Busy time on the Club Scene here in the Ottawa Area

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. “Lest we forget…”

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Coming up starting tonight the local clubs will be busy….

Tonight… The 3730/VE3ORF group meets tonight with a Supper Meeting starting at 1730 hours and the business part of the meeting starting at about 1900 hrs at Rockwells Family Restaurant in the Merivale South area of Ottawa.  (close to the Darwin Arena) I attended last months meeting and had a great time and as I was offered a ride there I’ll be going there again tonight

Also Tonight…  The West Carleton Amateur Radio Club meets tonight in the meeting room at Sobeys in Kanata (Terry Fox dr/Eagleson Road)  This would be in the general area of Scotia Bank Place (where they used to play NHL Hockey in Ottawa)  The meeting starts at 1930 hours and for more info check out their website…

On Wednesday November 14…  The Ottawa Valley QRP Society will be having their monthly Supper meeting at Donnas Restaurant (ChurchillAve  North of Richmond Road and south of Scott) starting around 1700 hrs with the members showing up depending on Ottawa’s Rush hour situation.  Limited info on their website…

Also on Wednesday November 14th…  The Ottawa Amateur Radio Club will be having their monthly meeting at the Ottawa City Hall (111 Laurier St W) at 1930 hours.  The smart people show up just around 1900 to get a good seat (a bit earlier depending on the guest speaker for the evening)

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On Thursday Novermber 15th…  The Ottawa Valley Mobile Radio Club will be having their montly meeting at the Canada Museum of Science and Technology located on Lancaster Road just east of St Laurent blvd.  Meeting start at 1930 and once again its usually a good idea to get there a bit early…

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According to their website  (the recently restructured)   Manotick Amateur Radio Group (MARG) will be holding their montly meeting on November 21st at 2000hrs.   I am guessing they will be proving more information (location and guest speaker) before the meeting date. They used to meet at the Manotick branch of the Ottawa Public Library and I am not sure if that has changed…

So as you can see…  you do have options…  CU at at least at one of the meetings and maybe more…

73bob

Its going to be a busy two days….

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….

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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…

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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

Busy (upcoming) weekend in Ottawa

First of all thanks to that Europoean DX Contest of the weekend just past…  Every time I was bored this weekend I was able to head down in the shack and work DX on 10-15-20 and 40m.

Make a few contacts and then come back a couple of hours later and make a few more contacts.  Although according to the Atlas I have not worked all of Europe yet in the approximately 30 contacts I made over the weekend in Europe I got no new ones…  All I was doing was hearing a CQ and answering it…  If the log said he was a dupe then don’t answer…  Was not looking for anything…  Just giving out the contacts for those who were contesting…

So that was the weekend past….

The weekend future (September 15th-16th) is starting to fill up pretty quickly in Ottawa with 3 events happening so far…  The big event would be the Ottawa Valley QRP Societys “Chilicon”  This is a laid back camping event with QRP Portable Operations thrown in for good measure.

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People will start arriving at Rideau River Provincal Park (south of Ottawa in Kemptville Ontario)  on Friday afternoon and will run all weekend.  This is a very unstructured event…  Show up when you want….  Leave when you want….  Operate how you want…. with evening gatherings by a campfire to lie (brag) about your setup and contacts made…

It can also be a lot of fun…

In case of rotten weather there is a large covered area when you can sit and operate or cook etc sheltered from the rain…  Covered roof but no sides…  This is the last weekend the park is open for the season so it won’t be too busy…

Walk around the park and listen for the sounds of CW and the radio ops will be easy to find…

On Saturday am the Ottawa Amateur Radio Club will be sponsoring a Portable Radio Demo Event at Britannia Park in Ottawa’s west end.

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There will be all sorts of goodies to be seen….

Stations of all kinds …   QRO, QRP, Portable and Transportable…. CW, SSB and Digital….  This will start at 10am and will go till about noon….

The area we operate from for this one is lacking foul weather shelter but another area of the park has a large covered shelter.  I’m not sure what the plans are for bad wx.  Limited talk in and info on the morning might be found on repeater VE2CRA (146.940  -   ctcss 100.0)

Heres what last years event looked like… Courtesy VA3CME… And place CLOSE ATTENTION at the 3:05 mark of the video for a great looking Portable station and an excellent experienced operator….

