Getting ready for QRP to the Field

Last night (after supper) Michel VE3EMB and myself headed out to do a “recon” of the site we were planning to operate from (along with Martin VA3SIE) this Saturday for the QRP to the Field contest….

In keeping the “HAPPY TRAILS” theme of this years event we had decided to operate from one of the Rideau Canal Lock Stations here in Ottawa as it fit the contest organisers defination of a “Trail”…

Heres the view from the picnic table looking across the Canal to Carleton University

We were fortunate enough to find a location with a bit of altitude, along with a picnic table and more than a few trees to string antennas from.  The best part is that its also off the main bike paths that are in the area so interuptions should be kept to a minimum…

One of the two (of many) antenna supports

Looking the other way

As you can see from the above pictures…  It should be a good location to operate from…

Although according to the Weather Network…  the weather guess is supposed to be excellent so things are looking up.  The plan is to arrive and be on the air for 11am EDST and operate till around 4pm EDST… Perhaps longer if the batteries hold out and we are still having fun…

However as its better to be safe than sorry…  We do have a covered operating area to play from if things get damp…  about 1km south of where we plan to operate from so….

Above- my FT 817

Below- Stock Photo of the KX3

I will be bringing my FT 817 and my antenna of the day will be my Par End Fed antenna….  Both Martin and Michel both have KX3s so I am expecting to get a good look at them in action…  I’m getting closer to “drinking the Kool Aid ” and so a good Elecraft performance today could finally tip the scales…

Above- PAR End Fed QRP (10-20-40m) Antenna

More on this after the event…

Hope to hear you on the air on Saturday…

73bob

Wednesday evening is the OARC Meeting

If you’re  in Ottawa this evening with nothing to do….

The Ottawa Amateur Radio Club is meeting at City Hall tonight …  The meeting starts officially at 1930 local but everyone shows up closer to 1900 to get a good seating location and chat with fellow amateurs…

From the OARC Website ( www.oarc.net) :

Next Meeting: The next regular meeting will be October 10 in the Col. By room of Ottawa City Hall at 7:30pm.Our speaker will be Martin Gillen, VA3SIE. He will speak on the subject of SOTA and FYBO contests/events

As hinted at (above) Martin is a very active QRP Portable Operator.  He is very active in SOTA (Summits of the Air).  We have operated together on two CISA DXPeditions as well as on several FYBO (Freeze your B***s off) and Winter Field Day events.  Recently we activated Mt Morrisette in a SOTA Activation in mid June this year  and  we also were up on Mt Ste Marie in early September.

As you can see he also is not too bad with a Video Camera either…

If you are able to attend meeting I believe it will be time well spent…

Very good chance that you will also see Trisha and I there…

73bob

It was a VERY busy weekend (Part 3 Mt Ste Marie Microwave Contest)

Continued from Part 2…

Made it home by about 1015pm and then tried to get some sleep because the Mount Ste Marie Microwave DXPedition started early (way too early) on Sunday Morning but thats for Part 3…

The alarm on my phone woke me up at 6am BC (Before Coffee) and I stumbled around getting ready.  On the bright side the kit bag was still packed from yesterday’s use at Britannia (see part 1) and Kemptville (see part 2) so I knew it was all good to go…

I made a coffee and turned the handheld on the VE2CRA Repeater and waited for the call from VE3XRA Glenn telling me that he was getting close and I should head out to the parking lot…  I had already heard from Dave VE3TLY who was going to meet us in Wakefield (at the Timmies) and Martin VA3SIE who was going to pick up Tom VA2EPR (you might remember Tom from my last Foymount DXPedition back in April 2012) and also meet us at Wakefield…

View Larger Map

Just before 7am I heard from Glenn and by 7am we were on our way to Mt. Ste Marie QC to participate in the ARRL Microwave Contest.

The map does not show everything…  The roads from Ottawa to the ski hill are great….  The road from the bottom of the ski hill to the top of the mountain are less than stellar…  I would describe it as a “Rough Trail that is covered with rocks (to avoid washouts in the rain) and those rocks are roughly between the size of golf balls and softballs… If you happen to spin your wheels on the road you will just dig in and although its easy to get unstuck and go backwards down the hill its very hard to get moving forward again unless you are driving a 4 X 4.

