July 2012

As July starts to wind down it got me thinking….  Darn….  It was a really good month… Lets thing about what happened…  How good is your memory…

July 1st was the RAC Canada Day Contest and I managed to have fun and work lots of stations… No record high score but I did have fun and it was a great way to spend my Canada Day in between the BBQ and the Beer Fridge…

July 4th While my American Neighbors were doing all the crazy stuff we were doing on July 1st I was attending the monthly meeting of the WCARC.  They had an excellent presentation of their VHF DXPedition for the June VHF Contest.  They even invited me to join them at next years event as an operator for the Grafton Ontario event.

July 5th was a wake up call reminding me and my family about being prepared.  The water main self destructed in our neighborhood and we were “Water Challenged” for a few days while the City made the necessary repairs.  It proved we were not as ready for a disaster and that I can’t go running out with ARES to help if my family is not safe and well looked after first.  The plans have changes slightly here and we now have more items in stock for sheltering at home.

During the next 10 day period I managed a few contacts from home and got out into the park once…

July 15 Participated in the IARU contest and highlite of the event was making a contact with the South Cook Islands.  My furthest one so far.

July 21  Found me taking the FT 817 out for some fresh air and attempting to compete  in the CQ WW VHF Contest.  The boom of my 6m delta loop broke shortly after set up so I just got some fresh air instead.

July 26 I participated (giving out contacts in the Islands on the Air Contest as well as managed to get the CY9M DXPedition in the log on 3 different bands (so far) 6m, 17m & 20m.  At the time of writing this, the DXPediton is ongoing so I realisticly stand a chance on 15m ( I have heard them there) 40m (heard them there also) depending on what bands they activate between now and the end of the DXPedition on the 1st of August.  I have heard them on 80m and 160m CW but I have not heard them on voice on those bands and you know how good my CW skills are…

Now from a Radio Point of View—> July was a really good month…  I had fun and was pleased to get 3 new DXCC entities in the log.  I am now sitting at 137 (unconfirmed) with 57 confirmed.  Before you ask… I have still not gotten on LoTW yet so the amounts are not going to raise much till then…

August is starting to look like it will be a good one with plans in the works for a SOTA activation and a Lighthouse activation this month.  Nothing is carved in stone yet but there is an easy accessable summit in VE2Land about an hours drive east of Ottawa and there is a Lighthouse about the same distance but west of Ottawa on the Ottawa River…  I have been offered transport to both locations (as its too far for the Electric Vespa) and now we are looking at the weather and everyones schedules to see if either event is going to happen…  Often it does not but we can hope…  Between Weather and health us older pharts seem to have more issues with getting there than operating once there…  I guess its a sign of the times…

Hope your month went as well as mine did…

73bob

 

Words that come back to haunt you…

Every now and again we all say something we regret…  Sometimes not in a nasty way… or in a funny way…  but it seems like the right way at the time but afterwards it seems rather Ironic…

Heres an example…

On Saturday July 21st before I left for Dale Park for the CQ WW VHF Contest I said the following:

In addition to the portable radio gear I had to find a way to get the 3 element 2m beam and the 6m delta loop (with its 6 foot boom) safely attached to the Vespa for the trip.

Note to self:  Re engineer the delta loop boom to break down to a more workable length for travelling!!!

However a short couple of hours later when my Push up masting decided to collapse bringing the 6m delta loop down quickly and when the masting finished collasping the downward momentum suddenly stopping caused the bamboo boom to snap in two places (either side of where the boom was attached to the mast…

I wanted to re work the style of the boom and gravity takes care of that for me…  Hows that for Ironic????

I tried for a quick fix on Saturday night and Sunday AM so I could get back into the contest but had no luck….  The contest was over for me….

I’m thinking of using my hamstick dipole mount that I use on 80m at times and just adding a pair of 6m hamsticks and be done with it…  For the few times I need to make 6m contacts I think that will work just fine and if I can’t work them with a dipole than I guess I just can’t work them…

Now I should ask…  Has anyone got anything good or bad to say about the idea of a 6m hamstick dipole…  I could just make a dipole out of two 54 inch lengths of copper pipe (which I have in stock) but I’m just thinking out loud at this time so…  if you have any experience or ideas…  lets hear it…

73bob

 

The VHF Contest – A very poor showing so far

Well things started off great.  Left home at 1pm and headed over to Dale Park (at the dead end of Dale Ave) in Ottawa and was on site by about 1330 and had everything set up and was ready to go for the start of the Contest at 1400 local.

View Larger Map

Just to refresh your memory I was operating with my FT 817 using a 3 element beam on a camera tripod for 2m and my recently homebrewed 6m Delta Loop (with a bamboo boom) on a 17 foot pushup mast using a friction lock for the sections…  The 3 element was about 10 feet off the ground as I had put the camera tripod on top of the picnic table for a few extra feet of altitude.  I knew where I should of heard the 2m signals from but no luck at all on 2m.

