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

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…

.

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

No rare DX…

… But it was lots of fun…

This morning I decided to take my FT 817 out for some fresh air.  According to my log book the last time out was in the middle of Jan 2013 so we were due…

This time the Weather was much nicer although with the warmer temps the park was a bit soggy to walk through… The ground was saturated with all the melted snow…

above- pic shows the usual picnic table I operate from and the swamp surrounding it…

below- pic shows the usual picnic table with slightly dryer ground…

Below- pic shows the Parkbench I had to operate from.  The ground was almost dry as compared to other locations in the park…

The new 2013 version of my setup…  The Mic cord for the 817 is the bright yellow cable so I can’t lose it, the tablet which looks after the DX Cluster, the Logging program is infront of the FT 817,  the VX8GR for aprs and voice cms is beside the 817 and the battery and the solar panel is behind/beside the ft 817.

And yes all of it still fits in the old red backpack shown in the upper picture…

The antenna for today was my PAR QRP End Fed… and it operated with no issues… (sloper configuration)

The first contact was made with John VA3OW  who was the NCS for the TP Net on 7.055.  He gave me an honest 5-7 report and he was a 5-9 +.  Remember I was only using 5w… These contacts are always fun as they are longer than groundwave but extremely short distance.  65 km as the crow flies but…  it shows neighboring municipalities can talk on HF without all the fancy computer linking assistance such as IRLP, ECHOLINK or DSTAR.  We did it good old fashioned HF voice…

The next contact was with Bob AA4DY/9 Brownie as he likes to be called was operating Portable 9 from Indiana… Seeing the time of the year I would of thought he would of been in 4 land where its warmer but each to their own… The contact was made during the Retired Submariners net on 14.343 and again was made with 5w at my end  The reports were 5-5 for me and 5-9 for him…

Its always good to know that the rig is working…  In addition during the 1km walk from my place to Weston Park and back various contacts were made on the VE3ORF Repeater system.  I made contacts using  the 70cm side of the linked repeaters so my APRS signal could be heard on 144.390

It felt good to get out into the park for the start of another radio season..  I will be watching the water levels closely as I hope to operate from Weston Park for the Ontario QSO Party  later this month.  However it has to be dry for that to happen…

Enjoy your week and more operating news when it happens…

73bob

The Popgun is still firing away…

Well the last few days have been good…. even for a QRP SSB operator….

I haven’t been spending that much time in the shack….  But I have been getting the most out of the time I have been able to spend… Checking the cluster on my Tablet does help….   And taking that into concideration … Here’s what 5W and a vertical antenna gets you in the last 7 days…

VA3QV	J69MV		2013-03-18 23:08	15m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	LU8EEM		2013-03-18 23:08	15m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	D44BS		2013-03-18 19:59	15m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	EA8YB		2013-03-18 19:59	15m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	8P6FX		2013-03-18 19:59	15m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	8P6AZ		2013-03-18 19:59	15m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	CO6LC		2013-03-17 23:54	17m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	CO6LC		2013-03-17 22:59	15m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	6V7S		2013-03-17 22:59	20m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	CU7AA		2013-03-17 19:44	15m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	ZF2UL		2013-03-17 18:51	15m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	W5CW		2013-03-17 16:12	20m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	ED5T		2013-03-16 22:24	20m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	CN2R		2013-03-16 19:55	15m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	V47JA		2013-03-15 22:57	15m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	SV2CXI		2013-03-15 16:37	12m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	9A5CW		2013-03-15 16:37	10m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	UU2JQ		2013-03-15 16:25	12m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	UW7LL		2013-03-15 16:25	12m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	SQ2RCM		2013-03-15 14:41	10m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	SM6CVX		2013-03-15 14:33	15m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	FG5GP		2013-03-14 23:14	15m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	J69AZ		2013-03-14 23:14	15m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	PY2COY		2013-03-14 22:24	12m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	9A9DX		2013-03-14 15:46	10m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	YU5RA		2013-03-14 14:54	15m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	RG4F		2013-03-14 14:41	12m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	HA9RT		2013-03-13 01:54	20m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	9A8DX		2013-03-12 15:47	10m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	AC0ML		2013-03-12 15:25	20m	USB	59 59
VA3QV	LZ2DF		2013-03-10 15:33	10m	USB	59 59

Proving that even a little gun can get heard…

Contacts have been made on 10-12-15-17 and 20m and as of March 18th my QRP DXCC count is at 61 different entities and I am having a blast…

So far I have worked 4 continents (maybe 5) North America, South America, Europe and Africa (depending on where a couple of the Russian Stations were … maybe Asia as well).  So far although I have heard VK’s and JA’s I have not been able to be heard there and nothing even heard  in Antarctica.