What a few of us wimps (those who don’t tent camp, LIKE MYSELF)  do is spend Friday night in Ottawa and then head to Britannia on Saturday am then head south to Kemptville for Chilicon and spend Saturday afternoon & evening there and return to Ottawa on Saturday night….  It make for a busy day but a fun day…

This might be a good time for a few definations of the terms I have used so far today…

QRP- refers to the power level used by the transmitter  Less than 5w

QRO- refers to the power level used the the transmitter.  Normally 100w or more

Portable station is a complete field station that you carry to the field in one trip

This is my portable station.  As you can see everything fits into the backpack and is easy to carry and setup…

Transportable station is a complete field stations that you carry from the parking lot to the field in more than 1 trip or with several people helping you

Above is a picture of my “Transportable Station”  FT897- LDG Autotuner- W3EDP Antenna and the heavier than heck Marine Battery.  The weight of the battery alone makes this a Transportable Station.

Below is the same station being used by Connie NR4CB when she dropped in to visit the VE3ORF/3730 group when they set up at Iroquois Ontario just after field day.

Now on Sunday Sept 15 I have heard that some of the heartier ones are doing a SOTA activation of Mt. Ste Marie QC (FN25) that will (might) include some of the microwave bands…  I am still working on getting a bit more info on this… I’ll let you know once I get more info…

Enjoy your week

73bob

It was a Good Weekend but….

Don’t you just hate it when the “but…” gets put into the statement?

Anyway as you know VA3PCJ and myself spent Saturday operating the ILLW event from the Sand Point Lighthouse in Braeside Ontario (CA0034) and we had a great time…

I managed 12 contacts with other lighthouses along with 7 contacts with stations who were just calling CQ so I ended up with 19 contacts in the log.  This itself, is not really a large amount but the fact that I was able to break 19 Pileups while operating QRP SSB with a portable antenna kinda is impressive.  If you think its easy then dial back your power and point your beam away from who you want to talk to and see how easy it is…

Sunday turned out to be a radio day as well…  I walked over the the Science Museum in Ottawa ( I live less than a km away) and guest operated VE3RAM (OVMRC Club Station) which was operating from the Cape North (Old) Lighthouse (CA0016) which is on the museum grounds…  The 4 contacts I put into the log added to their score…  From what I saw of their log they did really well but they were running 100w with multiple antennas…  But they still did good…

The “but” side of things is that I have found out that I will most likely not get D64K into the log as today I saw the following posted:

I have been listening and watching the cluster but it seems that their location (Island on the far side of Africa) is just not in my skip zone on any band.  Actually I have looked at the DX Map and I’m not getting much from that area of the world…

I’ve made contacts further but as you can see from the above map…  the eastern coast of Africa tends to be elusive for me…

I did hear them a couple of times but not strong enough to determine if they would of been answering me so I never actually even called them…  Perhaps next time after I do something to increease my radials to the east.  I have good recieve to the west and the south but I am lacking the right amount of real estate to get the proper radial pattern to the north and east…  Not complaining as I’m not doing that poorly but you can only do so much in a compromise situation…

However the Weather is starting to cool down a bit and the kids will be going back to school soon which will free up local parks and further away llocations for day trips to work portable from…  I do see a couple of (local) SOTA activations in my future before the snow falls and we do have the Ottawa Valley QRP Societys “Chilicon” event coming up in Mid September…  Actually there are some thoughts of heading to the Champlain Lookout (local high ground) and operate for the ARRL VHF Contest in September…

There is lots of time to play radio before I hibernate for the winter…

73bob

 

Field Day Video courtesy of VA3CME

Now I bring you back a few days in time when I mentioned the following:

“This year if your looking for Field Day locations in Ottawa and area according to the ARRL Field Day Map on line you have a few to choose from.

According to the map the Ottawa Amateur Radio Club will be operating VE3RC at St Pauls University in Old Ottawa East. Set up would start around 10am and as usual the talk in would be on the club repeater VE2CRA 146.940 (-) CTCSS 100.0 The OARC normally runs a 2A station. Check their website for more information.

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The Ottawa Valley Mobile Radio Club will be at on the grounds of the Canada Science and Technology Musuem on St Laurent Blvd. Their website has not been updated with their Field Day info yet but I have heard some people talking about the Club Communications trailer being set up for Field Day so they will be there. The OVMRC Club Repeater is VE3TWO and its Frequency is 147.300 (+).

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The Ottawa Valley QRP Society will be set up in the Hampton Park area of Ottawa just north of the 417 on Island Park Drive. Once again setup should be around 10am and they are less structured (more efficient) than some of the larger clubs. Last year they did very well concidering they were operating at QRP power levels. Well worth dropping in to visit them if you have the chance.

