Some comments and getting OQP plans finished….

Lets get the easy things done first…

VA3QV WILL BE operating in the Ontario QSO Party from Ottawa. 

Fair weather plans are to operate from a greenspace area fairly close to my home QTH.  I will be operating on Saturday PM on 2m to 40m SSB QRP and on Sunday 2m to 80m SSB QRP

Bad weather back up plans are to operate from home (QRP SSB) on 2 to 80m depending on band conditons at the time.

As I am still down to one radio for HF… My FT817 will be the radio of choice for the event…

Antennas will be as follows:

Saturday Day- Par End Fed and dual band (2m-6m) wire dipole

Saturday Evening and foul wx setup- S9 43 foot vertical along with 6m delta loop

Sunday Day- W3EDP end fed and dual band wire dipole or foul wx setup (see above)

As you can see I am planning to give out some contacts but as its QRP you have to have a decent RCV to hear my 5w signal…  Lets see how many of you can hear it…

Now on to the coments…

Arthur…. the soggy ground would be better if it was salt marsh but…  soggy is most likely better than dry…  however with some ailments that seem to have stricken me as I increase in age my joints (knees and ankles) just to name a few prefer dry….  and a warm dry is even better…

Martin: (the RaDAR one… not the SOTA one)  Hope your RaDAR event went well…  I tried participating in the past but did not have prop conditions to South Africa (who were the only ones participating at the time).  I am looking forward to the November event when the ground is dry (cold but dry) and the leaves are off the trees making it easier to string the end fed up…

RAC in General:  Back in Jan 2013 I decided to let my membership lapse.  The only way I felt I could protest things was to hit them where it hurts (the wallet).  I have long stated that if you are not a member then you don’t have the right to bitch about how things are being done.  As I am not a member that should explain my lack of comments on the topic.  There is another blogger out there ( check my blogroll) who is taking them to task and I do agree with 99% of what he has been saying on the topic…

As a “Non Member” I did look through the RAC website with the hope of seeing some areas where there would be improvements in policy and attitudes… which might be a sign that it would be worth renewing my membership.  I am sorry to say that I am still a “Non Member”…

Getting back to “Fun Radio Stuff”….

The weekend after the OQP we also have the QRP to the field event.  You can follow the link to their website…  It would be a fun way to spend a Saturday (EDST) afternoon either as a participant or just giving out QRO contacts for the QRP operators to copy…

Check back on sometime on Monday for my expected Bragging or Excuses on the Ontario QSO Party results…

73bob

Weather STILL effecting operating….

Well yesterday according to Chris St Clair of the Weather Network:

It snowed yesterday in Canada…  All over Canada…  In every Province and Territory of Canada…  it snowed!!!

For me that means that its another day the FT 817 will not see the park…  Not only that…  The added moisture on the ground adds a couple more days that I will be not going out due to soggy ground conditions…

Remember this from last week???

So as I write this posting looking at the upcoming WX forcast…  The temps are going to take a quick rise and we are expecting temps in the “Teens” (remember we are using “C” here in Canada) which will quickly melt the remaining snow the rest of the forcast includes lots of wet.  Remember the old saying that “April Showers brings May Flowers”  we should have a great garden in May…

However this does not help the Portable Operator as I need a dry operating location to play radio from…  So far things are not looking promising for a decent showing in the Ontario QSO Party which will be happening in a week from now…  If you had asked me over the winter what my plans were for the OQP my answer (most likely) would of been to load up the Electric Vespa and head out to a good operating location where the low noise floor would make up for the QRP signal of the FT 817 and have a great time playing radio…  Even a couple of weeks ago after I realized the Vespa would still be stuck in the snow in my back yard I had hoped to get out to a local park and get a few hours operating each day to get Ottawa on the air for the contest…

I still plan to get on the air and give out contacts but now its really starting to look like it will be from home with the higher noise levels….