I made my first contact with Greg VA3GD who lives just west of the park… not DX and he hear my 5w signal just fine with no problems so I knew that everything was working…  I then heard some stations in the distance so I tried to turn the pole to move the delta loop so it was aiming south east from its current west direction and then it happened…

The Domino effect so to speak…

The top section dropped…. the next section dropped…. the next section dropped…. which caused the last section to drop and when it could drop no more it stopped…  The sudden stopping caused the bamboo boom to snap on either side of the plastic “T” that was holding the boom onto the vertical push up masting…

This in effect ended the day for me on 6m.  I tried removing the wire from the boom and hanging it in the tree but the tree was not cooperating…  I did have my Parr end fed antenna in the go bag so i tried that but although it would load up on 6m with the help of my QRP Auto tuner I heard no one else…

When life give you lemons you make lemonade so I was not going to waste this beautiful afternoon in the park….  The 817 was working fine with the Par on the HF bands (where it was designed to work) and so I managed a very nice contact with EA8AM in the Canary Islands on 14.302 ssb.

Above picture taken from his QRZ Page…  He gave me a 5/7 report on 20m…  I think the beam was out performing my Par…  But the Par did get a 5w signal out to where he could hear me..

I also listened around for some SOTA activity as some local operators were going to up to a location but I did not hear those new KX3s on SSB and the one SOTA station I heard on 40m cw was going way to fast for me to copy…  OHWELL….  It was a beautiful day and the wx was cooperating…  I did find a new and easy to get to location to operate from and it has shade and a picnic table (even a timmies a 5 min walk away) so its almost perfect…

In my earlier post I was joking about having to re engineer the boom on the delta loop to make it easier to pack….  now I have to re do the delta loop because  the boom ended up in pieces due to an unplanned structural failure (it broke)…

In the greater picture if thats the worst that happened to me yesterday…. no big deal…  The plans for today (Sunday) is build a simple dipole and go back and try and give some contacts out on 6m for the remainder of the contest…  Right now as I type this I am listening on 6 and have been for the last 45 minutes or so….  not hearing anything that would make me want to rush out to the field right away anyway….  actually not hearing anything except static…  so maybe…

The temps are supposed to rise back up today…  Estimates of 40 deg C with the humidex so perhaps instead I’ll just stay in the nice and cool shack and make some contacts instead…

73bob

Getting packed up and got a QSL card

The “Electric Vespa” will be earning its keep this afternoon as its carrying my portable station and me to Dale Park this afternoon for the  CQ WW VHF Contest.  Although there is no mountian there I will be operating in the HILLTOPPER Catagory which means QRP and a maximum operating of 6 consecutive hours.  In addition to the portable radio gear I had to find a way to get the 3 element 2m beam and the 6m delta loop (with its 6 foot boom) safely attached to the Vespa for the trip.

Note to self:  Re engineer the delta loop boom to break down to a more workable length for travelling!!! 

Its a good thing the park is not that far from my place… about 3km give or take a bit…

On to the QSL….

This found when I checked my EQSL inbox

Glad to see I got them in the log…

Calgary is not rare DX but its good to get A Canadian Tradition in the log…

73bob

ps…  hope to work you in the contest

UPDATE for the CQ WW VHF Contest

VA3QV will be active for the CQ WW VHF contest from FN25ej  operating in the Mountian Topper Catagory starting at 1800 utc for the maximum allowed time of 6 hrs or till the batteries die,,, Whatever comes first.

 

I will be using my Yaesu FT817 (5w maximum) and the antennas will be my 3 element arrow 2m beam on a camera tripod and my home brewed 6m delta loop

Hope to hear you in the contest  so I can  give out the RARE FN25 Grid Square

73bob

A VHF Contest reminder

Just to remind you guys + and gals…

CQ WW VHF Contest

• Saturday July 21, 2012, 1800 UTC to Sunday July 22, 2012, 2100 UTC
• 27 hours for all stations, all categories. Operate any portion of the contest period you wish.
• see http://www.cq-amateur-radio.com/ – look under VHF Contest
• 6m and 2m only
• CW and phone
• Hill Toppers, Rovers, Multis (see the rules)

Now on Saturday the Weather in Ottawa will be “hot and sunny” if we can trust the predictions of the Weather Network.  So far they have been fairly accurate so I’ll trust them…

The plans so far are to take some basic gear…  FT 817, 10ah battery pack, Camera Tripod with 2m beam, and 17 foot shakespere wonder pole along with the 6m delta loop and set up somewhere…. and operate from the start of the contest for the first 6 hours as VA3QV in the hilltopper catagory.

