The day after

Well its Sunday am and I’ve finally thawed out…. Strange thing this Canadian Weather…..

I got on the bus at 130pm Eastern and the weather was nice and sunny….. Got off the bus close to the Murney Tower at 230 pm eastern and the weather was nice and sunny…..

Walked from the bus stop to the Murney Tower and the weather was nice and sunny….Started to set up and the weather was starting to cloud over…. Called CQ POTA and the sun gave up and hid beside the clouds and the wind from Lake Ontario picked up….

The working conditions was my Xiegu X5101 with a Sota Beams Bandspringer antenna. My Shakesphere 20 foot Wonder Pole was being supported by the Heavy Duty Tripod I mentioned a few posts back….

As you probally noticed the graphics above have for the most part been recycled from my library. I did have my IPhone with me but the pics for the most part did not turn out…..

I started out on 40m and had managed to contact about 5(or so) parks when Martin VA3SIE arrived and set up his KX3 along with his ALEXLOOP antenna. He started calling on 20m CW and I kept on with 40SSB.

Martin posted an excellent Video (link below) on his part of the activation so check it out….

After a while I switched over to 20ssb and managed a contact before jumping back to 40m ssb

As the sun turned into sunset it really got cold and the wind really picked up. We packed up and moved closer to the Murney Tower to escape the wind but it still was goshdarn cold…. Martin continued to operate and I decided to leave the gear packed up….

I managed to give out Murney Tower VE4877 and the Kingston Fortifications VE4872 to 14 hunters making it a successful Two Park activation day.

Just before 6pm eastern I got my bus ride home and called it a day…. Martin decided to stay (those youngsters just don’t feel the cold) and he was making SSB contacts on 40m and 20m….. I was actually impressed seeing how easy he was pulling in the stations with the KX3 and the loop…

This will most likely be my last activation for a while. The sheer pleasure of operating portable was negated by the reality of freezing (ok the coldest I have been in quite a while) and at a certain time it just is no longer fun…. I’ll keep on hunting till things change a bit….. and if we get a warm afternoon who knows…

A Bit of POTA News….

On Friday evening the Pota Gawds determined that I had been confirmed and had make contacts with 2000 individual parks. BIG THANKYOU to the activators that made this possible. This was one of my goals and it happened earlier than I had expected….

More News

As of the time of this post my attempts to complete the “Park A Day Challenge” continue and since Jan 1 2022 I have made at least 1 confirmed contact a day with a POTA Park. As of the end of October there were 24 of us still in the Challenge…

48 Days to go….Will I make it???

Thats it for now…. I’ll post more when I have something to talk about

73bob

It was a “shocking” weekend

Literally….

On Saturday I accepted an offer from John VE3JPW to join him in an POTA activation of:

VE-4864 Fort Henry National Historic Site

Fort Henry (at the top of the Fort Henry Hill) is one of the highest points in the area and has a great view across Lake Ontario to the South West…

It was a windy damp morning when we set out and by the time we got to the Fort the wind at the top of the hill was quite strong… We managed to set up my 33 foot MFJ mast to the “Headache Rack” on John’s pickup truck with my homebrewed 40m EFHW at the top of the mast….

The radio of choice for the day was my XIEGU X5105 QRP Radio

The antenna was operating as a sloper going to a Picnic Table located close to the truck. Looking to the South West we could see a storm front moving north. Bill VE3FI (activating Parrots Bay VE5142) advised that at his location (west of us) was getting a heavy downpour… at our location is was windy and misty…

When all was connected and I went to turn the radio on and tune up… I got one heck of a jolt…. followed by a jolt whenever I touched the radio… or the PL259 antenna connection… It was a good thing that John had a pair of work gloves in his truck so I could disconnect the antenna… We then removed the mast from the Truck and then packed up and headed home….

After the fact I was able to receive signals once I got home (Saturday afternoon) and the auto tuner did work and was showing output on transmit but the band conditions did not help my QRP Signal so I’m still not sure if I made it out damage free….time will tell I guess…..

On a positive note…. I did check out the XIEGU by making some QRP contacts from home on Monday (this morning) and signal reports along with audio reports lets me know that all is well..