The weekend (Saturday in the Eastern Time Zone) after the OQP is the QRP to the Field contest and for this one a few of us are heading out to play and as there are cars involved in the tranportation picture we have a location further out that has some shelter so rain or shine we will be there…

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KX3<———————————————->FT817

This will be a side by side comparision of the Elecraft KX3 and the Yaesu FT 817 so not only will it be fun but it will be informative…  I am expecting that any questions I had about the KX3 will be answered and my fears put to rest and …..  I’ll drink the Koolaid and end up ordering the new radio I have been procastinating about for so long…

And for those of you wondering what “Drink the Koolaid” means…  see below:

So there you have it….

A week today I will be giving out contacts in the Ontario QSO Party…  From where I give them out depends on Mother Nature…

But sooner or later…  The parks will dry out…  The temps will warm up and it will be a great time to be a  QRP Portable operator in an urban setting….  The location does not have to be rare or exotic…  It just has to be warm and dry with a low noise floor and I’ll be smiling…

For the record….  This telling you what I plan to do (compared to telling you what I did) really sucks…  I’m blaming it on the weather, but I really hoped to have lots more air time with the 817…  If I knew things were going to turn out like this I most likely would not of sold the 450 so quickly and operated more from home…  but then again as hindsight is always 20/20….  aw shucks…

Hopefully I’ll be back to bragging about contacts with my next post…

73bob

Back in the Saddle again

Well the title says it all…

After 3 weeks of fighting the “common cold” or whatever the *^&%$#$%^ it was….  I finally have my voice back…  I have been able to make a couple of DX Contacts and I am not sleeping most of the day away…  Strangest thing though….  Not in my memory has an ailment ever knocked me down for so long that did not large amounts of antibiotics involved…  I never even had a fever or anything normally associated with a bug… and I did have my flu shot this year as usual so I have to think that it was just a very stubborn common cold…

So now what did I miss…  I did try for the CQ WPX SSB Contest but my voice did not stand for any long term CQ DX stuff so I listened with envy and then just went back to watching the Television…

I did however find a logging program for my Galaxy Android Tablet that will talk nicely to my account of HRD Log .net and so I can now enter my contacts from the field in real time and they will show up immediately on my hrdlog.net account the same as when I enter them from home.

This of course means that I have to be within cell service distance of a Wind Mobile Tower but they seem to have excellent coverage in the areas that I normally operate from and due to being a long term customer I also have an excellent Data Plan and using my mobile hotspot (with my tablet connecting to it) I can have a solid 3G connect.  I am also using an APRS Program and a DX Cluster Program on the tablet and really now I have all the conviences of home when I operate in the field except for the computer controls of the actual Ham Radio Deluxe program…  Hopefully there will be an app for that in the near future…

I have heard of a blue tooth adapter that plugs into the FT817 (FT8X7 series of radios) that does allow using the tablet for controling the radio along with some excellent software but…  The adapter which is the expensive part of the package is for the Yaesu Radios only and I am still sitting on the fence on what the new rig will be …. Argonaut 6 and KX3 are still in contention to be added to the stable…. The 817 will not be leaving but used for VHF/UHF sat stuff…  I still do have my arrow sat beam and soon will be working it a lot more…

I also found a company that does some great Ham Radio apps for the android system and even built a PSK adapter so you can do PSK31 and other sound card modes from your device…  I have tried one of their apps so far and I like it so….  with any of the apps its your opinion that counts so follow up at your own risk but the link to their site is here and take a look around…

The weather has been slow to warm up this year so my attempts to head out to the parks just ain’t been happening.  I did not want to make the cold worse than it already was…  But I am hoping to get out again before the end of the month as April has several events that I wish to participate in…

RaDAR Contest (North America)

This is a Portable Operating contest working on the principals of Rapid Deployment Amateur Radio.  Its gets its origins from South Africa where they have an excellent group and is starting to work its way into North America.  However with the contest being early in April I am having my doubts if it will be warm enough for me to venture out without getting that cold back

Ontario QSO Party

I try and participate in the OQP every year and actually have gotten some good (no make that Great) wallpaper over the years.  This year I will most likely be operating from Ottawa (slight chance of Renfrew County again) and I know that it will be in the QRP Catagory.