Above Photo courtesy VA3SIE/VA2EPR– This pic shows Martin on the hike down but pay attention to the path/road.  This was about AS GOOD AS IT GOT…  The rest is in much worse shape…

Glenn’s station wagon made it about 3/4 of the way up the hill before we had to park it on the side of the trail but thank goodness that Dave owned a Jeep and it made it the rest of the way with the gear although I had to hike up the last km with my gear…

Above Photo Courtesy VA3SIE/VA2EPR-  Shows who/what we share the summit with… 

There was some 2m intermod issues even though the towers were behind the beam but it was not that bad

The only reason I can see for the road is so the Techs that service the massive amount of electrical gear on the towers at the top so I guess they all drive 4 Wheel Drive vehicles of some sort…

Anyway it did take us a bit longer than expected to get up and to get set up but finally we were setting up the gear at the GAZEBO (how did they lug the wood up there?) at the summit…

Above Photo- VA3QV- Showing the marker at the summit… (First time I have ever seen one close and personal)

For those of you who are interested in Summits of the Air (SOTA) Stuff this peak was VE2-OU-001 if I remember correctly from working them in a previous DXPedition

Above Photo – VA3QV- Shows the the antennas at the Gazebo-  Orange Pole (far left) 88 foot doublet for HF, then the 24 GHZ Dish, then the 10 GHZ Dish and then if you look very carefully on the rt hand side you might see the 2m beam we used to arrange contacts.  More on that later…

It did not take that long to get the 10 GHZ and the 24 GHZ stations up and running although it seems we did have a problem with the 10 GHZ station which had to be fixed.  Fortunately it was corrected in time that we could make our only contact of the day.

The Operators

VE3TLY (L) and VE3XRA (R)  (photo VA3SIE/VA2EPR)

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VA3SIE (photo VA2EPR)

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VA3QV (photo VA3SIE/VA2EPR)

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VA2EPR (photo VA3SIE)

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So now let me try and explain how this thing works… remember this is from a Newbie’s eyes….

You aim your 2m beam towards the area you think you might hear one of the participants.  There are not that many microwave types out there so being a small group you tend to know everyone it seems…

Once you make contact on 2m you exchange grid squares so you know exactly what heading to aim your dish at.  Both parties do this…

Station “A” then sends a long series of dashes via cw so station “B” can adjust slightly the bearing of his dish to get the best possiable signal…

Above photo (VA3SIE/VA2EPR) shows VE3TLY watching VE3XRA as he adjusts the position of the dish while trying to make a 10 GHZ contact

Station “B” then sends a long series of dashes via cw so Station “A” can adjust slightly the bearing of his dish to get the best possiable signal…

Going on the assumption the two stations have successfully heard the other stations dashes then they either have their microwave contact in either CW or SSB depending on the quality of the signal and the equipment….  The contest exchange is the qrid square  ( ours was FN25bw) the 5/9 signal report (it is a contest right?)   You also exchange some social comments as you have the time as the pileups are small…

Our one contact was with station on Mt Mansfield (FN34) which was a distance of approx 300 kms from Mt Ste Marie.  The contact was initiated on 2m ssb and then was successfully completed on 10GHZ.  We also tried on 24 GHZ but had no luck on that band.  In our defense we did work about 10 station on 2m ssb in attempts to get a 10 GHZ or a 24 GHZ contact but although we could do it on 2m …  the higher band contacts eluded us…  As in any contest a bit of luck is often needed…

And yes… You did hear me use the term “Newbie”…  Sunday was the first time in over 20 years as an Amateur that I have ever concidered operating a Microwave station.  I’m still trying to get a feel for the whole process…  I enjoyed the very low stress side of the contest…  It makes the RAC Canada Contests seem hectic in comparision…  I enjoyed being able to chat with my fellow station operators…

Above- The circle at the bottom of the picture shows the Gazebo where we operated from.  The Square shows the parking spot we had the Jeep in and the line between is the 200m approx of the trail which I mentioned below thatI really found hard going…  I guess is a sign of things to come…

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I did not enjoy the hike up (especally the last200m or so which was more of a climb than my body wanted to do.

