Howdy Folks,
Here we are just over 24 hours away from the ARRL DX SSB contest and the excitement is building! VE8EV completed the spring cleaning/tuning of the TH6 earlier in the week and last night our site preparations began in earnest. The plan is to have the 40M HGEB antenna running from the top of the water tower to a pair of 20 foot towers several hundred feet away (one tower for each element) beaming towards Europe. We will also be mounting a TH3JRS on top of the water tower, also fixed on Europe. We’ll have the 40M/80M vertical in the nearby field for the low bands and the TH6 mounted to the hinged tower attached to the back of the trailer for working everywhere outside of Europe.
Inside the trailer VE8EV will be in his usual position with the TS2000 and kilowatt amp. He’ll be in charge of running on 10/15/40/80M. I’ll be in the second position knocking out 500W with the 706MKIIG/FT2100B combo and 20M will be my playground. With the freshly tuned Yagi and the addition of the FT2100B, I’m hoping for a lot of action.
With the above mentioned setup we’ve decided to set the contest goal at 1000 Q’s. That may not sound like a lot to some of you, especially for a 48 hour contest, but at this latitude 1000Q’s is a major accomplishment and double our current best showing.
Well that’s about the size of it. We’ll be QRO at 0000z and working all the DX we can hear. Hopefully we can get you all in the log, but if not, CQWW WPX is just around the corner!
Until next time,
73
Wally VE8DW
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
IOTA NA-192 Will Be On The Air
Howdy folks,
The news is good! VE8EV, VE8DW, and VE8GER will be QRV from Ellice Island (NA-192) as VX8X the weekend of March 20 -22. For more information and last minute updates, check the VE8EV blog site. Hope to work you all then!
73
Wally VE8DW
The news is good! VE8EV, VE8DW, and VE8GER will be QRV from Ellice Island (NA-192) as VX8X the weekend of March 20 -22. For more information and last minute updates, check the VE8EV blog site. Hope to work you all then!
73
Wally VE8DW
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
ARRL DX Countdown and a License Upgrade!
Hello radio-sport fans!
The countdown to ARRL DX is on and we’re getting pretty excited up here in VE8-land. John (VE8EV) and I will be QRO in the VE8EV multi-op mobile station from our favored contest location up on the hill. The preparations are beginning early with the dismantling, cleaning, and retuning of the tri-band Yagi. There are other plans for various verticals and wire beams that will hopefully get us out on all but 160M. So if you hear us and need VE8 for your personal log, feel free to throw us your call. It may not be worth contest points but we’re always happy to help people work NT.
In another bit of exciting news, I have finally passed the Industry Canada upgrade exam and have achieved the exalted title of “Advanced Amateur”! After months of studying I finally felt ready to write. Many thanks go to VE8EV for proctoring yet another exam for me. He was also the HAM responsible for proctoring the basic exam and getting me on the air in the first place. Without his help I would have had a MUCH harder time getting into this hobby. Thanks again John you're a great Elmer!
There are also some interesting plans for the spring, including a mini DX-pedition to activate Ellice Island (NA-192) north of here. If it all goes ahead as planned it should be quite an exciting trip. You can read about the possible plans at the VE8EV blog site.
That’s about all the news for now, there will be plenty more to talk about after ARRL DX and as we get closer to the possible Island Expedition.
Until then,
73
Wally VE8DW
The countdown to ARRL DX is on and we’re getting pretty excited up here in VE8-land. John (VE8EV) and I will be QRO in the VE8EV multi-op mobile station from our favored contest location up on the hill. The preparations are beginning early with the dismantling, cleaning, and retuning of the tri-band Yagi. There are other plans for various verticals and wire beams that will hopefully get us out on all but 160M. So if you hear us and need VE8 for your personal log, feel free to throw us your call. It may not be worth contest points but we’re always happy to help people work NT.
In another bit of exciting news, I have finally passed the Industry Canada upgrade exam and have achieved the exalted title of “Advanced Amateur”! After months of studying I finally felt ready to write. Many thanks go to VE8EV for proctoring yet another exam for me. He was also the HAM responsible for proctoring the basic exam and getting me on the air in the first place. Without his help I would have had a MUCH harder time getting into this hobby. Thanks again John you're a great Elmer!