QRP to the Field

This will be the first time I have actually participated in the QRPTTF event as its the first time they are allowing SSB to be part of the competition.  Previous years it was CW only.  I have assisted the OVQRP with their efforts in previous years (someone had to put up the antennas and do the coffee runs) but I am looking forward to showing what 5w and a loud voice can do…

So as you can see…  April should be a busy and fun month… Hopefully I will have lots to share with you after…  Perhaps even some gaps filled in my Worked All States for even better with some new ones added to my QRP DXCC efforts…

73bob

Results in from the 2012 Ontario QSO Party

Well this seems like a day for contesting…

Found out the the Ontario QSO Party (Contest Club Ontario) results posted on their webpage today…  I draw your attention to the following:

If you refer back to my blog posting of April 23rd 2012

You would get a gentle reminder that VA3PCJ, VA2EPR and myself (VA3QV) headed up to Foymount Ontario to operate QRP for the Ontario QSO Party from Foymount Ontario… 

Not only did it seem that we were the only 3 QRP Operators in Renfrew but it also seems that we were the only 3 Operators in Renfrew County because according to the final results (as follows):

Renfrew County

VA3PCJ— REN SOQRP — 741 points 

VA3QV — REN SOQRP —  432 points

VA2EPR/VE3—  REN SOQRP—  110 points

So there you have it…  What I would call a very successful mini DXPedition.  Three guys drive up the side of a mountain in a freezing rain/snow/rain storm and operate for a couple of hours and manage to sweep the top three places in our catagory.  (To be honest we were most likely  the only three who competed in our catagory but the first way sounds better to me…)

Here is a link to the results

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Now if we were to take it one small step further and you look through the results again you will notice that VA3RCS (the call I operated on the Sunday from Ottawa) managed to finish 13th out of 33 in Single Operator Low Power Phone catagory and as silly as it seems (with a single day score of  1680 pts) was also enough to be 1st in the City of Ottawa in the Single Operator Low Power Phone catagory.  This has to prove that not enough people are submitting their logs… 

So the moral of the story for all of you is that if you don’t submit your logs you can’t win and if you do submit your score you can be happily suprised at times…

Once again thanks to the Contest Club Ontario for running the contest and to all those who were there to give me the few contacts that I did get…

73bob

From the Ontario QSO Party

I got this off the Yahoo Newsgroup for the OQP and thought it would be best shared with you…

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One week to go! Just a reminder that the deadline for submission of logs for the Ontario QSO Party is May 18th. If you have sent in your log please check the Logs Received listing at http://www.va3cco. com/oqp/logs. htm If your call isn’t there please send paper logs to http://www.va3cco. com/oqp/contact. htm and electronic entries to http://www.va3cco. com/oqp/submitlo g.htm It was a pleasure for CCO to host this event. I hope everyone enjoyed our party!
73 Bob VE3KZ

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No more putting it off…

Submit your logs

73bob

 

Giving out contacts in the Ontario QSO Party

Sorry guys… this is a large post with lots of pictures but…  They say a picture is worth a thousand words so its better I post the pictures

bob

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Although I did participate in the Ontario QSO Party  this year (2012) my plan was kind of not the best…  Instead of trying for a good score I decided that I would enjoy myself and give out lots of contacts (or at least as many as I could)  As you may or may not know the Ontario QSO Party is run over a two day period with 8 hours off in the middle so you can rest up…  It runs from 2pm EDST to Midnite EDST then returns at 8am EDST to its conclusion at 2pm EDST… 

For those of you who speak UTC thats 1800z to o500z for the first session then 1200z to 1800z for the final session.

The first year I participated in this event I was part of the Ottawa Valley Mobile Radio Clubs (VE3RAM) multi/multi event and we had a good time and actually won some walpaper for the club that year.