The younger (lighter) operators were going like mountain goats and well…

I felt a bit self consious and if we had been going further I would of felt I was holding them back…

Next time I should take the elevator…

But its all a learning experience…  And I learned that I am not in as good shape as I thought I was and I also learned when to say no…  That sould of been before I started the last 200m…

However the view was worth all the pain the next day…

Above Photo- VA3SIE/VA2EPR

So sorry about all the pictures and the more rambling than usual but I did enjoy myself and the scenery (as you can tell was just fantastic).  If I could borrow a 4X4 I would love to get up there when the leaves finish turning but….  definately no climbing or hiking…

Thanks to VE3EMB, VA3SIE and VA2EPR for the photos provided in all 3 segments….

Well between Part 1 – Part 2 & Part 3 you now know more than you wanted/needed to  about my weekend…  but how was yours?

73bob

Super SOTA Activation- The VIDEO!!!!

Break out the popcorn and get all the kids around the computer monitor…

As you remember from reading the previous post…  Martin VA3SIE and myself went up to Mount Morissette yesterday and I made my first ever SOTA Activation…

Martin brought along his camera to document the activity and he has allowed me to share it with you…

Just remember when watching the video that the camera adds a few pounds (like about 100) so I’m not really that fat…  It also adds a few years (like about 15) so I’m not really that old either…

Thanks to Martin for allowing me to share this with you

73bob

Evening DX

Over the last few days I have had some good luck in the evenings working some DX…  Tonight I managed  YV5Z and YV1BYM from Venezuela along with Zs3D in South Africa and last but not least VP2MYZ from the Buddipole DXPediton on Montserrat.  I think there are 6 operators on the Buddipole event on Montserrat and so far I have 3 of them in the log.

South Africa was worked on 40m and the other 3 contacts were on 20m.. 

If you follow THIS LINK  you can see my most recent contact from my online logbook…

Talking about DXPeditons for a minute though…

The pieces are coming together and it looks like there will be 4 operators (could be more) heading from Ottawa to operate the Ontario QSO Party Saturday session from Renfrew County .  VA3PCJ, VA3QV, VA3SIE and VA3EpR will be heading out of Ottawa on Saturday April 21st to set up 4 QRP Stations at the top of Foymount Mountain…  Its a good mix with 2 cw operators (Martin and Tom) with Jose and myself operating SSB.  We will have two FT 817s along with an IC 703 and with a little bit of luck a brand new KX3 ( if Martin’s new toy gets delivered in time)…

Between the four of us we plan to operate 2m, 6m and the HF Bands from the start of the contest till the sun goes down and the temps drop…  Hoping to give out lots of contacts…

There will be more posted on this in the coming week….

CU tomorrow

73bob

 

1st weekend in Feb -UPDATE

GROUND HOG DAY

 

Well the little fella did not see his shadow…  so according to tradition we will be having an early spring…  More time to play in the parks once the snow melts…

However…

For those of you heartier types there is a QRP Contest being held this Saturday called the FYBO….  This of course stands for Freeze Your Buns Off…

And that of course is an Amateur Radio QRP Contest that is sponsored by the Arizone ScQRPions.  It figures that a QRP Group in the very southern United States would sponsor a radio contest that the lower the temps…  The higher the Multipliers…    The rules for the contest can be found here at their website. 

When you look at the rules page thats Ottawa’s own VA3SIE in the You Tube FYBO Trailer…

 There will be a good level of participation as there was with last weekends Winter Field Day but this time CW (thats morse code to the non hams out there) will be the most popular mode and all the operators will be running QRP ( thats low power to the non hams out there…  5W or less).

Local Hams are planning to head out to the Gatineau Hills…  so listen for VA3SIE (mentioned above), VE3EMB, VE3IED and VA2EPR and there is no doubt that you should hear Bill VE3CLQ from somewhere around Kingston Ontario.