There are also some interesting plans for the spring, including a mini DX-pedition to activate Ellice Island (NA-192) north of here. If it all goes ahead as planned it should be quite an exciting trip. You can read about the possible plans at the VE8EV blog site.
That’s about all the news for now, there will be plenty more to talk about after ARRL DX and as we get closer to the possible Island Expedition.
Until then,
73
Wally VE8DW
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
NAQP SSB
Hello radio-sport fans.
This past weekend saw the annual January running of the NAQP SSB contest and it was lots of fun.
Several days before the contest, John (VE8EV) and I decided to run NAQP SSB from his driveway instead of a full-on setup at our usual contest spot beside the local water tower. The conditions were not expected to be the greatest and the 100W power limit usually means no Qs at all if the K index is anything higher than 0. Besides, we had recently added a Yaesu FL2100B to the shack and we were eager to try it out in a contest. So the decision was made, we would operate QRO and submit as a check log.
The weekend started Friday evening with John and I getting the multi-op contest station setup in “driveway configuration”. Let me tell you, raising a 6 element, tri-band Yagi in a confined space between John’s shed and the neighbor’s shed can be interesting. Not impossible, but certainly interesting and requiring a creative approach to tower-raising. With that said, the job was completed quickly and with no damage to property, equipment or operators.
Saturday 1800Z found us in the shack ready to go, and, as expected, the signals were pretty light. Throughout the day 20M was the “money band” with very little activity anywhere else. With light signals and lots of noise, I had to strain to hear anything and by 2330Z I had managed to develop a lovely little migraine. So the contest was over for me, but John pressed on and managed to put a few more in the log.
All in all, it was a lot of fun. And despite the headache, I’m glad we were able to get on and hand out the elusive NT mult to some of you. So thank you to everyone in the log and if you tried working us but we couldn’t pull you out of the noise, ARRL DX SSB is just around the corner. We will be QRO, in our favored contest location, and I’ll have a large bottle of Tylenol beside the rig.
So until then,
73
Wally VE8DW
This past weekend saw the annual January running of the NAQP SSB contest and it was lots of fun.
Several days before the contest, John (VE8EV) and I decided to run NAQP SSB from his driveway instead of a full-on setup at our usual contest spot beside the local water tower. The conditions were not expected to be the greatest and the 100W power limit usually means no Qs at all if the K index is anything higher than 0. Besides, we had recently added a Yaesu FL2100B to the shack and we were eager to try it out in a contest. So the decision was made, we would operate QRO and submit as a check log.
The weekend started Friday evening with John and I getting the multi-op contest station setup in “driveway configuration”. Let me tell you, raising a 6 element, tri-band Yagi in a confined space between John’s shed and the neighbor’s shed can be interesting. Not impossible, but certainly interesting and requiring a creative approach to tower-raising. With that said, the job was completed quickly and with no damage to property, equipment or operators.
Saturday 1800Z found us in the shack ready to go, and, as expected, the signals were pretty light. Throughout the day 20M was the “money band” with very little activity anywhere else. With light signals and lots of noise, I had to strain to hear anything and by 2330Z I had managed to develop a lovely little migraine. So the contest was over for me, but John pressed on and managed to put a few more in the log.
All in all, it was a lot of fun. And despite the headache, I’m glad we were able to get on and hand out the elusive NT mult to some of you. So thank you to everyone in the log and if you tried working us but we couldn’t pull you out of the noise, ARRL DX SSB is just around the corner. We will be QRO, in our favored contest location, and I’ll have a large bottle of Tylenol beside the rig.
So until then,
73
Wally VE8DW
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
A New Year
Howdy folks,
It’s been a long time since the last post but now that the Christmas Season is over and the craziness has settled down, I have some time to get caught up.