I guess I was lucky

I had heard of this in the past but those examples had longer wires (kite suspended or balloon suspended) and it shocked me (no pun intended) to find out that with only 66 feet of wire the same would happen…

Looks like I am going to have to look into a better grounding system when operating in less than stellar weather conditions… In 20 plus years of QRP/Portable operating this never happened to me but then again… I don’t normally go out and play in bad weather…

73bob

Second impressions

Yesterday (Thursday) afternoon I took the Xiegu and the Toy Box out to a POTA site here in Kingston Ontario. The gear and I took Kingston Transit and ended up at the POTA site VE4877 (Murney Tower) which is paired up (as a 2 fer) with the site VE4872 (Kingston Fortifications).

As stated at the beginning the X5105 and the Comet Toy Box was the gear for my second test…. This time I brought a change of counterpoises. The random lenght wires of yesterday were replaced with the 1/4 wave lenght for 20/40/60/80m. I only used a single counterpoise for each band as recommended by the “Page of words” for the antenna.

As usual the bands were pure crap (at least for a QRP signal trying to test a new antenna) but I was hearing lots. In addition I did manage to get checked into the Nickel Belt Net on 7.252 with Rolly VA3CRE being the Net Control Station in Copper Cliff Ontario (about 270 miles from Kingston – outside of Sudbury in Northern Ontario). The 5 X 1 signal report was encouraging as I had set up the audio to match up with my voice and the “1” part of the report was expected as its QRP and a compromise antenna.

It was just as hard trying to break a pile up with the Xiegu as it was to try it with my old FT817 so many years ago.

But for the second time I proved that I can make a contact across Ontario using the “Toy” and the X5105

The third test will be coming up next week when I try using an elevated counterpoise as recommended by the page of words…. After the third test I will be doing a comparision between the EFHW and the Toy.

More on this next week after I get thru the weekend.

73bob

Goodbye Twitter and other stuff

If you took a look on my QRZ page over the weekend you would of seen this in your face…

If you follow me on Twitter you might of noticed my last tweet.  Before you ask…  I’m fine and the family is fine….  I’m just getting tired of the amount of crap from all sources that do not relate to ham radio.  You all have the right to speak your minds on any topic… But recent tweets coming from Canada and the USA about stuff that scares me or just plain sickens me have me figuring that perhaps its time to walk away from the more interactive side of Social Media

I will be suspending my Twitter account and if I don’t reactivate it in 30 days it will be deleted.

I will still blog a bit at  VA3QV.WORDPRESS.COM  and I will stay an active amateur…   I became a ham to talk to people on the radio…  I can do that without social media.  Feel free to email me (its on this page) with happy ham radio style news

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That just about covers it…. The radio part of twitter was great but as it seems more and more political, doom and gloom, racist and non radio related tweets were taking over my timeline I just figured it would be better for my sanity if I just cut the whole damn thing out rather than spend a good part of my online time editing, blocking and muting those what I consider to be offensive tweets….

So just like that…. No more Twitter…. The bird is dead (at least to me)

Now back to Radio…. On the weekend I snuck a 6m dipole (horizontal) into the back yard and tried to give out some points on 2m/70cm and 6m SSB to those who take contesting more serious than I do…

Well 100w from my FT991a on 6m along with 50w on 2m into a dipole aprox 10 feet above the ground did not do very well…. I listened between the bands and also tried calling CQ but no luck… Its not my loss as I was wanting to give out contacts to others….

However if I was a new ham wanting to experience their new multimode vhf radio …. I would not of been impressed.

Kingston being in between several VHF hotspots (Ottawa/Montreal/Syracuse NY/Rochester NY) should of been heard and hopefully would of heard my reply…. In previous contests a few years ago I was able make local contacts from Ottawa (my old QTH) into Vermont, Rochester and Syracuse. The rig at the time was a FT 847 using a 6m loop and a 2m loop about 20 feet above ground. Not sure if it was a wrong place/wrong time issue or if the bands were just that bad but I did expect a Groundwave contact at the very least.

POTA on and HAMHARDER….

