In just under 10 hours from now Michel VE3EMB will be picking me up and we will be heading out to Britannia Park in Ottawa for the Ottawa Amateur Radio Club Portable Station Demonstration…. We will (along with lots of others) setting up a Portable Station and showing everyone who wanders by… the joy of Amateur Radio…. Ghod I hope the bands are open….
Then when the Portable station event finishes around noon we will be jumping on the highway and heading south to Kemptville Provincal Park (Rideau River Park actually) and joining up with our friends in the Ottawa Valley QRP society as this is their annual camping/radio weekend…. Once again there will be lots of radios and antennas to be seen…
Look for lots of the new Elecraft KX3s to be in both locations and also lots of the tried and true… Yaesu Ft 817s as well…
If you like portable operations…. Saturday will be your day…
Sunday will be something new for me… That just goes to prove what a great hobby Amateur Radio is… When I can (after 23 years as an Amateur) try an aspect of the hobby for the first time…
Early (way too early) on Sunday morning a group of local operators will be leaving Ottawa and heading North up to Mt Ste Marie Quebec and then from there head up to the summit of the ski hill to operate in the ARRL VHF Contest (microwave bands)…
We will be operating a 10 ghz station and a 24 ghz Microwave station from 1800 feet agl. This is something new to me and I am curious to say the least… We will also have a 2m ssb station (for Pilot work)on the air as well so if you are able…. try listening for us on 144.260 as we try and coordinate the Microwave stations…
Now I also think a couple of us are planning to bring a QRP HF station and the Top of Mt Ste Marie is also a SOTA summit so if the contacts are slim in the Microwave contest you might hear a couple of people CQing SOTA.
If you happen to hear us on whatever band … The SOTA number is : SOTA VE2-OU-001
As I have never tried this before to be honest I don’t know what to expect… Don’t know how its going to work out but I do know whatever bands we make contact on we are expecting to have fun…
I don’t really think there will be much posted here on the weekends activities till Monday morning but then are you ever going to have a lot of stuff tossed your way in a short period of time…
Hope to see some of you in one of the 3 locations and I also hope your weekend will be as much fun as mine should be…
73bob
Tags: amateur radio, Amateur Radio Portable Events, britannia park ottawa, Ottawa Amateur Radio Club, Ottawa Valley QRP Society, rideau river park, SOTA, Summits on the Air, VE2SOTA
