grant VA4GD as the central controller for the Trans Canada Net.

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Which is not too bad for 5w and a small vertical thats ground mounted…

73bob

UPCOMING EVENT CQ WW VHF Contest

OK Folks,

Start getting the equipment checked out…

CQ WW VHF Contest

Begins: 1800 UTC Saturday, July 18, 2009

Ends: 2100 UTC Sunday, July 19, 2009

VA3QV/p will be participating in the Hilltopper Catagory from FN 25 if the weather is nice and VA3QV will be participating from home if the weather in FN25 is nasty…

The “Hilltopper Setup” will be my FT 817 along with a 6m dipole which will be horizontal polarized and a 6m ribbon JPole which will be vertically polarised.  Both antennas although they are designed for 6m work just as well on 2m and using the dual antenna inputs on the FT817 will allow me to quickly switch between antennas for the best signals I can get with 5w of power.

If the WX is not so good I will be at home using my FT 847 with my 2m Horizontal Loop and my 6m rigid dipole which will also be horizontal.

To be honest I am hoping for nice WX as I don’t have the time to operate for the full time allowed for the contest so operating for the 6 hr hilltopper would be much easier but either way I will have fun…

If I am lucky enough for good WX I hope to be operating from this location:

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The best operating location is behind the baseball diamonds which is also the highest point of land in the area and by strange coincidence there is also a picnic table close by along with a tree for an antenna support…

Given the fact that its a VHF (2m and 6m) contest and my antennas are not the best for whatever catagory I enter this time the ONLY GOALS are to make as many contacts as I can and also have lots of fun.

I am figuring (hoping) on about 4 to 6 squares if 6m is not open (two or three locally on each band) but the count could change drastically if the magic band is true to its name….

More on the choices after I look at the mid week guess (forcast) from the weather department…

73bob

Even in my own neighborhood

Hi folks….

This post references back to my blog entry about the “Constance Bay” news item of  July 8th.

I went out for a walk today around my own neighborhood.  The walk took me approx 45 minutes and was by Google Maps 1.3 km…

You might have to move the map around a bit to see my route and the green space in the middle is the park I usually head out to play radio from…

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In this small walk I noticed 5 homes that had this same sort of landscaping done that is upsetting the good people of Constance Bay.  Now perhaps not to the same level of content due to smaller yards and some common sense but never the less there is a “Growing trend” (pardon the pun) to this style of gardening and property upkeep…

I might add that in my travels I did not see any unsightly towers or antennas that could be attributed to the Amateur Radio Community but there were plenty of Sat Dishes of various sizes and shapes… There were also a couple of old style TV Towers with multi band (TV/FM Radio) Yagis up in various states of disrepair.

How come nobody in the City complains about Sat Dishes and wild flowers but just let me put up one lousy little tower and watch all hell break loose…

73bob

New “TCA” in the mail today

Well now we have something to read and also to talk about…  My July/August issue of  “The Canadian Amateur” which as most of you know is the Radio Amateurs of Canada Magazine arrived in the mail today.

This magazine always has good information and gives us plenty to talk and sometimes blog about…

This month when I looked at my magazine something looked different and to be honest I had to look real hard to notice…  Is it the same on yours????

Look at your mailing label…  That should be on the bottom right of  the cover…  it has your membership number, the expiry date of your membership.  The next line has your name (WHAT HAPPENED TO MY CALLSIGN???) then below that is my mailing address…

When I look at my May/June Issue I had a callsign listed beside my name and suddenly in July/August I no longer have a call…

The magazine still looks great, the information inside is excellent but this month they lost my callsign….

73bob

A NEWS item to follow

I will give you a few links to follow but here is the “Coles Notes” version of the story…

In “Rural Ottawa” (actually in the village of Constance Bay which used to be in the Township of West Carleton Province of Ontario) some people have gone to a rustic setting for their yard.  Wild Flowers and lawns not as manicured as some people would like…

Some people have actually made a formal complaint to the City about wild flowers and long grass in a rural setting….  And to make things even more idiotic the City is actually investigating!!!

Now this place is really “Rural” and proud of it….  To put things in perspective just about 1 mile North of them is a Girl Guide Camp.  This was rural area before it was swallowed up by the City of Ottawa and is approximately 16 miles (as the crow flies) from Parliament Hill and almost 13 miles North of Scotia Bank Place which is the home of the Ottawa Senators NHL Team.

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And if you go the Ottawa Citizen Website you will see different stories on this topic here and here… Don’t get confused by the same photo being used in both articles…There are actually two different articles…

Now what does “flowers and long grass” have to do in an Amateur Radio Blog???

