VE3WMB Blog

ChillyCon - OV-QRP Camping Weekend

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 09:27:09 -0400

Another Ottawa Valley QRP Society Fall Camping Weekend has just come and gone. Given that we haven’t actually had Chili at one of these events for a couple of years, and the weather is often a bit nippy, I suggest that we officially re-name the event from “Chilicon” to “Chillycon”.

We had a great turnout this year, with most of the campsites on the 175-186 loop at Rideau River Provincial Park occupied and radio-active. Our Saturday night take-out Pizza Dinner had 14 attendees which is a record ! As usual, Capilano Pizza in Kemptville did a fine job and delivered a lot of Pizza to the entrance of the park.

No Chillycon report would be complete without at least a passing mention of the weather. Fortunately most of us who arrived on Friday did so early enough to be able to setup tents and tarps before the seemingly endless string of rain showers came through, lasting well past midnight. It wouldn’t be appropriate to call this event “Chillycon” without the tradition of having at least one night of camping reach a low temperature very near freezing. This year didn’t disappoint as Saturday evening it reportedly went down to about 3 C.

Some of the highlights of this years event :

- An increased attendance this year by the members of the Frontenac Radio Group from Kingston. These guys are a real hoot. Bill (VE3CLQ) you can bring your friends along any time !
- WWII Wireless Set No. 19 Setup and demo by Dave, VA3ORP and Chris, VE3CBK. (http://www.qsl.net/ve3bdb/)
- WWII Signal Lamp Morse QSOs between campsites 171 and 181 (down the road) on Sunday morning. (http://www.museumoftechnology.org.uk/expand.php?key=519)
- Brunch at the Broadway Bar in Grill on Sunday morning.
- Working Bob VE3UK who I know from the Magloop Yahoo Group. Me using my KX1 and G5RV Jr. on 40m and him using his recently constructed 4ft diameter Mag loop in his living room with an SG2020.

And now the bit that you have all been waiting for ... the unofficial, but highly coveted, Chillycon Awards (good for bragging rights until at least next years event).

Best overall toys :

- The award goes to Chris, VA3CME for his KX3 and Parrot Ar. Drone Quadracopter (the coolest toy I have event seen) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze84IaSnKFs&list=FLF84F_NVDIVGkwfPLOWIp7w&index=16&feature=plcp)

Best DX :

- Eric VA3AMX worked VK7CW in Tasmania on CW using his K2 and a G5RV.

Till next year .. stay warm and dry.

“A thing of beauty”

Sun, 8 Jul 2012 14:49:53 -0400

My Father’s Day present this year was a new MS2 straight key kit from Doug Hauff at American Morse Equipment.

The MS2 is tiny, but it is incredibly well machined and has an amazing feel. It is like having a tiny German “Junker” straight key. There is absolutely no side-to-side motion with this key and it is built like a tank. The parts are CNC machined from solid aluminum and then anodized. Doug warranties his work for life (yours or his)!

The instructions are very straightforward (the manual is on the AME Web page). Once you figure out which screws go where, (there are a few different lengths) the assembly is quite quick. I chose to modify one step in the manual and soldered the cable to the solder lugs before I permanently attached the lugs to the key so as not to damage the plastic shoulder washer with heat from the soldering iron.

For a cord I used half of a pre-assembled six foot stereo audio cable. The Elecraft Rigs that I use for most of my portable operating require that any key be connected via a stereo plug. I also attached the key to a clear polycarbonate plastic base (XC-Ski Scraper) using the threaded hole in the base of the key and a matching screw from my junkbox and I added four clear stick-on rubber feet to the base.

Many thanks to Pete, W1PNS for blogging about this little key and answering my questions about his experiences with it.

10 metre fibreglass mast to put up wire antennas

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 10:37:19 -0500

One end of my 204 ft doublet at the cottage has been much lower for the past month or so since the branch supporting the end broke. I hauled my DK9SQ mast up to the cottage this past weekend to use as a tool to help fix this.

The trick that seems to work well is to attach a J-shaped hook near the end of the mast with electrical tape (I used a chunk of coathanger) and then bend it closed and tape it so you have a small stiff loop. Locate this a few inches down the mast as the mast tip tends to be a bit too flexible.

Run some fishing line through the loop and attach a small
wrench or something with enough weight to pull the fishing line off of a reel.

Stand about 10 or so feet from the base of the tree and slowly start to extend the pole up as you keep the fishing line taut (you don't want the wrench getting caught up in branches). As you extend the pole you can move a bit closer to the tree and position the tip with the loop over the branch that you want to use as a support. When you clear the branch release the fishing line and let the weight drop over the branch to the ground.

Temporarily tie off the end with the wrench to some bushes and release some more slack in the fishing line so that you can move the pole away from the tree and collapse it without undoing what you just did.

