Well the RAC Canada Day Contest is over for another year.
As with all the RAC Contests I set certain goals for my self and for this one was no different.
The goals were as follows:
HAVE FUN- This is a must. I am a casual operator and not a “dyed in the wool” contester. The main thing is to have fun and keep it friendly… This was not an issue and I had a blast working across Canada.
TRY AND WORK CANADA COAST TO COAST TO COAST-
Well almost… I had contacts in:VE1, VE2, VE3, VE4, VE5, VE6, VE7, VE8, VE9 and VO1. East Coast to the West Coast and the North West Territory.
Unfortunately this time VO2,VY0, VY1 and VY2 escaped me.
HAVE A SCORE IN THE TOP 50% OF MY CATAGORY. Needless to say that this time its not going to happen. I made contacts on 15m, 20m and 40m and they were good contacts…. I just needed more of them.
After about 9 hours of radio stretching it out over a 24 hour period it was all over. One of the lowest scores I will not be submitting but it was still fun.
Onwards and upwards so…. Happy 4th of July to my American Friends…. I’ve already gotten 7 of the 13 Colonies station in the log and I started chasing them today.
For those of you not certain where Uxbridge Ontario is…. Look up for a map.
From the info given on the Global TV site (see above link) I am led to believe that this will be a “Day Use” Park but it will be a “Provincial Park” which means that when the work is complete and the park is opened to the public it will qualify as a POTA entity once it gets assigned a POTA Number.
Looking forward to getting another new park in my log
For those of you not certain where Uxbridge Ontario is…. Look up for a map.
From the info given on the Global TV site (see above link) I am led to believe that this will be a “Day Use” Park but it will be a “Provincial Park” which means that when the work is complete and the park is opened to the public it will qualify as a POTA entity once it gets assigned a POTA Number.
Looking forward to getting another new park in my log
Anyone who has been with me for awhile knows that every now and again “Murphy” of Murphy’s Law fame comes for a visit.
Things here have been going fairly well (Ham Radio wise) recently. I have been able to some contacts (mostly 20m SSB) during the daytime and also in the evenings (mostly 40m SSB) and considering the band conditions I think that’s pretty good.
But (and you know there had to be a “but”!
After making some evening 40m ssb contacts last night I shut off the power supply and left the shack. I came back to the shack and turned on the power supply and the radio would not turn on.
I did a quick check and the power supply now had an output of 4v dc. Not what I was expecting as before I shut it down it was steady at 13.5v dc which is normal for this unit.
I then took the cover off and could not smell the “magic smoke” and there was no visible issues on the board itself. No burn marks on the board, everything attached and no signs of any thing out of the ordinary.
I did have a backup PS so I’m still on the air with a 25 amp unit rather than the 30 amp unit that now is a paperweight.
The replacement from “The Toronto Toystore” will set me back around $220.00 after shipping/taxes, so it won’t break the bank and they have one in stock so “fingers crossed”.
So, this morning I look out into my backyard and notice the counterweight attached to the end of my “Stealthy Inverted L” is laying on the ground. A quick check found that the wire itself was intact but…. (yup but again) the wire had slipped off on of the branches that support the horizontal section of the wire. This does happen every now and again so…. 30 minutes later I’m back on the air.
The plan now is to see if the band comes to life (the numbers are looking good) and I can get (more than) a few contacts in the log.
.
Ending on a positive note I was able to contact VE3FI Bill as he activated POTA CA-2376 as part of his cross Canada tour. I guess the antenna is working after all that.
Anyone who has been with me for awhile knows that every now and again “Murphy” of Murphy’s Law fame comes for a visit.
Things here have been going fairly well (Ham Radio wise) recently. I have been able to some contacts (mostly 20m SSB) during the daytime and also in the evenings (mostly 40m SSB) and considering the band conditions I think that’s pretty good.
But (and you know there had to be a “but”!
After making some evening 40m ssb contacts last night I shut off the power supply and left the shack. I came back to the shack and turned on the power supply and the radio would not turn on.
I did a quick check and the power supply now had an output of 4v dc. Not what I was expecting as before I shut it down it was steady at 13.5v dc which is normal for this unit.