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Well as it turned out Chris VA3CME took my suggestion to heart and visited the 3 sites that were in Ottawa and to make it more interesting he took his video equipment with him when he did…

The results are below…  Just wanted to thank Chris for allowing me to share this with you and also thank him for all his work editing the images after.  He did this rather than have fun screaming CQ Field Day…

73bob

Field Day 2012 in Ottawa

This year if your looking for Field Day locations in Ottawa and area according to the ARRL Field Day Map on line you have a few to choose from.

 According to the map the Ottawa Amateur Radio Club will be operating VE3RC at St Pauls University in Old Ottawa East.  Set up would start around 10am and as usual the talk in would be on the club repeater VE2CRA 146.940 (-) CTCSS 100.0 The OARC normally runs  a 2A station.  Check their website for more information.

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The Ottawa Valley Mobile Radio Club will be at on the grounds of the Canada Science and Technology Musuem on St Laurent Blvd.  Their website has not been updated with their Field Day info yet but I have heard some people talking about the Club Communications trailer being set up for Field Day so they will be there.  The OVMRC Club Repeater is VE3TWO and its Frequency is 147.300 (+).

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The Ottawa Valley QRP Society will be set up in the Hampton Park area of Ottawa just north of the 417 on Island Park Drive.  Once again setup should be around 10am and they are less structured (more efficient) than some of the larger clubs.  Last year they did very well concidering they were operating at QRP power levels.  Well worth dropping in to visit them if you have the chance.

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Now if you happen to be driving into Ottawa on the 416 ( or leaving Ottawa on the 416) the VE3ORF/3730 Group will be holding their Field Day in Kemptville Ontario.  Note that this is a new location as they outgrew their old location in Kars Ontario.  Talk in will be on VE3ORF 146.850 (-) CTCSS 151.4 . 

So there you have it…  If you needed something to do this weekend you can visit a bunch of Field Day sites…  But its always fun to work them on the air so …

73bob

This week in Amateur Radio

Well if your into the Group/Society/Club scene and in the Ottawa area this week will be a good one for you…

Tuesday evening the VE3ORF/3730 group  will be having their monthly social evening at Rockewells Restaurant in the Merivale Mall in Ottawa.  The supper part of the social starts at 530pm and the group ragchew after.  These guys have a great field day station every year and I believe that this will be one of the topics of discussion for the evening…. Check out the link to their website for more info…

Wednesday (early) evening the Ottawa Valley QRP Society  has their supper meeting at Donna’s Restaurant in Westboro in Ottawas west end.  If your into to CW, QRP Operations and building this is the place to be.  They are a good bunch of guys who even let me show up (every now and again) even though I dislike CW and building but I do like QRP operating.

Both groups dinner meetings are (seperate checks) pay for what you consume…

Also on Wednesday evening (a bit later) you can head over to the Ottawa City Hall for the monthly meeting of the Ottawa Amateur Radio Club.  A good bunch of amateurs (and you most likely will see me there) and the meeting starts at 730pm.  Always a guest speaker/presentation…  With free coffee for visitors…

So if I time it right…  If I attend the OVQRP Society supper meeting and then run across town to City Hall on Wednesday evening I might burn off calories from the Supper (the Pizza is FANTASTIC) at Donnas by the time I make to the OARC Meeting…

73bob

Saturday with two outdoor events

Now that I have finished “foaming at the mouth” (see previous posting” lets talk a bit about Saturdays fantastic time in the Parks with the Ottawa Amateur Radio Club and the Ottawa Valley QRP Society…

Saturday morning (way too early) I hopped a bus with my FT817/Par End Fed multi band qrp antenna  with assorted batteries and feed lines and made my way over to Britannia Park for the Ottawa Amateur Radio Club’s QRP/Portable Station Demonstrations.  I arrived around 0900 set up and was on the air by around 0915.  I was operating on 10-15-17-20-40m and using the 5w of the FT817 made the following contacts using  SSB. 

7.225… KB1VIB… Jim… Hartford Conn

7.184… W2TSL… Tom… Boston Mass

7.153… VE3PSV… Shawn… Cambridge Ont

7.216… W2D… Stoney PT Lighthouse… New York

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Updated… if you go to the OARC Website you can find a link to pictures of the event

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Around noon Martin VA3SIE met up with me at Britannia Park and we packed up my gear into his car and we headed out to Rideau River Provincial Park in Kemptville Ontario.  The reason for this trip was the annual “Chilicon” QRP convention sponsored by the Ottawa Valley QRP Society.  Convention might be the term to describe it but in reality its a QRP/Camping trip held at the last weekend the Rideau River Park is open for the season and we show up when we can, operate as long as we can, and stay as long as we can. 