Over the weekend I did see a K6 station operating /KH6 on Potaspots. He was on 20m and shockingly I could hear him. I fired out my Call after his QRZ and thought I heard VA???? and then everyone on the west coast of the USA and a few more just jammed up everything by just rapid firing their callsign out… It was a real blood in the water moment. I understand excitement but still firing out your callsign 30+ seconds after the QRZ is just stupid…. Sorry guys…. I will admit to understanding my 100w will not break the original calls and I might wait a couple of seconds to sneak my call in after the first wave…. but never 30 seconds after…. I gave up and just spun the dial…

Outside of that I was able to make lots of contacts over the weekend along with a few new parks so my totals for Unique Parks have risen to 1777 as of the date of this post. I feel pretty confident of topping 1800 by the end of September and finishing up 2022 with over 2000 unique parks

It was on July 19th that I passed over the 1500 mark… So I do think that I have a good chance of meeting my goals…

If you have voice privs (Amateur Stations operating in the USA do not have voice privs down on 7.100 lsb) you are more that welcome to drop down and visit me….

I am the Net Control Station for the 11 am-12noon hour on the Trans Provincial Net. That would be 1500-1600 utc.

Thats it for now…. Have fun playing radio

73bob

Finally… Getting to operate #POTA portable! #hamradio

Well its about time…. Its taken me way too long but…

This Saturday (August 27th) plans have been made for a couple of Parks on the Air Activations…

Thanks to Elections Canada for the above Graphic

George VE3SIQ and myself VA3QV will be (plan to/should be) activating POTA VE0023 and POTA VE4882 along with Canadian Island ON 294 (Upper Brewers Mills Island).

We will be be participating in the W/VE Island QSO Party and as that Island ON 294 is in the Rideau Canal (POTA VE4882) and the island is also part of the Frontenac Biosphere (POTA VE0023) it gives us a chance for a POTA 2fer as well.

I will be operating QRP SSB With my Xiegu X5105 and will have antennas set up for 6 to 40m (6-60m for POTA and/or 6-40 for Island work) depending on the conditions of the day at the time

George (Ve3SIQ) will be operating with a Yaesu FT450 from the same island and his station will have antennas set up for 10 to 40m once again depending on the conditions of the day

IF YOU HAPPEN TO HEAR US PLEASE RE SPOT US ON POTA SPOTS

If things go according to plans we should have both stations on the air by approx 1500 UTC (11am EDST) and as well will be operating until the batteries die or the weather turns bad or the bugs come out and lastly if the bands die out…

QSL info

My logs will be uploaded to POTA and the W/VE Island QSO party as soon as possible after the activations…

In addition I will be uploading to EQSL, Logbook of The World and QRZ.com. Sorry folks but no Direct or Buro QSL’s

Hope to see you on the air and in my log

73bob

Getting my #POTA “Activator” station on the air

Its been a while since I had to get a portable station running…. Gone is the FT817/LDG Tuner combo and here is the Xiegu X5105 with the built in auto tuner.

Gone but not forgotten

Also gone is the Buddipole Deluxe, W3EDP antenna and the PAR Endz Fed QRP Tribander and…

Xiegu X5105 and the SOTABEAMS 10-60m

Here is my homebrewed 40m EFHW 49:1 and a Sotabeams 10-60m inverted VEE antenna (pic below)

SOTABEAMS 10-60m antenna (tuner required)

But with the new toys come new issues and its been a challenge getting them all fixed up…

So far the EFHW antenna is doing whats expected of it and more. The “more ” part being letting some stray RF get into the transmitter which is causing havoc with my audio…

The transmitter is getting good signal reports on 20m and 4om which are the two bands that use for the most part until the RF finds its way into the transmitter.

At first I thought that I just had the audio running hot…. and that was causing the audio to distort… I tuned things down and then hooked up to my home antenna and…. the results were fantastic…. using a remote SDR Receiver in PA (thanks K3FEF) I was able to listen to myself and proclaim the problem solved….

And it was solved till I went out to the park for my next test…

Back in the park I found that the noise had returned…. and my audio was a crappy as ever (using the EFHW). After talking to a local ham who swears by (not swears at) the EFHW for portable use it was suggested that I try adding a ground from the coax connector at the balun end…. It might be a bit of overkill as the only clamps I had were from a battery project so I have a pretty good ground connections now… Take a close look at the pic.