Check out the DX Clusters and places like QRP SPOTS and you might find out where they are hiding…

I have some things to finish up to get ready for the Canadian Ski Marathon (Next weekend) so given the fact that the FYBO is mostly CW anyway my time will be better spent getting the gear ready for the Marathon.  However if its nice on Saturday afternoon I might spend an hour or so at Weston Park just in case any of the FYBO Participants remembered to bring a microphone with them…

73bob

Thanksgiving 2011 VA3QV/p report

Sunday morning started on a high note when after sitting in the shack and checking the cluster I found out that VK6ANC  was on 20m beaming north so I thought I would listen and see what I could hear…  After listening for a few minutes I could hear him fine and also realized that the pile up was not that bad so I decided to throw my call out…  Well it did take more that one try and after about 10 minutes he was in the log….  This was my third VK contact and my first on 20m so its a great start to the day…

Now lets get back to the portable stuff…..

The time was around 0820 local and after contacting VK Land I decided to head out to the park and give the FT817 a quick test as I will be heading out with VA3SIE next Saturday (October 15th) for an attempt at a CISA Activation of Nicholls Island. 

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UPDATED AS OF TUESDAY OC TOBER 11TH AT 1400HRS LOCAL

THE CISA EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED

WE WILL BE RESCHEDULING LATER IN THE SEASON

73bob

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If you are a CISA Island Hunter this will be a new activation and its being sponsored by the Ottawa Valley Mobile Radio Club so we will be using the special Event Callsign of CF3RAM.  We will be on the air with my FT817 on 10-80m (ssb) with the help of my W3EPD antenna and on CW using Martins KX1.  We have one other operator confirmed and he is a CW man but I’m not sure what toys he is bringing out to play with…

So anyway…  back to Sunday am….Today…

I left the house about 830 and walked over to Weston Park and set up in the area close to the Kiddies Wading Pool as its been closed for the season.  This means the kiddies are playing on the play structure which is a bit further away from the pool which lowers the man made (kiddie made) noise quite a bit…
I managed to get the W3EDP strung across the pool in a North West-South East configuration and as the W3EDP has the same charastics as a dipole the bulk of my signal would be aimed North East and South West…

View Larger Map

The first contact would of been on 80m with Ian VE3HMS who lives in South River Ontario.  He has a big station and had no trouble hearing my FT817 with the booming 5w signal.  Ian was able to relay my checkin to the North Bay Net on 3.768 (every Sunday at 0900 eastern) to the NCS station in North Bay Ontario.  I was able to hear all the participants of the net as I had a ZERO noise floor but some of the particpants had a higher noise level and were having trouble hearing me…

After that I decided to spin the dial so to speak and managed a contact with KS3M on 7.160 was was calling CQ for the Pennsilvania QSO Party.  Once again i had no problems hearing him but we did have to work a bit to complete the contact as my QRP Signal was not as good.  This is one of the problems of operating QRP in a contest.  Lots of adgacent stations to add to the QRM and QRN.

After that I jumped over to 20m and had a great contact with Greg N4WVE in Virginia.  Greg was using a FT2000 with about 500w output but he could hear my signal (and I had no trouble hearing him) so all was good…

After that it was time to come back to 80m and get ready to participate in the Ottawa Valley Mobile Radio Club 80m SSB Net.  The net is called the “Pot Hole Net” and if you have driven in Ottawa you will know why…

The NCS for today was Ernie VE3EJJ who is located in Ottawa.  This net is normally a local ragchew/roundtable net but this morning we had a few stations who were not from the Ottawa Area.  Stations today included…

CF2OTA (VA3SIE Martin and VA3EPR Tom operators) from the summit of Mt Tremblant QC doing a SOTA Activation.  I got them in the log as a QRP to QRP SSB contact.

View Larger Map

VE2PS/m  Paulwho was mobile north of Quebec City….  He got relayed into the net and made a SOTA contact at the same time as CF2OTA did the relaying.

VA3TJP Mike who was at home in Braeside Ontario (North West of Ottawa)

VE3JW At the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa with VE3VIG as the station operator

VE3NPO Roger in Vanier (Ottawa) Ontario

VE3EMB Michel in Ottawa

VE3JRR Bucky from his new QTH at Foleys Mountain (outside Westport) Ontario

VE3LC Norm using his new Flex 1500 Radio

VE3LOW Russ from Ottawa

Now today was a great day to play radio outside as the bands and the tempetures/weather were cooperating….  open bands and warm sunny WX….  The low noise floor made it easy to hear most stations with no problems…

I came home just after 11am to enjoy the rest of my day from the backyard and perhaps from the shack…

73bob

VA3SIE returns to King Mountain

If you remember back to last Sundays blog post about my trip up to King Mountain with the (needed) assistance of VA3SIE and VA2BBW on Saturday October 17th.