Amateurs in attendance at Chilicon were, VE3WMB Micheal, VE3EUR Pat, VE3CLQ Bill, VA3KV Jim, VA3YH Ying, VA3SIE Martin and VA3QV Bob.  VE3AKV and another ham dropped in for a visit but they were camping with friends at the park in a non related event.

Some hearty souls stay for the weekend and others like myself show up for the afternoon and head back to the comfort of home before bedtime…  I operated from a Picnic Table at the beach overlooking the Rideau River and made the following contacts using QRP SSB

14.270…WX7P… Wilse…Rice Washington State

14.181… S550ACP…Special Event Stn… Slovenia

7.209… VE3MIS… Special Event Stn… Mississauga

18.160… W6H… Special Event Stn… Albuquerque New Mexico

14.310… WW7CA… Cynthia… Addy Washington State

In addition to the stations listed above from both locations there were many others that I heard with no issues but they might of had a problem hearing my booming 5W signal from the Par antenna at 35 feet AGL?  But it was a great time…

After playing radio we passed the hat so to speak and ordered a bunch of Pizzas from a Restaurant in Kemptville who delivered them to the Park Gate and we sat around the Picnic Table with a hearty feast of Pizza and a few appropiate beverages and swapped lies about how good our contacts had been as well as our other exploits in Amateur Radio…  It was a blast…

At 10pm we remembered that those of us who were at the park on a Day Pass (visitors pass) had to leave the park and so a log was tossed on the campfire for those who were staying and Martin and I left to return to Ottawa… 

I arrived home around 11pm and felt fantastic after a great day of radio…

I hope your day went as well…

73bob

Saturdays update

(this is one of my longer posts but it was a busy day…bob)

This post has been updated with pictures used with permission from VE3MPG whose camera works…

Good Sunday morning….

I shouda done this last night but to be honest I was just plain beat and did not have the energy….

Heres how the day went…

I got up (at my age thats always a good start) and headed out via OC TRANSPO (I normally call it the Red and White Rocket) and I headed downtown to the Ottawa University Campus Station.

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I then headed across the Rideau Canal on the foot bridge and headed over to St Lukes Park for the Ottawa Amateur Radio Club’s Portable Station Demonstration Event.

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I met up with the group at the Elgin Street Diner for a hearty breakfast and then we all headed across the street to the park and set up our stations and started QRM’ing ourselves.

Operators included VE3FFK operating QRP with his Elecraft K1, VA3AE operating QRP with his Elcraft KX1, VA3QV (atsa me) operating QRP with my FT817, VE3KL operating QRO with his FT 857 and VA3QN operating QRO with his FT857.  There were two Buddistick style antennas, A long wire using the chain link fence as a counterpoise and various wire antennas and one homebrewed 20m rotatable dipole…..  There were also lots of visitors  both from the general public and the local Amateur Community.

Modes of operations included CW, SSB and PSK31 and everyone seemed to be making some contacts.  In an attempt to get away from some of the QRM I stuck to 80m voice and made a couple of contacts with the controllers of the ONTARS Net on 3.755.

The group was scheduled to operate from 1000-1200 EDST and in my case I decided to pack up just after 1100 so I could spend some time socializing with the group.  I re packed all the gear and then wandered around and was a social animal for a while compared to what they usually call me (unsociable ba$tard…)  A lot of the people I only seem to see at Field Day so it was a great social event as well as a fun operating event.

I was having camera troubles (again) with this event.  I gotta buy a new camera and remembering that when the camera does not work my phone also has a camera would not be a bad thing either.

So if you check the Ottawa Amateur Radio Club Website in a day or so I’m sure there will be some pictures posted there as there were lots of cameras (that seemed to work )in attendance…

If you click on their logo you will be taken to their website.

Just after  noon Jose VA3PCJ arrived at the park and the 2nd event of the day was about to start… Chilicon….  In Kemptville

Every year the Ottawa Valley QRP Society picks the last Provincal Park Camping weekend of the year and heads out (Weather and Wives permitting) to a local (to Ottawa) Provincal Park and sets up for a weekend of Radio and home made Chili…

This years event was held at the Rideau River Provincal Park which is located on the Rideau River Just north of Kemptville Ontario or just south of Ottawa.

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The Park is the “B” on the above map.