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We operated using the club trailer and were set up as a living exhibit at the Science Museum in Ottawa.  That was the last year that the contest ran straight through and from then on its been a split contest…  Both styles have their merits…

Running straight through allows a group thats operating portable to run for the duration without having anyone having to babysit the site with nothing going on…

Splitting into two sessions allows Rovers to take the time to stop and charge their batteries for both the gear and themselves and makes it easier for people to operate as they no longer have to be sleep deprived to get a decent score…

So now we seem to have lots of rovers but not so many Field Day Style stations…. oh well…  There was a little bit of chatter a while back about adding a portable station catagory that would operate for one (not both) of the sessions  allowing people to head to a rare county to operate from but not have any dead time on the overnites…  The rules for this would or could be close to the rules for the Hill topper catagory in the CQ WW VHF Contests…  Unfortunately the addition of the catagory never happened which brings us back to today…

This year 3 of us decided that it was time for a QRP Day trip.  In all honesty about 7 of us decided but we lost a few along the way and 3 of us ended up making the trip… 

Figuring on wanting the best chance to make contacts we decided to head out for the Saturday session of the Ontario QSO Party to Foymount Ontario and operate from whats left of the old Radar Base.

Saturday am Tom VA2EPR, Jose VA3PCJ and myself loaded up Jose’s Jeep and we headed out to Foymount with various antennas and a Pair of Yaesu FT817s and an ICOM IC 703 as we were going to operate QRP Portable for the Ontario QSO Party. 

The travel plans called for us to leave Ottawa around 9am and with a meal stop planned in Renfrew Ontario we would arrive at Foymount around noon which would give us 2 hours to get the antennas up and be on the air for the start of the contest at 1400…

Unloading in a snowstorm

Picture courtesy VA3PCJ

Well we did arrive on schedule but the weather had turned nasty.  For the details on the Weather see my previous post.  It was windy and it was cold…. There was a dampness in the air but to make matters worse we kept on getting hit with snow squalls and there is not that much shelter where we were forced to operate from…

Picture courtesy VA3PCJ

Picture courtesy VA3PCJ

The term “Forced to” is a bit misleading but the area has changes slightly from the last time (March 2011) I had operated from Foymount.  Most notable and also visiable are the “NO TRESPASSING” signs that are put up in certain areas.  It did cut down on the operating area for the event.  By my views…  you can still operate up there but the best locations are now for whatever reason “off limits”

If you take a look at the below picture where the Orange Dots showed the approximate locations of where we planned to operate from only the one on the right hand side is still accessable without entering an area without a No Trespassing Sign

Picture courtesy VA3PCJ

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Here is a modified picture that shows where you can and can’t go from the way I look at the way the signs are placed.  Not sure what the official site plan says so its a operate at your own risk…

The above viewing is based on my opinons given the placement of the No Trespassing Signs on Saturday April 21st.

You do still have one fairly good location to put up a mast for some vhf beams and a HF vertical but there are no trees to help with dipoles or wires and so we are now fairly limited on what we can do up there without trespassing. 

Granted when we were there we saw no signs of enforcement and they would have had to go past us to check the other areas but…  It does hamper ones choices of where to operate…

I hate to harp on the topic but…  You operate there at your own risk…  We got away with it and might of been lucky or been in the right place that was allowed… 

But now back to the Giving out contacts part…  Realizing that we would not be able to participate for even the full time of the Saturday part of the contest due to the fact that the temps really start to drop up there once the sun goes down we had hoped to operate from 2pm to about 6pm or so…  To give out the maximum contacts we had agreed to operate as 3 Single Operators and share the frequencies rather than run as a Multi Op station.

That way you had 3 chances to get Renfrew County (REN) into the log. 

 As it turns out from what we were told from people we had contacted there is a good chance that we were the only operators from Renfrew.  Not sure to be honest,  but every one told us that they were happy to get us in the log as Renfrew is rare…

According to our notes between Tom, Jose and myself approx 60 operators got REN in the log in the 3 hours we were able to operate before the cold just took the fun out of it.  So if you got VA2EPR/ve3 or VA3PCJ/p or VA3QV (I did not sign /p) then you were one of the lucky 60…  If not sorry… blame it on the weather…

Picture courtesy VA3PCJ

We headed down the hill and warmed up…  The Tavern Restaurant in Wilno Ontario is another story…  and its also a very nice place to stop to refuel oneself after a day in the cold.