Well as much as I don’t want to make a Political Statement this is kind of starting to be like one of those stories about people who buy a house close to the airport then complain about the noise.

They are complaining about long grass and wild flowers in the country for gawds sake…

This has caught my eye because Liz and myself have been thinking of moving out of the City into a more rustic environment so she can have a garden to set up as she likes and I could have enough room to grow the antenna farm I have always wanted.

I can understand and can even support different restrictions of various sorts in the City itself but complaining out in the Country??? about Wild Flowers???

Now although the local bylaws give me the right to put up an antenna in a “Rural Area” will the neighbors complain as well???

I mean no offense to the people of West Carleton here but really if you were to look at an old map before we became one big happy city your closest hospital was in Arnprior Ontario.  (actually it still is)  You would have to travel to either Arnprior or Kanata for the closest Supermarket…  Your closest Arena would be in Carp Ontario (also part of rural Ottawa) and I think your closest Liquor Store would either be in Carp or Arnprior.  We are talking “Rural” here and thats why someone would want to live there.  To get away from it all…

This is an area I would happily move into to so I could escape the City…  But now there is a chance that the neighbors might not like how Liz looks after her garden…

If they don’t like that how will they feel about my 48 foot self supporting tower with the tri-band beam on the top???

Now depending on how the City actually handles this complaint Liz and myself (along with others who have acted in good faith) might have to re-think some of their plans and future plans…

Normally what we see is people in the Rural Areas complaining about Goverment telling them what to do with their land…  Here we have a case of someone complaining to the Goverment about what their neighbor is (or is not doing) with their land…

Now after a bit of my rambling what I am saying is that I find it just amazing that someone would complain about wild flowers and long grass out in Constance Bay.  I also find it scary because what else will those transplanted City folk complain about if I move out into the country so I can enjoy my hobby???

73bob

Experts predicting Sunspots

I got this off my yahoo homepage (link to article here) and thought it would be intersting…

===============================

Robert Roy Britt
Editorial Director
SPACE.com Robert Roy Britt
editorial Director
space.com – Mon Jul 6, 10:45 am ET

After one of the longest sunspot droughts in modern times, solar activity picked up quickly over the weekend.

A new group of sunspots developed, and while not dramatic by historic standards, the spots were the most significant in many months.

“This is the best sunspot I’ve seen in two years,” observer Michael Buxton of Ocean Beach, Calif., said on Spaceweather.com.

Solar activity goes in a roughly 11-year cycle. Sunspots are the visible signs of that activity, and they are the sites from which massive solar storms lift off. The past two years have marked the lowest low in the cycle since 1913, and for a while scientists were wondering if activity would ever pick back up.

During 2009 so far, the sun has been completely free of spots about 77 percent of the time. NASA researchers last month said quiet jet streams inside the sun were responsible, and that activity would soon return to normal.

The new set of spots, named 1024, is kicking up modest solar flares.

Sunspots are cool regions on the sun where magnetic energy builds up. They serve as a cap on material welling up from below. Often, that material is released in spectacular light shows called solar flares and discharges of charged particles known as coronal mass ejections. The ejections can travel as space storms to Earth within a day or so, and major storms can knock out satellites and trip power grids on the surface.

Prior to the low-activity period, astronomers had been predicting that the next peak in solar activity, expected in 2013, might be one of the most active in many decades. That forecast was recently revised, however, and scientists now expect the next peak to be modest.

All this matters because, as laid out in a report earlier this year by the National Academy of Sciences, a major solar storm nowadays could cause up to $2 trillion in initial damages by crippling communications on Earth and fueling chaos among residents and even governments in a scenario that would require four to 10 years for recovery. Such a storm struck in 1859, knocking out telegraph communications and causing those lines to erupt in flames. The world then was not so dependent on electronic communication systems, however.

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So there you have it…  we are going to get sunspots (FINALLY)

73bob

Upcoming Amateur Hamfest- Ottawa

This would be your early warning for the  “World Famous”

Ottawa Amateur Radio Club Hamfest

Ottawa ARC 13^th Annual Hamfest & Forum.

NOTE: New date!! September 12, 2009

Sponsored by the Ottawa Amateur Radio Club inc.
Date: Saturday, September 12, 2009
Place: Carp Agricultural Fairgrounds,
3832 Carp Road (at Falldown Lane),
Ottawa (Carp), Ontario.
From Ottawa, take Highway 417 West to Carp Road exit, then 11 km North to the fairgrounds. Hamfest is located in the arena, so follow the signs on the site.
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More on this great event later

73bob