The beam will be horozontal for this contest

The “Electric Vespa will be providing the transportation so we will be staying in FN25 and to narrow it down even more…  Ottawa South East.

With any luck I can find a picnic table in the shade…

I figure that if the temps stay at 29 dec C as they are saying then if I can manage 6 hours outside I think I’ll be doing fairly good.  This is one portable trip where I think the water will weigh more than the radio gear but 6m has been fairly good recently so the hope is that someone will hear my QRP signal on 2m or 6m and I will have something to brag  blog about after…

There is a reason that they call 6m the “Magic Band”…

73bob

Our Guest Blogger is VE3GTC

Good Morning,

This posting comes to us courtesy of Graham VE3GTC.  He is a regular reader of the blog and you have seen him commenting on topics here for a long while now.  In addition we both share the fondness for QRP, Portable Operating and Yaesu Radios…

Any comments about this posting should go directly to Graham via email….

73bob

====================================

The 2011 CQ Worldwide VHF Contest took place on July 16 starting at 1800Z and ended July 17 at 2100Z. What better way to enjoy Ham radio than by combining portable operations and contesting?

I am sure you can think of many other ways particularily if neither of the mention activities are of any interest. For myself however, they are a very good match. The more portable operating I do the more I look forward to the next time and any reason be it a contest or just a nice day just adds to the pleasure.

CQ has added a new category to their VHF contest referred to as the “Hilltopper QRP”. The idea being presumably to encourage activity just as it suggest – to operate portable out in the field from one or more hill tops.

There is not much in the way of hills around where I live. There are some relatively high hills to the north called the Gatineau hills which are a popular spot for some of the local hams to operate from. Members of the local Ottawa Valley QRP club and Polar Bear Club members frequently visit the hills to operate in some of the Polar Bear operating events or just to activate a summit in the SOTA program. There is also high ground further west near Almonte Ontario and further still at Foymont.

I choose however to go to my Super Secret Location #5. It’s at the public park located at the St. Lawrence Seaway locks in Iroquois, Ontario. The park overlooks the locks, there are lots of nice shade trees, public washrooms, a snack shack, and the diversion of ships of passing through from time to time. There is a also an osprey nest within easy view. The nest is currently occupied by a mating pair of birds which have two chicks. The birds are quite an attraction and draw quite a number of onlookers.

So there it was, the stage was set. My operating location was chosen and after monitoring sparodic E propagation the week before the contest I choose to operate my limited 6 hours of the Hilltopper category starting Sunday morning through to mid afternoon and to operate 6 meters only.

Now all I needed to do was to get off my behind and put together a suitable antenna. Trouble was what to build? Squalo? Halo? Moxon?

Something I had been toying with was the idea of a simple dipole. A simple dipole is normally about 75 ohm impedance, an inverted V dipole is usually considered to be closer to 50 ohm. But why do we mount dipoles in and inverted fashion? Simplicity I guess as in that configuration it needs only one support in the middle. A while ago I asked the question the propagation pattern of a dipole where the arms were extended upwards into a V rather than inverted. The general consesus was that the angle of radiation of pattern was more upward and more suitable to NVIS like operations.

Fair enough but what then happens if we keep the same 90 degree configuration but instead place the V horizontal? What then? A search of the internet found only a few references without much detail. In general however it was declared that an antenna in this configuration exhibitied gain of about 4 dBi over a simple dipole and some referred to this type of antenna as a single element beam. Seemed like the idea was worth exploring so I did.

After a few evenings work of bashing metal and plastic I had my horizontal Veetenna (for lack of any better name) and a suitable method of mounting.

Mounting is accomplished with a couple of hose clamps on the end of a 16 foot extensionable painters pole. A second pole across the roof of my van provides support for the primary pole as can be seen in the photo.

The antenna mount is simply a short length of two inch aluminum angle with mounts for the two arms. I made all the hardware myself save for the 3/8-24″ bolts from the local hardware store. It is possible to buy the antenna mounting studs off the shelf at any well appointed ham radio supplier. Time was not on my side so I made what I needed and save a few dollars in the process.

The antenna is fed with aproximately 30 feet of RG-8X of which about 7 feet is wound around a 4 inch diameter tube to fashion what is called an “ugly balun” and appears as the white thing in the pictures near the antenna feed.

The dipole arms themselves are made from collapsible fishing pole pieces each approximatley five feet in length with a loosely spiralled 16 gauge wire four feet 8 inches in length for the elements themselves. They have about 1 turn every 16 inches which I don’t belive is critical but 16 inches was just a convienient value and held in place with bits of heat shrink and tape.

Testing showed that the antenna as built was resonant at the lowe end of six meters and has a suitable bandwidth of 200+ khz. I don’t have a suitable SWR meter so this was judged using only the SWR/Power meter display capability of my FT-817. I plan to trim a quarter of inch off each arm next I set it up.