Well Saturday evening Martin headed up (again) to the summit again on a solo effort for a PBMME event.

With descretion being the better part of valour I decided not to slow Martin up and I stayed at home for this one…

If you go to Martin’s Blog you will find a bit of a write up on his efforts along with a video.

The video is also on his youtube site (below)

Video courtesy VA3SIE & youtube

After watching the video I will comment that the camera angle he used for the video seemed to make the incline look less steep as when I hiked it with him the week before it seemed much steeper…

As Martin took the same route up as we took last week I thought I would show the video here so you could see where we went the week before…

“Well Done” Martin… and a great video as well…

73bob

 

Back from the Mountain

WARNING- THIS IS A GRAPHIC INTENSIVE POST— LOTS OF PRETTY PICTURES AND ALSO SOME OF HAM RADIO OPERATORS

Well I made it back… Tired… Happy… and stiff and sore this morning…(REALLY STIFF AND SORE)… but I made it back…

An earlier picture of me.  Same backpack but a bigger smile

An old pic of VA3SIE taken at the Maple Island DXPedition

Martin VA3SIE, Ante VA2BBW and myself headed up the King Mountain Trail just after 4pm and arrived at the summit before 5pm.

VA2BBW (picture taken last winter at PBMME)

Once at the top we split up as not to interfere with each other and we set up the rigs/antennas  and started to operate.  I started on the VHF Bands making several contacts on 2m and 6m ssb.  The stations I contacted were all in my Grid Square so everyone was in FN25

2m VE3VIG  Maurice Andre 5/9   FN25

6m VA3UMP Mark  5/9 FN25

2m VA3UMP Mark 5/9 FN25

2m VE3KKL  Gord 5/9 FN25

The rig was my FT817 powered by a 7ah SLA.  My antenna was a 1/4 wire dipole for 6m which works just as good on 2m as a 5/8w dipole.  The trees let me aim the dipole South.

I also heard a very weak partial call of “TC” and once I got home and checked the blog and I think that  would of been  Graham VE3GTC who lives in Embrun Ontario .  Graham would of been my furthest contact of the day on VHF if we had actually made the contact.  Due to how I had to string the dipole to avoid other hikers I could not get enough antenna aimed East to successfully make the contact.

Sorry I missed you Graham but thanks for trying…

After numerous CQ 2m and CQ 6m and getting no more contacts I decided to take down the VHF/6m dipole and try the W3EDP.  By this time the hiker were starting to thin out a bit…  Darkness was starting to set in so I figured that I would not be tripping anyone up.  I was able to stretch the W3EDP out at an approximate height of 7 feet above ground in some light bush and once again although it was more NVIS at 7 feet the antenna was running east-west so the bulk of the signal would of been heading south (or if you believe NVIS …up)

The APRS worked great and it reassured my family that they could look at the APRS.fi website and check and make sure I was still moving…

Follow my APRS track

Just in case the link does not function you can insert my callsign (VA3QV-7 ) and select the date (October 16) manually and it should show you the track.  You can see more detail if you pick the satellite view but the Terrain Feature will show you a map most of you are more used to seeing.

Rather than try to break into a QSO on 80m just to say I was operating QRP/Portable on a mountain in Quebec I spun the dial and found the New York State Phone Traffic Net on 3.925 .

The NCS for the session was “Ham” K2UCO and he lived in Oneida NY.

View Larger Map

As you can see from the map Oneida is just east of Syracuse NY which makes it about 5 hours drive south of my location depending on how busy the 1000 islands border crossing is.

Not to shabby for a QRP signal with a wire antenna in a tree at 7 feet.  I guess the tree being on a mountain top helped.

During the net I was able to contact Glenn VE3GNA who is the Ontario Section Traffic Manager (STM) and pass 8 pieces of traffic I was planning to bring to the Ontario Phone Net that evening from the mountain, but as the sun was dropping and the temps were dropping as well I had an idea that we would not be staying up much longer.

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Before I started to power down and pack up the honour of last contact of the night goes to Norm VE3DHR in Hawksbury Ontario who was the NCS of the Sandbox net.