Tom VA2EPR is the younger operator… I’m the other one (without my famous hat)

Picture courtesy VA3PCJ

On Sunday am I decided to again give out some contacts from Ottawa (OTT) using my VA3RCS callsign.  According to the OQP Rules I could not participate from Ottawa and Renfrew  using the same callsign unless I was a rover and as I had not been a rover on Saturday…. oh well…  I dusted off my old VA3RCS call and started right at 8am on the Sunday am…  I managed a total of 37 QSOs in what I would call poor band conditions…  and outside of taking small breaks for coffee, snacks etc I finally called it quits at about 130 pm…

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So here is the final tally for both days…

Saturday- VA3QV Renfrew County (REN) QRP 5W- 19 QSO’s with 16 multis for a total of 592 points

Sunday- VA3RCS Ottawa (OTT) 100w- 38 QSO’s with 30 multis for a total of 1680 points

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Not that I ever concidered myself a contester but…  Thats about the worst scores I have ever even thought of submitting…  But the important part was I did have fun…  And I’m willing to bet that whoever wins the OQP most likely had either VA3PCJ, VA2EPR, VA3QV or VA3RCS in their logs…  And thats a big part of what makes it fun…

73bob

A 30 percent chance of rain…

… means a 70 percent chance of snow!!!

And if anyone wonders why I put it like that then you were not sitting at the top of Foymount today attempting to participate in the Ontario QSO Party…

This morning VA3PCJ, VA2EPR and myself set out from Ottawa with the idea of arriving in Foymount Ontario in time to start the Ontario QSO Party at 1400 hrs…  It rained for most of the way there but seemed to let up just before we made the last climb up to the top of the hill…  Before you comment about the climb… The Jeep did all the work…

It was snowing when we got up to the top and it did take a bit longer to get the gear set up because along with the snow there was one heck of a wind blowing and between the snow and the moisture in the air the added wind chill just made things nasty…

We ended operating in shifts with Jose (it was his jeep) staying warm and operating from the jeep and then Tom VA2EPR and myself taking turns operating and then warming up inside the jeep…  For this event we all operated under our own calls so in effect there were 3 Single Operator QRP contesters operating from the same location.  Our county was RENFREW County and the exchange we were giving out was 5/9 (its a contest… everyones 5/9) REN…

Due to the cold, damp weather conditions and there were no bonus points for Hypothermia a little after 5pm (3 hours in the cold) we decided to pack up and head over to Wilno Ontario and have supper at the world Famous Wilno Tavern…

View Larger Map

Well worth the visit if you ever get into that neck of the woods…  And we compared notes…

 It seems we all made roughly the same amount of contacts…  I know I made 19 so that roughly 60 REN’s that were given out to the other contesters and that in itself made it a fun afternoon…  As I mentioned earlier the idea was to give out contacts before the batteries gave out and we did just that…

There will be a more detailed posting with some pictures (as soon as they get sent to me)  out most likely tomorrow (Sunday)…

73bob

This Saturday and the Ontario QSO Party

This Saturday am (thats April 21st) VA2EPR Tom, VA3QV Bob will be getting into the Jeep belonging to VA3PCJ Jose and leaving Ottawa to head up to Foymount Ontario to operate from Renfrew County (REN) for the Ontario QSO Party…  The contest is sponsored by the Contest Club Ontario.   Please follow the links to go the websites  for more information.

If you chose to follow VA3PCJ-7 on aprs.fi you will be able to even see when we get there… or you can watch us as we travel up there.  I will also be active on aprs.fi as VA3QV-7 but I will just be beaconing occasionally along the way and once we arrive just so my XYL who follows me on aprs will know that I am still moving.

The plan is to arrive there around noon and get the 3 stations set up (we all will be operating single op QRP under our own calls) and give out lots of REN contacts from the start at 1400 till the sun goes down as the temps start to drop at the same time.  Seeing that the weather person is calling for rain   (or to be specific “Cloudy with showers” ) we are planning to be hunkered down under a couple of tarps… trying to stay dry…

Both Tom and myself operate the Yaesu FT 817 and we will be operating HF and vhf/6m.  Jose with the ICOM IC 703 and will be operating HF and 6m.  Both Tom and Jose dabble in CW and I prefer SSB.  I know that Jose will be using his 43 foot S9 Vertical which attaches to his trailer hitch and he will be able to operate 6m to 80m.  I will have my Par end Fed antenna and so will be operating 10m to 40m and I will also have a 6m dipole antenna which also works great on 2m.  Not sure what Tom is bringing for HF but he will have a dipole for 6m and a small arrow beam on a camera tripod for 2m.