Gain? Directivity? Yes. In practice I can turn the antenna while monitoring a transmission and “peak” the signal. Not anywhere near what a 3 element beam would exhibit but there is a definite peak. How much gain? No idea.

All in all the antenna was a success even if the day’s operating success measured in number of contact was less than stellar. In six hours of operating I managed to scratch a grand total of six contacts. Two on SSB, the remainder CW. Actually, I heard more than four dozen stations but despite repeated calling only managed to make a enough noise to complete the six contacts. Operating QRP when conditions are marginal can be a real challenge but then that is half the fun.

More development work is planned on this antenna. I would like to try modeling it in something like eznec but so far have been unable to get the program to run on a LINUX machine. What is the radiation of the pattern of this antenna? Take off angle? Is it optimum to place the dipole arms parallel to the ground or up (or down) X degrees to optimize take off angle? What happens to the pattern if I where to put another element bisecting the V above the dipole arms at a 45 or 60 degree angle above horizontal (makes it looks like a tripod)? More directive? More Gain? Perhaps someone already knows and can point me to some references or can tell me how to get eznec of similar running on a LINUX box (Ubuntu).

===============================

As previously mentioned the above article was contributed by Graham VE3GTC (writeup and pictures) .  I thank him for sharing this with us and remind you that any comments or questions should go directly to Graham via email.  An email link is given to you above the start of his article.

Hope you enjoyed it…

Thanks again Graham

73bob

Well the toys worked…

Just gave up with the CQ WW VHF Contest for this year.  The contest started on Saturday but all it got me were 2 contacts on 6m and the same 2 stations on 2m and they were both easily within groundwave with the furthest station being 25 km from my QTH…  I did a lot of listening on Saturday but did not hear much.  Checking the DX Sherlock Maps showed I was not alone.  I decided to spend more time with the BBQ than the FT897  and Saturday was a great day despite the poor band conditions

On Sunday I was finding more of the same and then suddenly 6m finally came to life…  I was hearing stations…  I managed to get about 7 grid squares from the Southern States and that was enough in my mind to prove the loops will work.  This is the same 2m and 6m loop we used at field day with the OVMRC and to be honest I never expected them to break a pile up but as they are part of my transportable station hopefully next time they get used they will be causing pileups…

I was using my FT897 with 100w on 6m  and 50w on 2m

As well as working the Southern States I managed to make a couple of  longer Groundwave contacts with a VE2 Station just east of Montreal QC in FN35  on 6m with an approximate distance of 135 kms and a 2m contact with a VA3 Station close to Almonte Ontario in FN15 for an approximate distance of  40 kms.  I was especially pleased with the 2m contact as I am blocked to the west by 2 large apt buildings so I have always had issues getting a 2m signal (any mode) west of my QTH.  And to be honest working from Ottawa to Montreal on 6m ain’t to shabby either so I am pleased…

Unless I pick up two more loops and stack them with the existing loops ( 2 stacked on 2m and 2 stacked on 6m) I don’t see any way to improve my gain situation.  I just don’t think I can get the gear installed at home and I’m not sure if the planned Telescopic Plastic compound masting would support the stacked antennas.  From talking to a few hams I know the masting can support what I have now but I do have my doubts about doubling the weight…  So unless we move…  For now its the single loops.

.

So at the end of it all…  Like I said the toys worked…  With a total of 13 contacts in 9 Grid Squares I guess that nobody should feel threatened and as always I did have fun…

73bob

Playing with the new toys

Or at least some of them…

I finally got the loops installed so I can use the FT897 on 6m and 2m ssb.  The timing was good as I managed to get things done in time for the CQ VHF contest  which starts this Saturday at 1800 utc

I will be operating from home testing out the loops and testing them out in a contest should prove how good they work… Or don’t work…

In addition I have been playing with my wire antenna.  It started out as a W3EDP (84 foot long wire with a 17 foot counterpoise) and I decided to try things as an Inverted “L” which had the same 84 foot longwire with a bunch (100 feet) of wire laid out as radials.  After two days of playing I decided to remove all the radials and go back to the W3EDP Design with the 17 foot counterpoise.

The tuner was able to tune the W3EDP easier than the inverted L…

In addition I have been getting the FT 450 figured out and I love the DSP…  It really makes a big difference in my high noise level QTH and the audio/signal reports I am receiving are great as well.  Given my circumstances for antennas and electrical noise I don’t think I could do much better than how things are going now.

So the plan is to test out the VHF side of things and have fun…  Hope to hear you on the bands

73bob

 

VHF Contest Update

Been at it now for 6 hours and not setting any records…  No openings only groundwave…. Almonte, Ottawa, Gatineau and Sharbot Lake on 6m with Almonte, Ottawa and Gatineau on 2m…

Hopefully things will be better tomorrow…

73bob