View Larger Map

This net is a roundtable net that runs 7 days a week on 3.733.  Conditions to the east were not the best but he did hear me…

So the final tally for my part of the operation would of been

80m- 3 contacts

6m-  1 contact

2m- 3 contacts

After this contact with the only light being from the moon and our various styles of flashlights ( I had a 5 LED setup clipped to my hat brim) we all broke camp and headed down the trail.  The trip down although took less energy than the trip up (thanks to gravity) doing it in the dark was quite a bit more difficult for myself being the very novice hiker.  However I did make it back with no scrapes, sprains, breaks or bruises and all the equipment I humped up to the top made it back…

Although I did not take an actual camera with me here are a couple of shots I took with my cellphone so it will give you a bit of an idea of how things looked…

From the top…

Looking out

I can  see for miles…

…and miles

The shack

Sunset on the mountain

Makes it worth the hike

Looked better in person

Ottawa in the distance

Our light down the mountain

So as you can see the scenery was great and take my word for it the company was fantastic.

I’d like to thank Martin and Ante for taking me up there and more importantly bringing me back…

Since I got back into the hobby (about 10 years ago now) and bought my FT817 I have done lots of portable work, local parks and even a couple of small CISA DXPeditions, but nothing like hiking up a side of a mountain (molehill to some of you real hikers) and getting to see the view and also be fortunate enough to play radio once I got there.

IT WAS FANTASTIC!!!

Today I am paying for it…  Knees are very sore and today is the payback for how great I felt looking out at the region last evening…  Heck to be honest I am feeling my age this morning…

I had so much fun I think I will try it again in the springtime…

73bob

A very quiet Sunday

Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian Followers:

This year the family is doing the “Turkey Thing” on Monday as it works in with everyones schedules so today is a quiet day…

The RF side of things started around 0900 EDST when I made it down to the shack and spun the dial on the 40m band.  Finding lots of  “3 LAND” stations calling CQ PA QSO Party…  I spent between 0900 and 1000 giving out lots of contacts to my neighbors to the south.  No rare DX just regular contacts (your 5 & 9 what was your call again?) in the range of 350 or so miles from my QTH.

I was using my FT 847 along with the LDG Autotuner into the W3EDP antenna that does the bulk of my HF work.  Nothing spectacular although I did work every one I heard and most of them were on the first or second try…

For the most part contests are good for the EGO!!!

I was forced to tear myself away from giving out contacts in the QSO Party and head down to 80m for the Ottawa Valley Mobile Radio Club “Pot Hole Net”.  This net runs every Sunday morning at 1000Eastern on 3.760 and is an open net.  Check in usually are from the Ottawa Area or within about 100 miles or so but are welcomed from anyone who can get relayed into the net.  Imagine your local 2m net but covering a larger area…

One of the topics of discussion this morning was the SOTA DXPedition of VA3SIE Martin .  This weekend Martin headed to Vermont and activated two Summits.  Mount Mansfield and Camels Hump Mountain.  If you are good with aprs.fi follow the link and look up VA3SIE-7 and his tracks for today and yesterday to see where he was and how he did.  Depending on when you look you might have to change the search parameters to take into account the dates but its easy to do.

Once Martin gets back and rested up I’m sure there will be a write up on his blog about the DXPediton

Same friendly bunch of guys just chatting and catching up on the gossip…  The guys sometime try and get together on the Saturdays at the same time/frequency but its more of a round table there with no NCS…

The net closed just before 11am and a few of us had talked about heading out for coffee so after 2 hours of radio it was time for more cafine.

I met up with Jose VA3PCJ at the local Starbucks and showed him my ACER Netbook along with the Windmobile internet stick.  We connected to the aprs.fi server and followed Martin’s progress while sitting in comfy chairs having our coffee.

We talked about plans for future DXPeditions and radio in general but I think our DXPedition Plans will be put on hold till the nicer weather of Spring/Summer 2011.

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VA3PCJ giving his IC703 some fresh air at Hampton Park

The chat and the company were great but at 1300 or so it was time to head home and look after some non radio related things that needed to get done…  Then its time to sit back and relax and get ready for the Turkey Feast tomorrow…

73bob