Sweepstakes SSB
John (VE8EV) and I had a great time working Sweepstakes from our preferred contest location at the top of a nearby hill. We had done a lot of preparation including raising some temporary towers to support several multi-wire HGEB antennas and we were feeling pretty good about our chances. So at the sound of the starting gun, we threw our hats in the ring and went on the hunt. There were some ups and there were some downs but by then end of it we had bagged 510 Qs and 77 sections (so close) for a grand total of 78,540 points. John gives a great summary of our Sweepstakes exploits at the ARRL contest soapbox site here:
http://www.arrl.org/contests/soapbox/index.html?con_id=162&call=ve8ev
For me, the rest of 2008 was spent QRT preparing for Christmas vacation and family visits. However, I did manage to get on the air for a short time during the RAC Canada Winter Contest. Unfortunately most of the signals were too weak for my indoor wire antenna but I did manage to give VE8EV the NT mult before going QRT and spending more time visiting family.
So here we are in a new year and only a few short days away from the January running of the NAQP SSB. The 100W power cap and the possibility of less than stellar conditions could make the Q rate pretty low, but John and I will be on giving it our best shot as the VE8EV M/2 contest station. Hope to work you all then!
73
Wally VE8DW
It’s been a long time since the last post but now that the Christmas Season is over and the craziness has settled down, I have some time to get caught up.
Sweepstakes SSB
John (VE8EV) and I had a great time working Sweepstakes from our preferred contest location at the top of a nearby hill. We had done a lot of preparation including raising some temporary towers to support several multi-wire HGEB antennas and we were feeling pretty good about our chances. So at the sound of the starting gun, we threw our hats in the ring and went on the hunt. There were some ups and there were some downs but by then end of it we had bagged 510 Qs and 77 sections (so close) for a grand total of 78,540 points. John gives a great summary of our Sweepstakes exploits at the ARRL contest soapbox site here:
http://www.arrl.org/contests/soapbox/index.html?con_id=162&call=ve8ev
For me, the rest of 2008 was spent QRT preparing for Christmas vacation and family visits. However, I did manage to get on the air for a short time during the RAC Canada Winter Contest. Unfortunately most of the signals were too weak for my indoor wire antenna but I did manage to give VE8EV the NT mult before going QRT and spending more time visiting family.
So here we are in a new year and only a few short days away from the January running of the NAQP SSB. The 100W power cap and the possibility of less than stellar conditions could make the Q rate pretty low, but John and I will be on giving it our best shot as the VE8EV M/2 contest station. Hope to work you all then!
73
Wally VE8DW
Monday, November 10, 2008
Arctic Radials (aka, Fun Ways To Spend a Saturday)
Howdy folks,
Have you ever taken a lazy summer Sunday afternoon walk through an open field with the sun shining on your face warming your soul, the birds singing in the trees, and puffy clouds drifting by on the gentle summer breeze? Then you get to the edge of the field and realize that to go any farther would mean that you’d have to navigate foot-grabbing underbrush, tangle-wood, thorn bushes, and a host of other nasty things just waiting to trip you up and send you hurtling head-long into sharp, scratchy, pointy, pain-inducing things. So you turn around and go in a different direction, because the walk is meant to be enjoyable after all. But HAMs are a different breed and see the world with a slightly different view. The person taking the Sunday walk would stand at the edge of the clearing and think “Hmm, that looks like difficult going, I’d better find another direction to walk in.” A Ham would stand at the edge of the same clearing, seemingly oblivious to the less than hospitable walking conditions that lay ahead, and get a clear mental picture of the “antenna friendliness” of the surrounding area. Are we on high ground? Are there any obstructions to Asia, Europe, Africa, North or South America? What about VK-land? Are there any nearby sources of interference? That’s how the conversation goes in a HAM’s mind, and if all the criteria are met it is deemed and excellent spot for an antenna.
Fast-forward to a cold November day in the Canadian Arctic and a phone call I received from John (VE8EV) regarding our ARRL Sweepstakes preparations:
“Wally, I have some good news, and some bad news.”
“Lay it on me.” I naively answered.
“The good news is I found the perfect spot for the vertical antenna. The bad news is, it is slightly out of the open field. But it won’t be too bad.”
