Change in WX saves antennas

Well in Ottawa the weather ghod was smiling on the amateur radio community.  Last evening when I looked outside at the Maple tree that has supporter various antennas over the 20 + years we have lived here I was getting worried…

The branches were hanging a bit lower than usual with the added weight brought on by the freezing rain and there was a forcast for “gale force winds” that could arrive overnight…

Well the winds did arrive and they were strong but at least at the VA3QV home QTH the weather had warmed up enough that the ice had melted by the time winds arrived.  My TAK-tenna which had been suspended by a very heavy laden tree branch was still there in the morning but the branch was a lot lighter.  I removed the TAK-tenna and have replaced it with the normal long wire that uses the maple tree for support…  My antenna system is safe…  the maple tree and its branches are intact and at least for this storm we have dodged the bullet so to speak…

73bob

RAC CANADA WINTER CONTEST-WRAP UP

Well the contest has ended and although VA3QV will not be getting any awards or even honourable mention this year (just like the other years…) it was a fun time.

As mentioned previously the main purpose of this years contest for me at least was to test out the TAK-tenna at a time when there would be people around to talk to on the different bands…  I was not dissapointed although the band conditions could have been better.

This is the first RAC contest in a few years that I have not been able to talk across the country.  This year I was unable to contact Prince Edward Island, British Colombia and the northern parts Yukon, North West Territories and Nunavut.  Now to be totally honest I have never made a contect in VE8, VY1 or VYO but one of these days I hope to….

But here is the final scores…

80m VE1, VE2, VE3 and VE6

40m VE1, VE9, VE3, VE5 and VE6

20m VO1, VE3, VE4, VE5 and VE6

6m VE3

27 Canadian Stations plus 5 RAC Stations and 6DX Stations.  On 20m I worked a K7 station so there was propagation to the west coast so I guess I was just unlucky and did not hear any VE7′s.

My grand score was 392 contacts with 14 multipliers for a total score of 5488 points which will set in my records as the worst results since 1992 for any of my callsigns.

However on the equipment testing side of things the TAK-tenna worked better than anticipated and so far is the best multiband compromise antenna for the price I have found so far.  My windom, G5RV and 88 foot doublet all are better but they need much more real estate than the TAK-tenna does. 

I look forward to further testing with this antenna in the spring and I will let you know the results. 

I sent an email out to the TAK-tenna company to advise them of my findings and to let them know where they could see what I had written about them (this blog) and their reply from the company president was as follows:

Dear Mr. Sharp:

 

Thank you for your note.

 

And…please excuse me…but that ‘bugger’ is doing what it is supposed to do!

 

Most Importanly…I am most Happy that you might be a Satisfied Customer!!!

 

Permit me for asking…but might you consider putting the ‘blog note’ as an eHam.net Product Review?

 

Here’s the link:

http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/6775

 

Please see “write your own review” ..under the gray box..on the left side…

 

Also….may I suggest that you try it in VERTICAL orientation…cold sprial closest to Mother Earth…makes a good DX antenna with low take-off angle…please see Vince’s – S52CC report..last line in his text:

http://www.tak-tenna.com/Balcony%20photos%20Vince,Ricky%20and%20Denis.htm

 

And..of course…eager to hear YOUR report!!!

 

Thank you for making my New Year..Happy.

 

And..a Happy New Year to You and Yours!!!

 

Kindest regards,

Steve

WA2TAK

I will be writing up a more detailed review for this blog in the future and will also forward a copy to eham and Tak-tenna.  I am impressed with this antenna as a compromise antenna…

I do not regret my purchase and would buy another!

But now the contest is over and to be honest I am “radioed out”  I managed to operate for about 16 hours of the 24 hour period and now its time to re-acquaint myself with the family…

73bob

TAK-Tenna Contest Report

First off  let me start by saying that I have no connection or interest in the TAK-Tenna and my only investment in the company was my purchase of the antenna….

My station for this test was as follows:

The rig is the FT897 by Yaesu and I am using the Yaesu FC40 auto tuner.  The antenna was a TAK-Tenna hanging horizontally (more or less) and orientated north-south for the bulk of the signal to go east west.  The Tak-tenna is being fed by 300 TV Twinlead (the real cheap stuff) to the FC40 tuner.

For this test I decided to operate in the 2008 RAC Canada Winter Contest as I felt this would be the best time to make contacts to test out things… Even with the poor conditions I was able to work almost across the country from Newfoundland VO1 to Alberta VE6.

