UPDATED WITH PICTURE PROBLEM CORRECTED….shucks…73bob
For Field Day this year I was the guest of the Ottawa Valley Mobile Radio Club (OVRMC). I was part of a 4A effort that was located at the field with the Lighthouse in front of the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa.
The event started on the Saturday morning when I walked from my place over to the local Starbucks which is located about 500m from the Museum and then wandered over to the Field Day site. Before I started “Lugging” my gear over I wanted to make sure that the club trailer was on site.
Picture courtesy VE3EMB
Thats me in the black shirt, brown shorts, white hat and wide butt…
As you know I no longer own a car and as it takes more than one trip to get the station from my place to the museum I wanted to make sure I could store the first trip in the trailer when I went back for the 2nd trip. As it turns out “Sandy” who had brought the trailer to the side offered to give me a lift in his pickup truck so everything made it from my QTH to the Field Day site a lot easier than me making two trips on foot. Fortunately I do live close enough that I could of carried it if I had needed to…
As you can see its a very short walk…But as we had some light rain falling the ride was very appreciated…
My assignment for Field Day was to set up and coordinate (Band Captain) the VHF Station (2m-6m-70cm), the 80m Station and the 160m Station. The rig I brought was my Yaesu FT897 and a Jetstream 12v Power Supply. For antennas I brought my 6m copper pipe dipole and a 2m loop antenna. The 2m loop also is good for 70cm.
For the HF bands I planned to use my W3EDP for 80 and 160m with a homebrewed 6-80 OCF Windom as a backup antenna for 6m and 80m if needed.
Late Friday Night we had been informed by the Muesum Management that the damage caused the the Earthquake on Wednesday afternoon to the lighthouse had not fully been corrected yet and due to that we would not have access to the interior of the lighthouse. This includes the stairs to the top so we would not be able to hang dipoles off the top railing for this event.
Picture courtesy VE3EMB- you can see the 6m antenna on a mast off the lower railing on the left had side of the lighthouse. One end of the windom was also tied off this railing…
That caused a serious change in plans but in true Amateur Radio Tradition we overcame and adapted and still were on the air…
As I mentioned earlier we were running a 4A setup and our people were as follows:
Above- Alan VA3STL with the Carleton University ARC on 10m and 15m- Picture courtesy VE3EMB- Thats Alan in the Blue Windbreaker hanging the antenna…
Above-Maurice-Andre VE3VIG on 20m (in front) with David VE3ZZU in background working on the 20m dipole antenna- Picture courtesy VE3EMB
Above-Ernie VE3EJJ on 40m – Picture Courtesy VE3EMB
Bob VA3QV on 80m and 160m and Bob VA3QV with Free VHF Station but you already know what I look like and as I don’t have a close up available taken on Field Day… Lets go with what we have…
As far as the operating went…. I started on 2m and was shut out… Not even any locals so I went over to 6m and found there was a bit of an opening so I was able to snag one local and about 3 southern stations… I then went back to 2m then 70cm with no luck… Returning to 6m I managed a few more contacts while trying to describe the functions (quirks) of the 6m band to a few of the Carleton Students.
This would be a good time to mention that VA3STL who is a professor at Carleton U is also the facility sponsor (supervisor) or the Carleton University Amateur Radio Club and recently ran a very successful program that gave us a bunch of new amateurs. Now these…kids??? no flames on this one please— compared to me anyone under 30 is a kid in my eves… Alright…
These new amateurs are the future of Amateur Radio…. Its kind of unique… They can spell “Radio” and as most of them were electrical engineering students they can also build a radio… All we really had to do was teach them how to talk on a radio and most of them picked that up rather quickly… Althought we were there to give them a hand or a hint most of the 67 contacts made on the 80m band were made with a new ham at the mike… For me this was the best part of field day… Its actually renewed my enthuaism for the hobby…
On a sad note as it would not be a field day if everything went right my W3EDP refused to load up on 160m… This was a bit of a shocker as in the past I have used it in the exact same location with the same equipment with no issues but for whatever reason this time….FUBAR…. (kiddies ask your Dad what that means)… So I was forced to take the W3EDP down and go with the Windom which is a 6m to 80m OCF Dipole. The combination of the FT897 and the Windom was so good that I was able to have VE3RAM (OVMRC Field Day Callsign) control the Ontario Phone Net (3.742 at 1900 hrs) on Saturday evening.
Not only were we able to control the net but I was able to pass our Field Day Message along with Relay4 messages to the Quebec Section and relay two other messages to the Ontario Section Manager.
The highlight of Field Day came much later but did involve the NTS when around 0100 local with a Carleton Student at the controls. There was a station calling CQ Field Day but every time they made the contact at the end the operator asked the contacted station if they could handle NTS Traffic for the bonus points and strange as it seems none of the contacted stations were willing to pick up the traffic. When we finally got through to the station I instucted my operator (I think her name was Maria from Carleton U) to accept the traffic and I would copy it. To be honest I was expecting the usual message to “Uncle Bill from your nephew at the Ham Radio Exibit at Field Day” but as the sending station was relaying the message you could hear a pin drop as the recipient was given:
INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION
Now this was something… I have been connected with the NTS for many years and this was the first time I had ever heard of a NTS message being addressed to the ISS. We accepted reciept of the message and then continued on with our Field Day after explaining to Maria the functions and history of the NTS…
After Field Day I contacted the Ontario Section Traffic Manager and asked how I would route traffic to the ISS and it was decided I would try via AMSAT. The local Canadian AMSAT Rep who happens to live in Ottawa (VE3VIG) send an email to the ARRL and at this time we are waiting to hear back to see if we send it to NASA or the Russian Space Federation for relay. From what we have been told so far it appears that this is the first time a Canadian Amateur Radio Station has had to pass traffic to outer space via NTS and it could also be the first time that any NTS Message has been sent to outer space and we are eagerly awaiting routing instructions and also to find out if indeed this was a first for Amateur Radio.
As I said earlier this was the highlight of Field Day for me…
I finally decided I needed to take a nap around 0300 on the Sunday Morning and managed 4 hours before the hustle of Field Day got me woken up again. I had purposely left the radio on 80m and when the band opened up again it had woken me up… After a quick coffee and a couple of donuts we were back on the air and shortly after was joined by Roger VE3NPO who operated the 80m station while I did the logging. Roger racked up a few contacts before the 80m band dropped for the day. He then went over to visit the other stations while I checked 6m. The 6m band was closed so at that point I tore down my gear and packed everything up. I was torn down before 1400 and was able to help the others with tear down and by 1600 I was sitting at home in the backyard with my feet up with this wonderful smile on my face…
It was over but it was fun…. It was a good feeling…
73bob
PS… Thanks to the OVMRC for inviting me and also thanks to the Carleton University ARC for making this my best field day ever…
Its on our Money
No not that one…
This one…