I then took the cover off and could not smell the “magic smoke” and there was no visible issues on the board itself. No burn marks on the board, everything attached and no signs of any thing out of the ordinary.
I did have a backup PS so I’m still on the air with a 25 amp unit rather than the 30 amp unit that now is a paperweight.
The replacement from “The Toronto Toystore” will set me back around $220.00 after shipping/taxes, so it won’t break the bank and they have one in stock so “fingers crossed”.
So, this morning I look out into my backyard and notice the counterweight attached to the end of my “Stealthy Inverted L” is laying on the ground. A quick check found that the wire itself was intact but…. (yup but again) the wire had slipped off on of the branches that support the horizontal section of the wire. This does happen every now and again so…. 30 minutes later I’m back on the air.
The plan now is to see if the band comes to life (the numbers are looking good) and I can get (more than) a few contacts in the log.
.
Ending on a positive note I was able to contact VE3FI Bill as he activated POTA CA-2376 as part of his cross Canada tour. I guess the antenna is working after all that.
Well its not as bad as indicated from my last post…
But its still got a way to go…
This morning on my 11 am (Eastern) hour on the TPN I managed to get 7 stations in my log which is the best its been in a while. After the net ended I had some household chores to do before I could get to the next part of this post.
Today I wanted to take my Yaesu FT891 rig along with my two antennas out into my backyard and make sure everything is still working as well as I remember. Next week my shifts on the TPN will be ending for a while as I am taking the summer off in an attempt to concentrate on my POTA part of the hobby.
So here’s the setup
Rig: Yaesu FT891 powered by my ECO-Worthy 20ah LI-PO4 battery
Antenna 1: 40m EFHW which is 63 feet long and fed by a 64:1 unun. This antenna usually is used in a sloper or inverted Vee configuration. Its very nice on 10-40m and I have 2 small counterpoises which I clip on as needed. I feed the unun from a 25 foot run of RG58 with a RF choke at one end.
Antenna 2: 17.5 foot long end fed fed by a 9:1 unun. I normally would use this in a vertical or sloper configuration. Its excellent on 10m to 20m but will also work on 40m without the need of a tuner. Depending on the situation I have a couple of small counterpoises I can clip onto the unn if needed. I feed the unun from a 25 foot run of RG58 with a RF choke at one end. The advantage to this antenna is that if I use it as a vertical there is next to no footprint which could make a couple of the parks in the downtown area much easier to activate.
If the trees do not cooperate I also carry a MFJ 33 foot telescopic masting which will support the wire if needed.
How did I do today?
Operating from my deck I strung out the 63 foot EFHW kind of as an inverted xyz configuration. Hanging 63 feet of wire anywhere I could hand it without anyone seeing it or running into it. Despite the setup Contacts were made on 40m and 20m despite the band conditions. with a reasonable SWR (no tuner in line) where I normally use it
Next I used the 17.5 with the 9:1 unun as a low sloper and made 1 contact on 20. The SWR was “tolerable” on 40m but on 10m to 20m it was under 2:1 which is great for a Portable setup. Nothing to complain about on my part.
I also use this style of antenna at home in a vertical configuration and it works great for my need either “home or away”
So here’s the plan…
If you notice the above map there are 10 POTA sites (yellow dots) that I can easily access from my home in Kingston. All of them easily reachable via public transit or a bit of a walk. The one on the bottom right (the island) is not reachable via foot. There is a dock but I can’t find out if Kingston has a Water Taxi so if I can activate 10 out of 11 I will be pleased.
I guess I could also say that this would be a test of the station I will be using for Field Day this year. Not sure where I’m going to be yet but…. I know I’ll be participating from somewhere near Kingston.
Well its not as bad as indicated from my last post…
But its still got a way to go…
This morning on my 11 am (Eastern) hour on the TPN I managed to get 7 stations in my log which is the best its been in a while. After the net ended I had some household chores to do before I could get to the next part of this post.
Today I wanted to take my Yaesu FT891 rig along with my two antennas out into my backyard and make sure everything is still working as well as I remember. Next week my shifts on the TPN will be ending for a while as I am taking the summer off in an attempt to concentrate on my POTA part of the hobby.