The signal reports so far…. not that bad…  A few 5/9s and then a lot of 5/5s (expected) and few 5/1s but they did hear me and thats all that matters at the end of the day…

There were some I probally would of snagged if I was still using the FT 450 at 100w but unless I am trying to break a pile up the 5w of the FT 817 seems to be doing the job…

One of these days (if it ever warms up and the snow finally melts) I will be able to get back into the parks and operate in an environment with a lower noise floor and with the room to stretch out wire ( I have a 10-15-20 OCF Dipole along with the W3EDP) I will be  ready to warm up the atmosphere with the 5w of RF that I can provide…

73bob

If I tell you when things go right…

…  Its only fair that I also tell you when things don’t!!!

Recently I have had some fantastic luck while flexing my tiny wings operating SSB QRP…  I managed to pick up 8 new QRP DXCC entities over the last week using my FT 817 (5w) and my 43 foot vertical.  10-12-15-17-m were all kind to me and so it was easy to let you know how good things were going….

This week is different and things are not going as well as planned…. It started out with me sitting in the shack seeing if I could find any rare ones on the cluster that I could actually hear….

So far the TX5K has had a fantastic signal all week but between the LIDS who can’t figure out key words like “UP 5″, “Listening UP” and call on the listen frequency which mean I don’t know if they heard my measly 5W signal…  Or the DX COPS who insist on screaming “UP UP UP” every time which jams up the RCV Frequency as bad as the Lids who can’t understand the principals of Split operation…. So far they are not in my log…

Right table and park… Add 24 inches of snow and it could of been yesterdays picture

On Wednesday afternoon I decided to take the gear out to the park and see if  running a horizontal antenna rather than my vertical would make any difference as my luck so far was not the best….  This would also be the first trip to Weston Park for the year…  Once I got there I found out my normal operating position was still snowed in…  I could see the top of the picnic table but had no place to sit…  Also no snowshoes to get there with…

I was able to find a spot where I could sit and also stretch out wire but the conditions were no better for me with the horizontal as they had been with the vertical in my warm shack…  The slight advantage went to my Recieve as there was no man made electrical noise in the park…  The downside to that was ….  The Lids and the DXCOPS were coming in great but the DXPeditions still could not hear me…

It was a great walk….  20 min there…. 20 min to set up to see that I would be looking forward to the 20 min walk back home…. oh well

So today (Thurdsay) I’m back in the shack and still nothing new to brag about…  I am seeing some of the group having good luck according to their Twitter postings but so far I have little to brag about…

I did manage contacts in Poland and Slovenia on Tuesday but that was the popgun putting out a signal that the big gun could hear…

Nothing Rare so far this week….

But the week ain’t over yet

73bob

ps….I ain’t giving up…  its just a hobby and every week can’t go great…  Just wait till next week

Results from the Contest

It was a very small effort put in this year….  It was also the first Major Contest that I had tried to operate QRP and it was not as good as expected….

However as a result of the contest the following was attained….

27 contacts in 19 different DXCC Entities.  Out of those 19 DXCC entities worked 8 of them were new ones for my QRP DXCC and two of them were new ones for my DXCC.

Contacts were made on 10m, 15m, 20m and 40m

This brings me up to 150 DXCC worked with 104 confirmed by LoTW and 50 QRP DXCC worked.

I was operating 5w SSB using my FT 817 radio and my S9 43 foot vertical.  Total operating time would be approximately 4 hours…

I had a great time but did have difficulties working the Big Guns and everyone heard them…  I had much better luck trying to work the 100w stations that I had trouble hearing but they had much better luck working me…  It was very hard breaking pileups with 5w but I did manage it a couple of times…

Next Year…. look for another QRP attempt but this time with some sort of directional antenna to help combat the Kilowatts.  If not a directional antenna then operating from a location where I can stretch out wire antennas to compliment the 43 foot vertical.  There is still lots to learn…

73bob

Still trying to work some DX

Got a few more in the log…  Mostly in Europe…

KP2/K0BBC 17M US Virgin Islands (new QRPDXCC)

OK1IWS 15M Czech Republic (new QRPDXCC)

YO4RIU 15M Romania

YL2BJ 15M Latvia (new QRPDXCC)

LZ969SCP 17M Bulgaria (new QRPDXCC)

EW2MA 15M  Belarus

Well as you can see from the above I am still working on proving that it can be done…  You can work QRP SSB DX.  The above contacts were made with my “ancient” Yaesu FT 817 and my S9 43 foot vertical.

I call my 817 ancient because someone else did…  Mine is the orignal 817 (the one they made before the 60m band was around for the rest of the world to use… )  We are still waiting for 60m here in the “Great White North”…

Our radios have it but unless you applied for an experimental licence we can’t use it yet…

According my my hand logs….  This latest DX attack brings my QRPDXCC efforts to 46 in the log…  Only 54 to go…

This weekend with the ARRL DX Contest (SSB) I am hoping to get a few more in the bag…. Hope the band conditions like the QRP Operators…

More on this later in the week…

In the meantime as there are many operators testing out their big gun stations before the contest this is a good time to try and see if they can hear my popgun QRP station…  So far its been not too bad…

Back to talking on the radio for a while rather than talking about the radio…

73bob

Giving the FT817 some fresh air

Its been 2 months since my Yaesu FT817 was last out for some fresh air.  My last portable log entry was on November 12th 2012 .  I was actually shocked a bit as it did not seem that long since I was out in Weston Park…  but… according to logs it was that long…

So this afternoon with the temps sitting around 0 deg C (32 deg F) with no snow… no rain… and no excuses …  VA3PCJ and myself decided to take his KX3 and my FT 817 over to the Mer Bleu Swamp outdoor walking trail and play some QRP Portable Amateur Radio.