“Sounds good to me John.”
“Ok, I’ll pick you up in a couple of minutes and we can lay some radials.”
The 100 yard walk from the road, across the field, to the edge of the clearing wasn’t terrible. The snow was only about waist-deep and there wasn’t much wind. As we arrived at the chosen location, I stood on the wooden palette that was to be the base for the vertical and looked around. John couldn’t have picked a better spot; we had unobstructed coverage in all the important directions and we were out of the pattern of the HGEB antennas that will be raised for Sweepstakes.
Then we set to work; the first group of radials extended from the base out into the open field, and in hind site were a joy to run. One end would get walked out through the deep snow and the other end would get tied into the ground strap secured to the palette. On more than one occasion I cursed my average length legs (I am considerably shorter than John) as the snow was up to my waist but only mid-thigh for John. He seemed to move through the snow effortlessly while I was bogged down, fighting for every step.
Then we finished the radials in the open field and started running them out into the less-than-hospitable, underbrush strewn area. Longer legs didn’t seem like an advantage anymore as the silence of the Arctic afternoon was shattered with great regularity by yelps, followed by a stream of blue (and often very creative) language as one or both of us would get tripped by some unseen tormentor and hurtle head-long into the snow.
Around this time we started shouting motivational phrases such as “The low-bands are the key!” or “More radials are always better!” and my personal favorite “Sweepstakes, here we come!” Sometimes we shouted the phrases at each other, sometimes we shouted at ourselves, and occasionally we shouted because it felt good. Perhaps we were trying to convince ourselves, or the ghosts of HAMs that have gone before us, that we were not going to be beaten in this task. We would complete the radials no matter what the cost.
Four hours and close to 3000 feet of wire later we were done. We were battered, we were bruised, we had aches and pains where we didn’t know muscles existed, but we were victorious. We had laid out the radials for the vertical.
On the drive back to town, John (ever the optimist) said “Don’t worry, tomorrow we only have to gather tower sections and build the HGEB antennas.”
SWEEPSTAKES, HERE WE COME!!!!!!!!!!!!!
73
Wally VE8DW
Have you ever taken a lazy summer Sunday afternoon walk through an open field with the sun shining on your face warming your soul, the birds singing in the trees, and puffy clouds drifting by on the gentle summer breeze? Then you get to the edge of the field and realize that to go any farther would mean that you’d have to navigate foot-grabbing underbrush, tangle-wood, thorn bushes, and a host of other nasty things just waiting to trip you up and send you hurtling head-long into sharp, scratchy, pointy, pain-inducing things. So you turn around and go in a different direction, because the walk is meant to be enjoyable after all. But HAMs are a different breed and see the world with a slightly different view. The person taking the Sunday walk would stand at the edge of the clearing and think “Hmm, that looks like difficult going, I’d better find another direction to walk in.” A Ham would stand at the edge of the same clearing, seemingly oblivious to the less than hospitable walking conditions that lay ahead, and get a clear mental picture of the “antenna friendliness” of the surrounding area. Are we on high ground? Are there any obstructions to Asia, Europe, Africa, North or South America? What about VK-land? Are there any nearby sources of interference? That’s how the conversation goes in a HAM’s mind, and if all the criteria are met it is deemed and excellent spot for an antenna.
Fast-forward to a cold November day in the Canadian Arctic and a phone call I received from John (VE8EV) regarding our ARRL Sweepstakes preparations:
“Wally, I have some good news, and some bad news.”
“Lay it on me.” I naively answered.
“The good news is I found the perfect spot for the vertical antenna. The bad news is, it is slightly out of the open field. But it won’t be too bad.”
“Sounds good to me John.”
“Ok, I’ll pick you up in a couple of minutes and we can lay some radials.”
The 100 yard walk from the road, across the field, to the edge of the clearing wasn’t terrible. The snow was only about waist-deep and there wasn’t much wind. As we arrived at the chosen location, I stood on the wooden palette that was to be the base for the vertical and looked around. John couldn’t have picked a better spot; we had unobstructed coverage in all the important directions and we were out of the pattern of the HGEB antennas that will be raised for Sweepstakes.