So here’s the setup
Rig: Yaesu FT891 powered by my ECO-Worthy 20ah LI-PO4 battery
Antenna 1: 40m EFHW which is 63 feet long and fed by a 64:1 unun. This antenna usually is used in a sloper or inverted Vee configuration. Its very nice on 10-40m and I have 2 small counterpoises which I clip on as needed. I feed the unun from a 25 foot run of RG58 with a RF choke at one end.
Antenna 2: 17.5 foot long end fed fed by a 9:1 unun. I normally would use this in a vertical or sloper configuration. Its excellent on 10m to 20m but will also work on 40m without the need of a tuner. Depending on the situation I have a couple of small counterpoises I can clip onto the unn if needed. I feed the unun from a 25 foot run of RG58 with a RF choke at one end. The advantage to this antenna is that if I use it as a vertical there is next to no footprint which could make a couple of the parks in the downtown area much easier to activate.
If the trees do not cooperate I also carry a MFJ 33 foot telescopic masting which will support the wire if needed.
How did I do today?
Operating from my deck I strung out the 63 foot EFHW kind of as an inverted xyz configuration. Hanging 63 feet of wire anywhere I could hand it without anyone seeing it or running into it. Despite the setup Contacts were made on 40m and 20m despite the band conditions. with a reasonable SWR (no tuner in line) where I normally use it
Next I used the 17.5 with the 9:1 unun as a low sloper and made 1 contact on 20. The SWR was “tolerable” on 40m but on 10m to 20m it was under 2:1 which is great for a Portable setup. Nothing to complain about on my part.
I also use this style of antenna at home in a vertical configuration and it works great for my need either “home or away”
So here’s the plan…
If you notice the above map there are 10 POTA sites (yellow dots) that I can easily access from my home in Kingston. All of them easily reachable via public transit or a bit of a walk. The one on the bottom right (the island) is not reachable via foot. There is a dock but I can’t find out if Kingston has a Water Taxi so if I can activate 10 out of 11 I will be pleased.
I guess I could also say that this would be a test of the station I will be using for Field Day this year. Not sure where I’m going to be yet but…. I know I’ll be participating from somewhere near Kingston.
If you were checking the Trans Provincial Net Website you might of noticed a small blurb mentioning I will be taking the summer off.
“Bob VA3QV will be away starting 18th May till September 2024.”
I currently cover the 11am (EST) hour 5 days a week and I do enjoy being a NCS…. But… Now that the nicer weather is finally looking like it might arrive… I decided I would prefer to spend it doing other stuff compared to sitting in the shack for a while.
No doubt that radio will be a big part of my summer but it won’t be from the shack unless its raining.
As always if I am doing (or have done) anything interesting in radio you will be able to read about it right here.
The weather this weekend was not nice enough (for me) to seriously consider taking the Portable Station out any of the local POTA Parks as I had previously mentioned. Although the temps were above the freezing mark I find the cold harsher now and it was a bit too cold for me to be sitting at a picnic table.
Now it was not as bad as the above but it sure felt like it so…
So my Plan “B” was to just operate from the shack and give out contacts….
So starting on Saturday (0000hrs utc) I started spinning the dial and giving out contacts to whoever I could hear in whatever contest/event they were participating in. Contacts were made in the following contests/event:
POTA Support Your Parks, Ontario QSO Party, Michigan QSO Party, Nebraska QSO Party and the Quebec QSO Party. A few Special Event Stations were also in the log as well.
All the contacts were given a 5/9 ON exchange with the Ontario QP Participants getting a “5/9 FRO (Frontenac County)”.
I managed to give out 40 OQP exchanges .
The POTA activators were really busy and I found (in some cases) hard to break the pileups. That part of our hobby is growing in leaps and bounds. I hope that some of the newer operators were not discouraged by the sheer numbers of stations calling.
According to my records I managed to raise my Unique Parks worked count to 2565 logged. Slowly heading towards the 3000 mark which is my next goal.