We arrived at the campgrounds and found VE3SIE, VE3WMB, VE3XJ and VE3CLQ taking up 4 campsites and all with stations set up. I noticed some really interesting set ups and got some new ideas for operating in the field…

VE3WMB Micheal was operating with a FT817, Manual Tuner and a W3EDP antenna, VA3SIE was using his KX1 along with an 88 foot doublet, VE3CLQ was using his FT857 along with a 2om Buddistick vertical (without the coil) and VE3XJ was using ….  Actually I’m not sure what he was using but there sure was alot of gear sitting around….

When we got there I set up my FT817 on a picnic table on the beach, found a couple of trees that were cooperating and hooked up my 88 foot doublet and home brewed 4:1 balun.

This might be a good time to mention that you have not heard me mention my twin lead W3EDP antenna in this posting.  Well last week when I threw out my back I decided (actually could not move around enough to un hook it from Doug’s place) to leave it up at Dougs so he can use it if he wants and the next time I get up there it will be already installed which makes it easier.  So until I have the time and scrounge up the parts if I need wire antennas when I am heading out it will either be the 88 foot doublet or the Windom antenna.

As none of the others were working on 80m I decided to run on 80 (to ease on QRM) and I made a couple of SSB contacts with the ONTARS Net.  Ken VE3YK in the Muskokas and Vince VA3DV on Welland Ontario.

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Once again not to shabby for 80m daytime conditions with a QRP rig.

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The skys started to get darker and the wind was picking up and being the WIMP that I am, the decision was made to tear down and be sociable before the storm (that never came) hit…

After packing the gear back in Jose’s Jeep I sat down and started chatting with the guys.  In addition to it being a radio event, social event it was also a bloggers event as I think it was most likely the largest amateur radio event with the highest percentage of ham bloggers in attendance.

The list while I was there:

VA3SIE was camping and has a blog

VE3CLQ was camping and has a blog

VE3XJ was camping

VE3WMB was camping and is the webmaster for the OVQ

VE3MPG was a visitor and has a blog (Bob forgot to take a pic of himself

VA3QV was a visitor and this is my blog.

VA3PCJ was a visitor

There were rumors of several more bodies dropping for a visit on Saturday evening and Sunday morning but as I was not there…. I can’t comment!!!

By the way as my camera was FUBAR for this event check out Bob’s Blog (the other Bob) for some great pictures of how things were.

There were plans afoot for us to stick around for supper as VE3XJ Jim is known for making a chili that is out of this world…  But with many good things they must come to an end and with the arrival of a text message from home on my cell phone was an indication that it was time and Jose and myself had to head back to Ottawa.  Although I don’t feel that my tired old legs would of let me get up if I was to stay there for the weekend in a tent it did look like fun and I am envious.  The spirit is willing,  but between a bad back and arthritis in the legs/knees/ankles….  The flesh is weak..

It was a day however and lets see how today looks…

73bob

Upcoming Ottawa Amateur Radio Events

This weekend we have two events happening in the “Greater Ottawa” area and both of them have a Portable theme …

Friday, Saturday & Sunday am-

The Ottawa Valley QRP Society is holding their almost annual QRP Camping event at the Rideau River Provincal Park in Kemptville Ontario.

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On a less structured level than FDIM or Maplecon they will be setting up their tents and playing radio from the Park.  This is supposed to be going on “Rain or Shine” but…..

Try listening on VE3RIX Repeater or follow QRPSPOTS on Twitter for more up to date information including what frequencies you might be able to find them on…

The second event is sponsored by the Ottawa Amateur Radio Club who is putting on a Portable Operations Demonstration Station at the St Luke Park in Downtown Ottawa Saturday Morning Starting at 0900 EDST.  Setup is from 0900-1000 and hopefully the stations will be operating from 1000-1200.

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I am planning to start my day there and try and hitch a ride to Kemptville with one of the participants after demonstration finishes.

As far as I know this event is also “Rain or Shine” and more information should be available on the OARC Club Repeater VE2CRA on a frequency of 146.940 (-) CTCSS 100.0.

Above Picture courtesy Larry Wilcox <SK>

“Radio can be an outdoor sport”

Above Picture courtesy Larry Wilcox <SK>

Not sure if its going to work but you could also check aprs.fi and search for VA3QV-7 and see where I am at various times on Saturday.  The reason I’m not sure is that the VX8GR and its rubber duck has to be in range of a Digi for all to work.  By my calculations I will be approx 6 miles from the closest Digi when I am in Ottawa and about 10 miles from the closest Digi when I am at Rideau River Park.  Not sure if 5w and a rubber duck will work but I will try…

73bob