Busy, but not as active as usual….

The title says it all this week.  The issues started on Monday evening with a sore throat.  Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday found me spending most of my time in bed with the still sore throat and now a very bad cough.  Friday found me atttempting to be more mobile and Saturday resting again.  I had to be mobile on Sunday as my Daughter returned from her vacation and I had to pick her up at the airport.  Well its now a week later and I still feel like crap….

I spend time in the shack but don’t really have the usual desire to play radio….hopefully the bug will leave me and life can get back to usual….

Some of my friends from the QRP club are starting to get something set up for the Ontario QSO Party in mid April.  This year the QSO Party conflicts with a planned balloon launch and recovery effort.  I participated in last years balloon event in November 2007 and was planning to be there again.  If you check out from my links page on my website you can check out the balloon site.

In between the coughing fits I was able to check into some local 80m nets and say HI to the guys…  It was not my usual level of participation but I guess it was better than nothing…

73bob

Weekend update March 16th

IT WAS A FANTASTIC WEEKEND!!!!

First of all there was NO MAJOR SNOWSTORMS….

The radio activity on the weekend showed the Pothole Net (Saturday and Sunday, the Ontario Phone Net (Saturday and Sunday), the ARES Ontario 80m Net (Sunday), the Ontario Swap Shop and the Mississauga ARC Sunday night net.  A checkin with VA3MPM and the 3730 group folloed.

There was a great deal of VHF/UHF FM work from both the house and the pickup truck.

 In addition to these fun activities I decided to use the large snowbank in my back yard to some good use and by standing on it was able to throw a weighted line over a slightly higher tree branch.  My folded vertical long wire is now  about 4 feet higher than it was before… 

I wonder if I should try the step ladder stuck in the snowbank trick.  If it works the antenna might be up to 10 feet higher and if it fails I fall in the snowbank…

Its been a great weekend for radio

73bob

Old meets new….

I tried something new this afternoon.  Checking into the Ontario ARES HF Net on 3.742 at 1300 EASTERN found me with a S20 noise level.  The NCS was able to hear me but I was unable to make much of what he was telling me.

I quickly fired up my laptop and ECHOLINK and connected to VE3MAZ-L who functions as  a remote HF RCVR.  I tuned in to 3.742 and turned off the sound on my radio. 

I was now operating sort of  split with my transmit being on RF from Ottawa and my recieve was coming in via the internet (ECHOLINK) from Southern Ontario.  It worked fine….  I would of preferred to be set up somewhere that had a low noise floor but the split feed principal was better than nothing.  It also gave some of the net participants something to talk about (and think about).

Hopefully I can get the antenna situation set up better here so net time I can hear at least as good as I get heard.

The weekend update will be posted later today as this weekend seems to have a lot happening….

73bob

Ontario Phone Net- Time change

For those of you who still believe in the value of the National Traffic System (NTS) and for the record I happen to be one of them.   I am pleased to announce that the Ontario Phone Net has moved back to 1900 HRS Eastern (Daylight or Standard) time.  The frequency is “on or about” 3.742.

Lets hope the band conditions and participation levels let them continue to serve the Public and the Amateur Community.

73bob

Lost the (Echo) Links

It seems that on Saturday morning (EDST) I hooked up to the echolink and never even noticed that my soundcard was muted….  If you were one of the few who were trying to reach me at that time….Sorry and you know why your calls were not answered….

73bob

Making the best of poor band conditions

Recently 40m has been a bit of a loss (longer than I would prefer it) but today just for the heck of it I spun the dial up to the top end and refreshed my memory of the ECARS Net.  ECARS stands for East Coast Amateur Radio Service.  For those of you who don’t know,  they can be found at 7.255 and the net runs daily.

I was able to check in twice today once with the NCS being just outside of New York City and the 2nd time with the NCS in Maine.

It was a nice way to spend an afternoon with some excellent operators and very dedicated Net Control Stations.

Their website if memory serves me correctly is:

www.ecars7255.com

 Well worth the visit

73bob

The view from the front yard

The view from the back door

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow

My gawd….it finally stopped….

Radio this weekend took a back seat to not one but two major storms…

I’m not sure what the local totals were but I would guess it was in excess of 50CM of white stuff that fell from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning…. Time that should of been spent playing radio instead was spent shovelling tons of snow.  My daughter took a picture of our backyard and as soon as she gets it file attached to me I will post it here…

Recapping old news…VA3QV/m survived the snow storms quite well and so far has not needed booster cable or any other means of assistance to keep mobile.  The safety has been done and as soon as the schedule permits the E TEST will be done and with anyluck all the antennas and the radio toys will be installed by the end of March. 

Right now I am leaning towards picking up an ATAS 120 to go along with the FT 857.  I realize I will lose the 80m band but….I don’t drive that much at night anymore so having 6m to 40 at the push of a button is more important than having 80m for now….But if the good people at Yaesu would come out with a 2nd generation ATAS that included 80m ….WOW!!!

73bob

Your 5/9….say again your call!!!

Well this weekend was plagued by two major issues….Poor band conditions and the ARRL International DX Contest (Phone)…

I do agree that the hobby of Amateur Radio is large enough to give the Radio Operators who enjoy contesting their chunk of spectrum but I do take a small issue with the inconsiderate operators who insist on calling “CQ Contest” so close to a Net Frequency that they might as well be net control…

Now if these operators were on the air on a regular basis they might know that there is always a  net on 7.055 or 3.755  during the daytime and if they set up on 7.054 or 3.756 they are going to QRM the daylights out of it…

I, for one who does not actively contest or chase DX might be more inclined to give them their contact if they just set up a bit further from our nets… 

The same could be said for those operators who contest on some of the 20m Net Freqs such as 14.300 which we all know is the Maritime Mobile Service Net which can handle Emergency Traffic from Maritime Mobiles.

Contests are good for the hobby…More people are on the air and its good for the ego to get a good signal report (5/9/9) just please remember to give the nets a bit of breathing space as they try to be there for us even during the contests.

73bob