XIEGU X 5105 Homebrewed EFHW and one helluva ground clamp

Anyway it worked today… although the band conditions were not too good I did manage a 40ssb local contact. The report was not strong but he commented that the audio was fine with no distortion. I also was able to check into the 20m Salvation Army SATERN net and was heard by the NCS who commented that for 5w the signal was ok and the audio clear and chrisp…

Back to the pic for a minute and you might notice that I am using the 66 foot EFHW antenna in the sloper configuration with the end of wire up near the top of a 33 foot MFJ mast that I have leaning back into a tree. The set up works fairly well for me and the masting sways with the wind and requires no guying. The test worked fairly well for me… I fought the static and QSB and managed to get heard. So at this time I guess the extra ground is working… I want to go out a set up a few more times and make sure that the gremlins are gone before I attempt a POTA Activation. This weekend is a POTA Support your local parks weekend so I would like to Activate during the day…. come home and hunt in the evening… Lets see how that works for me…

In the meantime I am the “POTA Hunter”… but with any luck could be the “Hunted” soon.

73bob

Caught the 13 Colonies Stations

It started during the RAC Canada Day Contest on July 1st when I started answering CQ’s on 40m from a station with a call of K2D. During the contest K2B and K2L also made it into my log.

On July 2nd while I was hunting some POTA K2M also made it into my log for a total of 4 of the Special Event Stations in the bag

On July 3rd once again hunting POTA I also managed to get K2K, K2A, K2G and K2F for a total of 8 of the 13 now in my log.

On July 4th in between wishing any US station that was calling CQ or answered my CQ a happy 4th of July. I also managed to get K2J and K2E for a total of 8 logged with only 3 to go.

July 5th was a busy time with K2I, K2C and K2H along with the Bonus Stations WM3PEN and TM13COL logged,

And on July 7th the final Bonus Station GB13COL was captured for the Clean Sweep

So there you have it ….. 13 Colonies and 3 Bonus Stations in 7 days… And for the most part I did have fun…

For those who might be wondering about the operating conditions used….The HF RIG is a Yaesu FT 950 running at approx 95w on SSB. My antenna is a 50 foot long inverted L with approx 150 feet of radials that run along the edge of fence and small yard. I use the SGC 237 auto tuner to bring it all together and it gives me excellent results on 10-80m and tolerable results on 6m, 60m and 160m but it does work on all the above mentioned bands. This setup has to be stealthy as the CONDO Corporation or HOA group does not like antennas but I’m still on the air after 4 years here

However on the downside of things…. The just plain stupid operators who could not figure out the words “UP 5-10” or “He’s working split” while the bulk of operators were trying to get GB13COL and TM13COL in the logs…. Right behind them were the operators who could not figure out what “by the numbers” meant when the DX stations were calling for specific calling areas to try and ease the pile ups.

And as always the self proclaimed DX POLICE had to increase the frequency QRM by telling each individual several times of their mistakes

In some cases the behavior was so bad that the DX Stations were forced to shut down for a while…. People calling on top of other operators…. People calling on top of the DX Station??? (really guys if you can’t hear him then why are you even calling???) and of course the operators who insist on tuning up their AMPS and antennas on the DX Frequency…

The stations who benefit the most from the 13 Colonies event have to remember that to the DX Stations it means nothing(Ok to the British it means something but not what it does to the Americans) and the French are just being nice to try and help out. I tell you they had more patience than I would of had and I for one thank them for what they did for us.

Last night (July 7th around 0030utc) when I was getting frustrated by the lack of brains in the pile up …I Tweeted the following:

“Starting to believe that on the #hamRadio Exams for any class that includes #HF they should have to prove that they understand the words “SPLIT” and “Listening up” and know to use the function”

I feel the same today even before the joy of successfully completing the event wears off

Once again… Thanks to the various operators of the K2A to K2m stations and also the WM3PEN operators and of course the various operators of TM13COL and GB13COL.

73bob

Wrapping up the RAC Canada Day Contest #RACCD

Well its over and I am pleased with my results:

My normal way to gauge my efforts in the RAC Canada Day Contest or the RAC Canada Winter Contest is by the following :

RAC Canada Day Contest Rules 2022

1> Have fun….

If its not fun why am I doing it? Well I did have fun and lots of it…

2> Work all the Provinces and Territories…

Almost…. I made contacts in our 10 provinces but I was unable to make contacts with (or even hear someone working) VY0, VY1 or VE8

But on the bright side I did work VO2, VY2, VE1, VE9, VE2, VE3, VE4, VE5, VE6 and VE7. I did not work VO1 but as they are in the same Province as VO2, I can say that I did make contacts in all 10 Provinces.