Then we set to work; the first group of radials extended from the base out into the open field, and in hind site were a joy to run. One end would get walked out through the deep snow and the other end would get tied into the ground strap secured to the palette. On more than one occasion I cursed my average length legs (I am considerably shorter than John) as the snow was up to my waist but only mid-thigh for John. He seemed to move through the snow effortlessly while I was bogged down, fighting for every step.
Then we finished the radials in the open field and started running them out into the less-than-hospitable, underbrush strewn area. Longer legs didn’t seem like an advantage anymore as the silence of the Arctic afternoon was shattered with great regularity by yelps, followed by a stream of blue (and often very creative) language as one or both of us would get tripped by some unseen tormentor and hurtle head-long into the snow.
Around this time we started shouting motivational phrases such as “The low-bands are the key!” or “More radials are always better!” and my personal favorite “Sweepstakes, here we come!” Sometimes we shouted the phrases at each other, sometimes we shouted at ourselves, and occasionally we shouted because it felt good. Perhaps we were trying to convince ourselves, or the ghosts of HAMs that have gone before us, that we were not going to be beaten in this task. We would complete the radials no matter what the cost.
Four hours and close to 3000 feet of wire later we were done. We were battered, we were bruised, we had aches and pains where we didn’t know muscles existed, but we were victorious. We had laid out the radials for the vertical.
On the drive back to town, John (ever the optimist) said “Don’t worry, tomorrow we only have to gather tower sections and build the HGEB antennas.”
SWEEPSTAKES, HERE WE COME!!!!!!!!!!!!!
73
Wally VE8DW
Thursday, November 6, 2008
CQWW SSB 2008
The VE8EV Mobile Station. Ready for CQWW SSBHello radio-sport fans,
Well, what a wild and wooly time around the ol’ shack. It was the annual running of the CQWW SSB contest and John (VE8EV) and I were neck deep in Q’s. This was the first full-on, flat-out, remote setup contest for the mobile shack and it sure was fun.
John had been scouting for a good place to setup the shack and decided on a piece of real estate on the edge of town. It was on a hill, which is good, away from most of the noises associated with being in town, also good, but situated beside a water tower. Normally you would think this is a problem, however, luckily the water tower only blocked the beam from reaching Northern Nunavut, Northern Labrador, the Atlantic Ocean, and a thin slice of West Africa. Considering the rather thin HAM radio density in these areas, it was deemed an excellent compromise.
We had both taken vacation days on Friday October 24th in order to have time to setup the mobile shack and we needed every second of it. By the time we got the shack into position, leveled, and blocked; the Yagi mounted and the tower raised, the contest was underway so we fired up the radios and jumped into the fray.
Friday evening started off with 20M as the hot band and some great propagation into Asia. As the evening progressed 20M started to fade and John started getting busy on 40M. We had some great luck with 40M and John was able to keep the Q’s rolling in until 1745UTC Saturday when JR5VHU made it into the log.
20M started picking up around 1500UTC Saturday and after John’s final 40M Q, he hit 15M on the tri-band Yagi and started putting them in the log. Saturday proved to be a good day propagation-wise with John putting 15M Q’s in the log until just after 0000UTC.
Saturday evening was a repeat of the night before with some more great runs on both 20M and 40M.
What can I say about Sunday afternoon? As with all major contests, the last few hours become a slug-fest on 20M with wall-to-wall big signals and very little room for us little pistols. I did manage to find the odd open spot here and there but could only get short runs going before I’d get crowded out by the much larger signals. While I was sweating it out on 20M, though, John was having some great luck adding Q’s on 15M and even managed to bag VK4WR!
When the dust finally settled on Sunday evening we had a total of 408 Q’s with 145 on 15M, 162 on 20M, 100 on 40M, and a single on 80M (thank you KH7X), and 175 mults for a grand total of 181,475 points.
If you are in the log, thanks for taking the time to work us. If you didn’t get in, Sweepstakes SSB is just around the corner and we hope to work you then.
Until then,
73
Wally VE8DW
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