But a fun one…
So here we go….
Saturday morning Michel VE3EMB picked me up at 0730 and we headed over to Kristy’s Restaurant on Richmond Road in Ottawa for a pregame meal. Not that I am getting into Restaurant Reviews but the food was great, the prices were average for Brekkie in Ottawa and the staff was fantasticly Friendly.
After Brekkie we headed over to Britannia Park and set up for the Ottawa Amateur Radios Club Portable Station Demonstration which was running from 9am (setup) to noon…
There was lots of Portable Stations (amateur radio stations that can be carried in one trip to your operating position) and lots of Transportable stations (more equipment, heavier equipment therefore more trips from the parking lot to the operating positions) to drool over… I was in RadioGeek heaven…
Before we go any further thanks to Michel VE3EMB for taking pictures and allowing me to share them with you. His real camera does a much better job than my phone camera so unless specified all pictures shown here are credited to VE3EMB
Above- My FT 817 with the W3EDP antenna operating from a picnic table
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Above – VA3BIT Bike Mobile.
Arthur uses an IC 703 and a 10-80 screwdriver antenna on his mountain bike
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Above- Barry on the left and Dave on the right
Barry I am sorry but I can’t remember your call…
Dave and Barry paired up on this one. Dave had designed a new multi band portable antenna and they were testing it our using Barry’s newly arrived KX3. From what I was told both radio and antenna performed quite well… And if you notice the what I guess to be a 32 ah battery operating the KX3 they brought enough power to operate for about 6 months…
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Now those were the stations that I had pictures for…. In addition I saw….
Michel VE3EMB (he forgot to take a picture of himself) using a Flex 1500 from the hatchback of his mobile using a mobile magmount multiband antenna…
Mike VE3FFK using his Elecraft K1 along with a doublet antenna. Mike carried his complete station over from his place on his mountain bike…
Greg VE3YTZ using his FT 897 and 6m-40m vertical antenna- This one was Transportable and took more than one trip but… Its nice to be QRO from the field
Bryan VE3QN using his FT 857- NUE PSK MODEM and a Buddistick to operate portable PSK 31 from the picnic table.
Clare VE3NPC was there with his handheld Satellite Antenna looking for the “Birds”
Norm VE3LC was there with a 40m rockmite style rig operating with a portable vertical antenna
Now this year I was fairly busy talking about (explaining) the qualities of the W3EDP antenna as it did draw many comments so between that and making contacts I might of missed some peoples stations… I meant no offence if I did and please don’t take any… but back to the contacts made by VA3QV/p/qrp
As you can immagine with everyone one in the park calling CQ the bands were a bit crowded… After trying to work 20m and 40m with no success…. It was just too noisy… so I decided to try 80 meters and managed to work 3 stations in short order
VE3YK — Ken– In Dwight Ontario (165 miles)
VA3OGR– Grant– In Athens Ontario (55 miles)
VA3ZW– Jim — In Utterson Ontario (180 miles)
So with the furthest contact at 180 miles from a QRP Station in Ottawa to a 100w station in Utterson it was a great day. 80m in the daytime is not known for distance so i was pleased…
I also got to chat with Graham VE3GTC who I would also see later in the day at Chilicon who showed me his hombrewed multiband vertical. This one is designed for roadside work as it uses the body of the car for the ground but is much taller than the traditional mobile antenna. You can’t drive around with this one but…. It would work great for opertations when you want to get on the air quickly or trees (or lack thereof) don’t allow wire antennas…
And just to mention the Portable/transportable thing again… my complete station fits in the Red Backpack you see in the above picture… Radio, Battery, Wire Antenna, Logbook, Water, Food and tri-band handheld and as you will find out when you read my posting on Sundays (look for part 3 later today) activites I can carry it up a trail as well…
After saying our goodbyes Michel and I packed up our stations and pointed south to meet up with the Ottawa Valley QRP Society in Kemptville for the Chilicon event…
But thats in the next blog posting…
73bob
Tags: amateur radio, Amateur Radio Portable Ops, Britannia Park, Ottawa Amateur Radio Club
September 27, 2012 at 6:19 pm |
[...] to Saturday September 15th when the local Ottawa Amateur Radio community visited the Ottawa Amateur Radio Club’s Portable Station Demonstration which was held at Britannia Park in the City of [...]