3> When the final results are posted my score should be in the top 50%…

This is just a thing with me…. Operating from Ontario as we have (I believe) the most amateurs of any Canadian Province its very hard unless you have a “Contest Quality” station to ever finish in the top 10 in your province without even thinking of the Country,

To prove a point (kind of) in 2017 I operated the contest as VA3QV/VY2 in the QRP Catagory as were were on Holidays in Prince Edward Island at the time. My score was almost laughable (so low) but as there are less Amateurs residing in PEI my score of 2124 points operating from the Picnic Table was enough to win PEI QRP. It was the one and only time I got a top score (in any catagory) in the RAC contests since I got licenced in 1992 .

VA3QV/VY2 QRP

So (after some rambling) I just want to find my score from the top down rather from the bottom up. After checking the results for the last few years I feel that my estimated score of 18,840 should keep me in the top 50% of the Single Operator Low Power group. Not by much but should be there.

So by my own standards the Contest was a success. It would of been nicer to have more Canadian stations out there. I got 87 Canadian stations in my log and 40 US/DX stations.

I look forward to the RAC Canada Winter Contest in December… but till then its back to chasing POTA

73bob

Field Day 2022

Traditionally held on “The Last Rainy Weekend” in June but for the sticklers for the rules its actual date is the 4th weekend in June…

This year it would be on June 25th and ending on June 26th

So what will VA3QV be doing???? Its safe to say that my Field Day Station will look a bit like this:

or like this from back in 2017….

FD 2017/ RAC Canada Day Contest 2017

Won’t look like this…. This was an early Winter Field Day attempt

So I plan to be operating as a 1B Battery Station from the RAC Ontario East Section (ONE)

The actual location has not been determined yet but there is a good chance the location could be one of the Parks on the Air location in the City of Kingston.

That’s the plan for good weather… and so far the long range forecast is calling for nice (dry). If the weather is not dry then the plan is to operate as a home station in the 1D catagory just to give out points to the participants

If you are new at this then the rules can be found here:

Years ago Field Day was considered a test of our emergency operating skills specifically to set up and operate a station for 24 hours and somehow it has morphed into more of contest with groups of operators putting up equipment that would not be used in a real emergency at power levels that could not be maintained unless you had a generator and an endless supply of gasoline.

I’m a little more primitive by setting up my QRP (5w of power) radio with a wire antenna and using a solar panel to top up the battery as needed.

basic shelter

I will have the option of being under cover (see above pic) as protection from the sun and/or rain most likely be needed at some time . Not sure how long I will be operating but it won’t be for the full 24 hours.

Overnight all I would be doing is listening to static and feeding the mosquitoes…

No egos to stroke…. Just operate and make some contacts with the emphasis of having fun and not taking myself too seriously.

Hope to hear you and be heard by you during the event

73bob

An upgrade to the kit

Well recently I have been shuffling gear around to take into consideration my new interests in our Amateur Radio hobby along with the retirees budget….

Yesterday this rig made it into my shack:

The Yaesu FT2DR is a dual band (2m and 70cm) dual mode (FM and C4FM) 5 watt handheld radio.

I bought it used from a ham in Ottawa and so far I am more than pleased with my purchase. It also has a built in GPS and an AX25 modem so eventually I will figure out how to access the APRS Network.

For now I have been able to program the memories with the limited frequencies needed for Kingston and as I also have the programming software and cable (not needed yet) eventually I will have it working to its full potential.

I still have my FT70D handheld and my FTDM7250 and plan to keep them both doing duty in the shack. The “70D” is currently monitoring my NNMDM Hot spot and the “7250” is connected to my 1/4 wave dual band groundplane giving me local VHF/UHF coverage

So for now I will be using the FT2DR for my daily use rig when not in the shack. Walks around the block or out to some POTA Activations should make use of the APRS Features and the ability to send SMS and APRS Text messages from areas where the cell service is limited could be important. Hopefully the GPS stuff along with the APRS stuff will be just as easy to set up as the memories were.

If you want to track the progress of this check out APRS.FI on line and search for VA3QV. Once I get it functioning the SSID for the FT2DR will be VA3QV-7

There will be a few more changes coming… I am looking for another portable hf rig (FT817 or 818 or even a KX3)to keep the XIEGU X5105 company and I will be sending one of my 100W HF rigs (FT950 or the FT450) on to a new home (but not quite ready to say goodbye yet)

Other stuff— Still hunting lots of POTA with just over 1200 Parks confirmed so far. Only done 2 activations so far but once the bands get stable then the Xiegu will be getting lots of fresh air