I know Tom’s vhf/6m set up works great as I have worked him on several SOTA activations when he was up on the hill and I was nice and warm/dry in the shack in Ottawa.

Although I don’t seriously contest I do enjoy having lots of people to talk to… I guess the term would be “Giving out Contacts“.   Operating for about 5 hours with any luck will give out the Valued REN multiplier out on several bands and help a few operators work towards the rare “Clean Sweep” which they get if they can contact all the Ontario Multis in the Contest.  Its a big province so its not as easy as it looks…

Click on this link to see the complete map.

Hope to work you in the contest…

And remember that “Radio can be an outdoor sport…”

73bob

Going to Foymount for the 2012 Ontario QSO Party

Theres  4 of us who are planning  to make a road trip up to Foymount Ontario for the Saturday of the Ontario QSO Party (Saturday April 21st) .

For those of you who participate in the contest that would put us in Renfrew County (REN)

With any long distance trip the logistics are the biggest issue

View Larger Map

and then once we get there Frequency coordination also plays an issue.  In this case as the operating area is so much larger the issue is not as great as usual…

As you can see from the above picture the area is quite large.  The 4 orange dots would be approximate operating locations that have worked for us before with limited interference.  Operating QRP is one advantage and also as the CW Portion and the SSB portions of most bands are well seperated… interference should not be an issue… (Says Bob crossing his fingers…)

Howver road trips often cause problems of their own…  We all have to get there…  We all have to get back….  The weather has to cooperate as not everyone can operate from their cars…  And assuming that we get there…. and the weather is nice… then the bands have to be open….

Confirmed operators at this time are:

Martin VA3SIE (Elecraft KX1 or if we are lucky KX3)

Tom VA2EPR (Yaesu FT 817)

Jose VA3PCJ (ICOM IC 703)

Bob VA3QV (Yaesu FT 817)

As you can see we have a good mixture of CW and SSB ops and even though we are all going to be QRP with the altitude (and attitude) we will have from operating from Foymount should ensure that Renfrew County will be in most stations logs…

On the topic of the Weather…  Lets see …. sitting at the top of the tallest piece of land in most of Ontario with several large communications towers close by in a Thunderstorm…  and to make it more interesting I have antennas in the air as well…Not something I really want to do…

But the location is great… “Height is might” as we say…  Its super for VHF SSB/CW Operations as well as HF SSB/CW Operations.  Even calling on 146.520 FM in the past has gotten me many contacts in a few different Grid Squares.  On the topic of Grid Squares we will be bringing quite a few radios that operate on 6m and a couple of FT817s that operate on 2m and 70-cm as well so for those of you who chase Squares aim your beams towards FN15ik and listen for 5w signals cause we will be there with small beams and dipoles and calling.

Nothing is carved in stone yet…  Its still in the planning stages and we are all watching the weather and crossing our fingers keeping in mind that Wet is not a good thing but Sound and Light is worse…

So in reality right now what we have is a group of 4 (or so) QRP Radio Operators who all want to head up to Foymount Ontario on April 21st.  And thats not a bad start…  How many will make the trip??? An EXCELLENT question…  Will the weather allow us to go???  A Better question… But we are going to try…

73bob

Friday Apr 13th at Brewer Park

If there had not been a couple of Hockey Games on the Telvision last Nite I might of gotten this posted last nite so the delay we can blame on the CBC and TSN.  I am not a real big hockey fan anymore (even with the Senators being in Ottawa) but I do get carried away with the game once the playoff start and last night there were 3 games I was able to watch…

Anyway…  Back to Radio…

Friday afternoon Jose VA3PCJ and myself headed over to Brewer Park and tested out a couple of setups ee are planning to use this coming Saturday (thats  a week today) when we (along with a few others) head up to the old Foymount —Cold War— Radar Base, setting up at the top and playing radio for a few hours and give out lots of contacts in the Ontario QSO Party.