Same picnic table without the snow…

The antennas for the day was my Par 10-20-40 QRP end Fed and his Alex Loop 10-40m portable loop antenna set up on a camera tripod…

We arrived at the parking lot about 1300 and it only took a few minutes to dig out a picnic table to operate from.  I then set up my Par Antenna as a almost vertical (slight slope to the south) and Jose set up the AlexLoop beside the other end of the picnic table and we started…

My first contact was on 20m on 14.300 with KC5AGO Rex in Stonewall Texas.  Thats north of San Antonio and an approximate distance of  1625 miles (3740 kms) from my park bench to his ranch.  Rex was nice enough to relay me into the Maritime Mobile Service Net and its always easier to make your first contact of the day on an established net frequency as everyone is listening for weak stations checking in.  This first contact proved that everything was working fine after 2 months packed away…

The second contact was also on 20m on 14.280 with Steven KD0ETC  operating Portable in Duluth Minnesota.  He was using a FT 857 and a vertical in the park and this is the third time that our radios have managed contacts in the last two years.  This was a distance of just under 800 miles or 1300 kms for our portable to portable contact…  It was good to get Steven in the log again…

My third contact was made on 10m on 28.445 with KD5TXE, Frank in Odessa Texas.  Frank was using a dedicated 10m rig with 25w and a vertical and he sounded great to my 817.  The contact was approx 1700 miles or 2750 kms…

The fourth contact was a dx contact made on 10m.  I heard LU8EEM Ruben in Argentina calling CQ and was very suprised when he answered me…  This contact was a bit further at 5617 miles or 9000 kms.  He sounded a bit suprised when I told him I was QRP…  Once I got home and checked I found out that the contact with LU8EEM turned out to be a new QRPDXCC for me and so DXCC number 34 is now in the QRP Log

AT THIS POINT SOME OF YOU WILL BE WONDERING WHAT HAPPENED TO THE REST OF THE POST—  I HIT PUBLISH RATHER THAN SAVE SO….  HERE COMES THE REST OF THE POSTING

My final contact of the day happened on 40m when I checked into the Trans Provincal Net on 7.055 with VA3CWM which is located at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton Ontario.  You can check out their website using THIS LINK.

Today was a 817 day as the KX3 seemed to be hearing everyone but was having issues making any contacts…  Loop VS End fed I guess and the End Fed won or…  Murphy was visiting the KX3 today…  We will be looking at this again as we know the loop works but something … dunno what was not working properly as the KX3 could not make a contact and last weekend I made lots of contacts with the same radio…

So all in all I managed 5 contacts in 3 countries and 2 continents in just over 2 hours.  It was about as much fun as I could have without hypothermia setting in and so we decided to pack up our gear and head to the local Starbucks for a warm up coffee…

So all in all it was a good afternoon…  No one got frostbite and I tested out the same gear that will be used in the SPAR Winter Field Day and the FYBO so now I have confirmed that everything works fine.  Now if I don’t make contacts then I will nave no excuses…

73bob

Because I tried…

This morning I was sitting in the shack and testing out the FT817/LDG Z11 combo as I will be using it for the Spar Winter Field Day and the FYBO the weekend after…

Listening on 12m I heard JX9JKA calling CQ North America and though well… 

…. as I can hear him so why not give it a try…  So my booming 5w reached out the almost 2800 miles from Ottawa to Jan Mayen Island and now my unconfirmed DXCC 148 and my QRP DXCC 33 (two new ones with one contact) is now in the log awaiting confrmation.

Getting closer….  33 of 100 now in the bag…

The antenna was my S9 43 foot vertical and as previously mentioned the Radio was my Yaesu FT817…. (QRP SSB)

Goes to show you what you can do if you try… and with only 5w of power

73bob

Its still Wednesday…

And we are still on the go…  Its been a busy day…

The great Canadian KX3 vs FT 817 Shoot out was cancelled due to cold… 

The temps were supposed to be around 0 dec C and when we were getting ready to depart for the park the temps were -5 with a -8 deg C with the windchill and it was a damp cold…  Both VA3PCJ and myself decided we would hold off for another day to test the rigs in a heads up competition.

We will wait for another day to test out the rigs with the Par and the Alex Loop

Right now Trisha and myself are getting ready to leave for the OARC Meeting and we will be bringing my TAK TENNA out with us.  Chris VA3CME is going to give it a test on his balcony and see if it suits his needs… Should confuse the neighbors because it sure don’t look like an antenna…

Will let you know later how Trisha and I did on trivia nite at the OARC