I feel I am qualified to write a review on this antenna because since I have been licenced in 1992 I have only once had the luxury of having a full size wire dipole up between two trees…  Unfortunately the Ice storm of 1998 removed that luxury and since then I have been the king of compromise antennas.  My comments on this antenna will be honest but I an not going to compare this antenna against a windom, G5RV or simular multi band full sized antenna.  My comments are more along the lines of how it worked compared to a hamstick dipole or other such compromise antennas…

Using my FC 40 tuner I was able to get the TAK-Tenna to load up on 6m, 10m, 20m, 40m and 80m.  I had no luck with 15m or 160m but I have never operated 160m from my location.

I started the contest on 80m and was able to make contacts in the provinces of Nova Scotia, Ontario and Alberta.

When I lost 80m, the 40m band was starting to open and I was able to make contacts in the provinces of  Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

Once 40m had dissapeared I switched over to 20m and made contacts in Newfoundland, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. 

I would have to honestly say that the TAK-Tenna performed as well as any other antenna I have kept up at this location with the exception of my G5RV which was a mainstay here till the icestorm removed one of my trees…

I was honestly impressed with the performance of the antenna on a day that had very poor band conditions…  If you are moving from a house with a yard to a residence with no room for full size antennas it will work well for you.  It will not do as good as your dipole but it will keep you on the air with a signal that can be heard.  There is not really much of a difference between S7 and S9 to the ears…

There is just over 5 hrs to go in the contest and I think there is nothing else to prove with this test.  It works fine….  It would work better if the bands were cooperating but thats life these days.  If you have room for a full size antenna for gawds sake put one up…  If you don’t have the room for a “real antenna” then as far as compromise antennas go the TAK-tenna would be a good choice…

73bob

TAKtenna for the Canada Winter Contest

I decided to have some fun and play a bit…  The long wire has been taken down from the Maple Tree and replaced by my TAKtenna….

For those of you who need a reminder the antenna looks like this…

Now the big difference between my Taktenna and the one you see above is that the one I use is tied to a branch in my maple tree.  I am using the same rope that I use to hoist the long wire over the branch to support the TAKtenna in the air…

The rig will still be my FT897 and FC 40 but I figured why not have some fun as well as test out the toy as well…

Stay tuned to see how it works… 

73bob

24 hours till Canada Winter Contest

The equipment has been checked out….  Its not a real contest station but… Its the best I can do living in the city….

The rig will be my FT 897 with the FC 40 tuner.  The antennas will be my long wire for 6-80m and my vertically polarised J Pole for 2m…  My schedule has been changed slightly so I will be around from the start of the contest at 0000 UTC till around 0330 UTC when I have to do another &^%^%&**&^^%!!!*** Dads Taxi Run…  If the bands are cooperating when I get home after the run I will keep at it…  If the bands have soured then I will get some sleep and try again in the morning…..

The VA3QV Canada Winter Contest QSL that I mentioned yesterday had been finished and looks like this:

I will be using the Walmart Printing Kiosk for the cards and will print up from the logs after the contest.  So far I have sent out around 150 or so different special event cards and the return rate is not exactly encouraging but I will try again… 

On the topic of special event stations I am planning to reactivate the Bate Island Callsign of CF3RCS (Canadians Freezing 3 Real Cold Spot) around the end of January.  The plan as it sits right now would be to return to Bate Island (CISA ON 283) early on a Saturday morning and set up a vertical and operate from the inside of VA3QV/M till the 30AH battery pack gives out on the FT 857.  I hope to get at least 6 hours of operating time but there will be more info on this in the near future.

For a bit of background info on the first Bate Island DXPedition go here…

Thats about it for now….Hope to work you in the Contest Tomorrow…

73bob

New Toy for DXmas

Once again I am hoping that you had a Merry Chistmas Morning and that all is well for you….

Although Santa did not bring me any radio toys there was an IOU from “Mrs. Claus”  which allows me to pick up some new toys once “Santa” has recovered from the cost of Christmas. 

In addition in these hard financial times it would be my patriotic duty to spend some money at a Canadian Amateur Radio Store in an attempt to help the economy…

What I did get however was a small digital camcorder that doubles as a digital camera….