We even had a visitor as Chris VA3CME walked over from his QTH and spent some time with us.  I had not seen Chris since the September 2011 Ottawa Amateur Radio Club  Portable Station Demonstration  where he took an excellent Video of the event.  It was good to see him and have a chat again… In a previous life Chris used to make really good videos and it shows with the one from the park…Check out the following:

Check out the video around the 3:05 mark for some equipment you have seen and heard of before…

I took my Yaesu FT 817/LDG QRP Autotuner with my homebrewed W3EDP Antenna and Jose brought his ICOM IC 703 and his Jeep mounted S9 43 foot vertical along with two different ununs to feed the antenna with.  The first one was a commercal 4:1 unun and the second was a home brewed 9:1 unun.  As far as loading up the antenna with the 703′s built in Tuner went the 9:1 was the victor  with the system able to load up on 10m to 160m (not sure how good it would of worked on 160 but at least it loaded up)…

Another inovation Jose wanted to test was hooking the ununs directly to the back of the IC703 (like we saw in the video a few days back) so ther was no line loss.

The wires of the S9 ran directly to the unun and as he has a built in tuner on the 703 there was no coax to get lossy..  Although it does limit where you can operate from and we did discuss how we would not want to operate from so close to the antenna if we were running 100w I feel that its acceptable for a QRP SSB signal that might be at a 5w output on the peaks…

However at my end testing the W3EDP brought some interesting comparisons that were to be expected….  The antenna performed faily well on the lower bands compard to the S9.  40m signal reports were very close and 80m noise levels seemed the same.  On the higher bands the 43 foot vertical beat the Horizontal W3EDP hands down.

In the past the PAR QRP end fed in an almost vertial configuration (slight sloper) has performed just as well on 10m to 40 as the S9.  Seeing that we are not going to be operating at Foymount overnight (Just from the start of the contest till the sun goes down) I am concidering taking the PAR instead of the W3EDP for the trip…  Looks like I will be doing more testing before we leave (WX Permitting) on Saturday am

On to the weekend stuff….

Liz has hinted that I should be doing a little yard work this weekend.  I started the yardwork a few weeks ago when we had that very early heatwave then promptly lost interest when the tempetures returned to the more seasonal levels.  But now she wants the back yard cleaned up and it going to be easier if I do it as I won’t rake up the radials for the S9 that I did not  bury last fall when I installed it…  If she does the raking I will have to reinstall all the radial and then bury them so its easier just to rake carefully and then cover the radials with a slight covering of dirt and grass seed…  Other than that and a family BBQ there are no real events planned for the weekend.

With the usual weather permitting thoughts VA3PCJ and I might return to Brewer Park for the 80m Pothole Net on Sunday am… But being fair weather hams I don’t see us setting up in the rain…

I would also like to (as always check the cluster)  and try and get the DXCC count to rise.  It seems to happen in spurts though…  I sat the longest time at 124 and then in two day manged to get up to 127 where we have sat for 2 days…

The confirmed total on EQSL is sitting at 50 (and any of the Direct/Buro Cards I have are not for anything I have not got an EQSL for) so I am sitting at 50 confimred…  (And for those of you who are purists…  Yes I know that the ARRL DXCC Desk does not accept EQSLs.  But for a casural operator who has not fully gotten bitten by the DX bug it works great to keep count.  See my following comments about LoTW) For a while I have been procastinating about getting my account opened on Logbook of the World (LoTW) so I guess I should get off my duff and get the account up and running so I can u/l my log and see how I’m actually going.

The weather for Saturday if supposed to be good and they are saying that we might (in Ottawa) get wet on Sunday…  Perhaps I’ll meet you on the air over the weekend.  It fairly easy to find me though….

If you check on the right side of your screen you will see “VA3QV Links”  If you click on either the “VA3QV on line Log” or the “VA3QV on QRZ” and look around on the page you will see just above my log a little graphic that will say something like VA3QV is on the air and give the frequency”…  If you think we are within propagation range why not give me a shout…????

More later on how the weekend is progressing

73bob