Use the fishing line to pull up a heavier rope to support your antenna.

With a DK9SQ or similar mast you can easily reach a 35+ foot branch, which is not bad. Standing on a step ladder (be careful) you can extend your reach to 40 feet which is not too shabby at all. I have used the slingshot / fishing line trick for years but I have found that it requires a lot of patience as it is pretty "hit or miss" (pardon the pun) and the
fishing line has a tendency to get caught up in almost everything (especially when you miss).

This trick with the pole is actually pretty fool proof and with a bit of practice you can accurately get a line over a tree for a permanent antenna installation quite quickly. These masts weight only about 3 pounds so even fully extended one person can manage it. Just be sure to twist the mast sections to lock them as you extend, otherwise the tension on the fishing line will cause the mast to collapse as you are trying to raise it. Extending the mast almost vertically near the tree trunk allows you to avoid most of the "pesky little branches" that tend to snag the fishing line and loop.

I repeated this exercise while standing on my deck at the cottage (thus extending my reach) and I put up a backup W3EDP inverted-L antenna by myself fairly quickly.

Note that the same technique could be used for portable operating when using one of these masts as an antenna support. I often resort to using an inverted-vee when operating portable for simplicity, but generally speaking a flat-top will out perform an inverted-vee . You could take a hybrid approach of using the mast first to secure end supports for your wire antenna and the then use the mast itself to support the centre / feedline portion of the antenna.

The DK9SQ mast is available from Kanga USA. Also the poles from Jackite are also very good value for the $$.

“Zombie Shuffle” where QRP Ghouls Rule !

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 09:14:56 -0400

Last night was the 13th running (or should I say shuffling - since Zombies don’t run) of the annual wacky QRP contest called the “Zombie Shuffle”.

The rules are pretty simple .. get on the air with your QRP CW rig and work other Zombies, exchanging signal reports, your S/P/C, name, QRP Zombie Number (or telephone area code) and the number of years that you have been a licensed ham radio operator.

As this is not a serious contest, I didn’t put in a serious effort. In total I spent a couple of hours off and on looking for other zombies on the air.

Highlights include working my good friend Ken-zombie, WA8REI/p as my first contact for the night and Mert, W0UFO (a Zombie Shuffle regular) on both 20m and 40m. I had the pleasure of meeting Mert in person at FDIM in Dayton, OH in 2010.

I am also happy to report that “Elvis” is alive and well living in Washington State under the assumed identity of Stewart, KE7LKW ... I know because I worked him (special Elvis stations count for bonus points).

A list of stations worked :

22:57utc - Ken WA8REI 40m
00:00utc - Mert W0UFO 20m
00:19utc - Larry W2LJ 80m
00:27utc - Mert W0UFO 40m
00:34utc - Jim VE3MO 40m
01:00utc - “Elvis” KE7LKW 20m

Happy Hallowe’en and to all a “Ghoul” Night ;-)

(Zombie warning sign courtesy of Photobucket)

A week of chasing N4EX/p & WA2USA/p

Thu, 6 Oct 2011 08:34:49 -0400

Last night I raised a “wee dram” of “The Famous Grouse” to celebrate a week of “chasing” Dennis, WA2USA/p and Rich, N4EX/p who have been activating SOTA summits in North Carolina every day for the past week.

I first noticed their entry in the Upcoming Activations section of the Sotawatch website on September 29th and thought it might be fun to try to work them. NC is too far away for 40m propagation from Ottawa during the daytime but as it turns out 20m seem to work well.

I got both of them on September 29th at W4/WM-001, Clingman’s Dome which is on the border of NC and TN.
Excited by my success I scanned the “Upcoming Activations” list the next day and there they were again planning to operate from Waterrock Knob. This scenario repeated itself over and over again. Soon I realized that a week had gone by and I had managed to work at least one of them every day, with the exception of Saturday October 1st . The propagation on 20m on Saturday was very poor and despite my best efforts a QSO just wasn’t going to happen.

Initially I had no idea who these guys were, but I soon began to visualize them as “the Energizer Bunnies” of W4-SOTA ... they just kept going and going and going ....

It was an interesting experiment to see how consistent mid-day propagation was into NC from Ottawa over the span of a week. Signal reports ranged from RST 449 to 579 and in spite of low power being used at both ends we were able to QSO 6 out of 7 days. I never ran my K2 at more than 10 watts into my 4BTV vertical and they were both QRP.

In addition to learning a lot more about the mountains of North Carolina and making a couple of new friends on the air, this experience has piqued my interest in Summits on the Air. Eric ,VA3AMX and I are hoping to activate McKinstry Peak VE2/OU-003 in Gatineau Park on October 22. This will be my first SOTA activation.

Dennis, Rich ... thanks again for the fun week !

. .

P.S. For more info on Summits on the Air see the SOTA Website.