With the promises (would the Weather Person lie to me?) of better (warmer/dryer) weather in the next week I am still planning to give the Portable station’s new 17 1/2 foot vertical a testing out from the field. Don’t know which day (yet) as the band conditions have to cooperate along with a bit warmer weather from “Mother Nature”
If you look back to my previous post in which I had covered my successful POTA activation of CA5143 I mentioned that I had used my 40m EFHW antenna to make the 23 contacts made.
Well one thing I neglected to mention was the difficulty I had getting 62 feet (or so) wire stretched out in the rather dense brush just off the trail. In the past I had mentioned about getting a 2nd antenna in the kit for when the EFHW was just not able to be deployed easily.
I had tried a BuddiPole but it did not (could not) do exactly what I wanted…. Using some parts from the BuddiPole and then adding a “Imitation” Shock Corded 9 foot whip (In my opinion…FWIW the Amazoon 9.5 ft shock cord whip is a real POS)was not doing it for me either. I tried following the instructions and when those did not work I tried (to no avail) to use what I tried in the past with other portable antennas but just no joy…
Fast forward to yesterday. The LDG 9:1 UNUN that I ordered on the Monday had arrived and so I decided to duplicate the “Coastal-20” antenna that I use at home for 10-12-15-17 & 20m. If you “Google Coastal-20 you should see the basic plans. Its a 9:1 UNUN along with a 17.5 foot vertical with a short counterpoise.
Now on my first build I found the short counterpoise version did not perform exactly as I had hoped so I decided to go with 3 elevated counterpoises. I cut 1 for 10-15 &20m and it worked quite well for me on 10 to 20m. By well I mean that I was making contacts and the SWR on all the needed bands was low or low enough that the internal tuner in my Yaesu FT991a was handling it.
Mostly copying my first version with the exception of swapping out 3 counterpoises for a single 11 foot counterpoise seemed to make no difference with the SWR and it was loading up just as well as the previous one did.
The next test for the new antenna will be when I get out into the Park (hopefully this weekend) if the forecasted rain ever stops. The plan is to have both antennas available for when I participate in the POTA Support your Parks event which happens April 20th and 21st and by strange luck is also the same weekend as the Ontario QSO Party, The Michigan QSO Party and the Quebec QSO Party so there should be no problems getting contacts to activate what ever park (parks) I head out to…
This was a special one for me. The last I tried to activate the Marshlands Conservation Area I had an equipment malfunction and as such it was a “Failed Activation”.
Today I headed out to get the one that got away.
I set up (red dot on the map) and operated with my FT891 set at 30w , 40m EFHF and proceeded to give out contacts….
In one hour I had managed to make 23 contacts in Ontario, and the Eastern Parts of the USA.
In the “learning part” of my activation I still have to find a way to carry more stuff and also make the kit lighter… It was a 4 km walk there and back (thats almost 2.5 miles to those of you south of the border) and to be honest I was really glad to get home and get my feet up.
I mentioned a few posts back about using some sort of trailer to carry the kit and today’s effort reinforces that thought….
Anyway I did have fun…. and if I worked you I hope you had fun as well….. If you don’t see our QSO today in your Hunters Log let me know and I’ll try to figure out why not…
As always the CQWW Contests are a great source of entertainment and also a great chance to increase your DXCC totals….This one was no different
This year I operated in a S & P (search and pounce) mode for approximately 8 hours in total. The rig I used was my Yaesu FT991a and the antenna of choice was my “Modified” Coastal-20 vertical antenna
I made 42 contacts in 22 DXCC entities covering 4 continents (NA/SA/AF/EU) using 10m-15m and 20m
I was able to contact stations in:
Alaska, Argentina, Aruba, Bonaire, Brazil, Canada, Canary Islands, England, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Morocco, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Slovenia, St Lucia, Turkey (Turkiye), United States of America
Now if everyone confirms I believe that there will be one new DXCC for my DXCC totals, but also there should be a couple of new ones for my 5 Band DXCC which I am hoping to complete sooner or later but most likely later
More on this once the confirmations come in via either LoTW, QRZ.com or EQSL.
It was a goal I had set for myself. The next one is at 3000 parks (500 more to go) but now that the nicer weather is here, I also want to Activate the local parks here in Kingston. Hunting is fun and Activating is as much fun.
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