I now can record videos and have been playing with it in the shack….  Its audio seems to be fine but the focus when I go to a close up of the radio display needs some work…  perhaps I should RTFM????  The focus when I go to a close up of the Laptop screen seems fine so I guess I gotta read the manual for the fine tuning….

This now means I can bore you with multi media inserts rather than just with the spoken (actually typed) word and the occasional picture….

I should say I might be able to show you videos of some portable setups etc but that could take a while as wordpress does not accept my default video output from the camcorder…SHUCKS……  Back to the manual AGAIN….

More on this later but for now please enjoy the day….

73bob

Merry Christmas to All who read this…

I just don’t feel like saying “Happy Holidays”…. Its not a holiday….  Its Christmas…  I was raised to believe in the miracle of Christmas and to be honest after 54 years I’m not about to change now…

I am not forcing my beliefs on anyone else… and I don’t mean to offend… and if you don’t believe then please accept my best wishes anyway….

Recently I recieved this URL from a good friend of mine…  I seem not to hear VE3GNA on the air as much as I used to but its good to hear from him via email….

Anyway before you click on the url…

From my family ( Liz, Myself, Erika, Trisha, Jennifer, JP and the grandkids) and we can’t forget Toby and Sabre…  Please accept our wishes that you have a Very Merry Christmas and a very prosperous New Year…

I also hope that Santa brings you a new radio toy because I know all of you have been good…

The URL I would like you to click on is here

73bob

Canada Winter Contest

Just as a reminder….

Dont forget to try and play in the RAC Canada Winter Contest.  The contest funs from 0000hrs UTC on December 27 and finishes 24 hours later.

More info on the contest can be found by following this link

I will be participating using VA3QV starting around 0300 and running till I run out of steam or propagation.  As usual a special VA3QV Christmas QSL Card will be sent out (via the buro) to all contacted…

73bob

Finishing up on Sunday

After the Trans Canada Net on 20m I took a bit of a break from radio for a bit and watched some TV for a while…Coming into the shack after I was able to make a 20m psk31 contact with Darrin VE3OIJ here in Ottawa.  Once again it is a groundwave hf contact but it does prove the equipment works…  After the contact a short break was taken for supper then I made it back into the shack for the “2 M Experimenters Net on 145.770. 

Once again I was able to make local contacts on 2m using psk 31.  Stations contacted were VE3OIJ (again) along with VA2PHL Phil in Buckingham QC and the NCS Station VE2MA/ve3 Maurice Andre in Ottawa.  Signal reports were exchanged and then Phil and Darrin tried some SSTV on 2m.  Unfortunately the software I prefer to use (Digipan) for PSK31 does not do SSTV and some new software I have that does different digital Modes (MIX W) has a stronger learning curve needed and to be honest although I did get it configured….More work is needed before I can get it working….

After the Digital stuff I tried to check into the Ontario Swap Shop but the band was non existant for me on 80m…  Spinning the dial found nothing but static…

But all in all it was a great day as recently I have been a stranger in my own shack and it was fun to reintroduce myself to the radio gear…

73bob

ps… as a parting thought here is the picture from the Parliament Hill webcam again….You looked at it in the snow and then in the light….Now look at it in the dark with Christmas Lites…

Sunday Afternoon so far….

Well as mentioned in the last posting I was trying to listen to the Ontario Swap Shop which started at noon eastern…  I did listen to about 15 min before the band dropped out for me….  Hopefully I will have better luck on 80m tonight….

After spending about 1 hour shovelling off the sidewalk and digging out VA3QV/m I headed out across the town to do the final Dad’s Taxi Run of the day…

The route I took is here

This normally would of been a 20 minute drive but today it took just under a hour each way…  But concidering the traffic and the “poor Ottawa Drivers”  I can’t really complain…

At 1500 eastern the traffic is finally starting to clear as the WX is clearing as well…  If you remember the picture of Parliament hill posted this morning… well here is the same pic taken 6 hours later…

Now back to radio stuff….  Once I was finished with the traffic and the snow I managed to get back into the shack to warm up and play radio for a bit…  Nothing on 80m or 40m but I was able to check into the Trans Canada Net on 14.140 and work the Central NCS station VE4GD who is located east of Winnipeg…  Got him on the first call which is always good for the ego seeing that the FC40 is buried in a snow drift… 

Thats what I love about our hobby….  I’m making my $1800.00 radio/tuner combination talk around the world on $20.00 worth of copper wire… Gotta Love it!!!!

More later….

73bob