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Most of the time during these full weekend contests I don't get on Friday evening as I find it to be a ZOO with lots of stations sending at a blinding speeds. I don't blame them as they want to get their score rolling so that on Saturday they are well in the game. I started on Saturday morning around 8 in the morning the power output is 5 watts QRP into my attic dipole. It's funny I was sending serial numbers in the teens and I am receiving serial numbers the the triple digits. Now that would be depressing if I was in the contest to make a showing...but I'm in it to have fun!! So how did the first day go......

1. The propagation was.....shall we say (because this is a family blog) crap!! 
2. I was in the contest for a grand total of 5 hours today. 
3. There was some down time as you can tell from fact number 2...software troubles, USB port trouble and K3 updates and the list can go on.  (This is normal contest OMG stuff)
4. The attic dipole once again did very well considering the conditions.
5. The evening once 20m closes down I am done as with the poor conditions for some reason 40m has not been a great band for me with the attic dipole. 

EI9KC (2nd from left) and Anthony

Very rare during the week do I have time to get on the radio once all the things around the house are done I am beat... BUT this evening was an off night were I was able to power up the K3. It was 30m were things seemed to be happening for me. I was able to "hear" lots but contact few, there was lots of South American stations calling CQ but my 5 watts just did not seem to make it down that way. I had a look at the P3 to see what stations were showing up and I came across a very weak signal. I was not able to make out the call but then as 30m does the call came in at S5 just right for me decipher the call. It was EI9KC from Ireland now for some reason I do have a very hard time with getting Ireland in the log. I took a chance and threw my 5 watts out there and EI9KC came back to me! Ark gave me a 559 report and considering the band conditions, my attic dipole and the 5 watts I was pumping out I was thrilled! The trouble at this end was he was in and out BIG TIME! It was a very short QSO but I did email him just to make sure Ark knew I did copy him and I wanted to make sure he got my call and did copy me. He emailed me right back and did confirm the contact and low and behold he is a blogger as well. You can check out EI9KC's blog here, Ireland has a special place in my heart as both my mom and dad are from there. Funny thing and small world I did a search on Google regarding EI9KC and I found out he knows a fellow blogger Anthony EI2KC   (first ham on the left of the pic above).

Last years shot of my planned location for today

It turned out to be a fantastic day  lots of sunshine and temperatures in around 23C. I was long over due and it was time to  pack up the KX3 and go on an outdoor trip with the rig. I brought along the Alexloop as well to give it a go outdoors.  Part of planning is making sure you have all that you need for the trip and not just radio stuff. There is water, one of those chairs you sling over your back, hat and sunglasses without these the trip could be not as comfortable. I arrived at my "spot" that I have gone to in the past found a nice parking spot in the shade. I then proceeded to unpack the car but could not believe the amount of mosquitoes that were buzzing around me. If planning had been better repellant would had been on the list but in all fairness at this time of year mosquitoes were the last thing on my mind. It was now time for adaptability and move to another location.

New setup in town

 There is no way I could have setup and been comfortable with the bugs at this location. I was now heading back to town and to another location. This one was along the river in town and always has a nice cool breeze off the river. I found my spot and setup did not take long at all and there was a table that was available as well. The Alexloop was very easy to setup and very fast to get it tuned up on 14.060. The KX3 was set to about 2 watts output and so began my CQ's. About 15 minutes into the portable operation the KX3 went

All packed up.

dead!! This has happen to me in the past with this radio and I knew exactly what is was! It was very poor planning on my part....the KX3 batteries were dead. Well not dead exactly but below the minimum voltage needed to operate the radio. That was the end of my out door adventure for the day and the radio is now at home getting it's batteries recharged. Monday is a holiday up this way and depending on the weather maybe I will give it a go on Monday.Going to have to look into a second set of batteries so I always have a charged set ready to go.

KX3 charging

No contacts heard or made but it's working

Good afternoon from the shack of VE3WDM, it's a long weekend up this way with Monday being a holiday! I have been seeing lots of posts about Dayton and a huge amount of tweets. It would seem that most if not all major manufactures have some new goodies they are premiering at Dayton. For those of you who read this blog and are sending use the news of Dayton.......KEEP IT UP!! So what's new around here.....well I have updated my VE3WDM K2 build blog with a new page. This is my second Elecraft K2 I have built and I wanted to blog about it. I want to highlight the build as well try to make this blog a good resource  for ham radio kit builders. This K2 build is taking longer with taking pictures and blogging about it but I am having a hoot. Today I decided to get WSPR going once again in the shack, well I must admit that at first it was to TRY to get WSPR going again. I did have WSPR installed and running with my K3 in the past and for some reason (as I have found many digi modes do) the rig would not come out of transmit. No matter what I did I could not  repair this odd event. Today I decided to remove the WSPR program from my PC and start fresh. I am happy to say that all is working well agian. A fellow blogger Bas had mentioned to me while I was comparing my attic dipole to my new Alexloop antenna that WSPR would be a very good way to compare the two. At this point this evening I am just making sure WSPR is functioning as it should and so far all looks well. My next step will be to put the attic dipole up against the Alexloop.

This is a great idea from Ten-Tec which was introduced at Dayton....I give you the QRPer blog he has done a stellar preview. Check it out and get the grey matter excited!!

Setup for test. (Laptop running Ubuntu update)

The propagation conditions have not been all that great over the last couple of days so what a better time to do some on air Alexloop vs attic dipole comparisons! Here is the setup I used my Elecraft K3 putting the Alexloop in antenna 1 on the K3 and left the dipole on antenna 2 on the K3. This way I can use the internal tuner for the dipole and remove the antenna tuner for the Alexloop with just the push of a button on the K3. The power output was 5 watts, figured I would go to the top end of QRP considering the atmospheric conditions being not so hot. The Alexloop was up in my radio room facing West out the widow and East through my house walls. The Dipole is in a "Z" configuration in the attic so it kinda is facing most all directions. The Alexloop frequency was 14.061 and the dipole was 14.059 and I was using CW along side the Reverse Beacon network. The current atmosphiric conditions at the time of the test were:
A-5
K3
SFI 157
SN 173
Below is the results of the test.....not so well it would seem the Alexloop netted zero and the dipole only one. So is seems for a more acurate comparison better conditions are needed.

It may look like rain on the window but it's very much snow

It has been a week of not  much radio time and one of where you just seem to be spinning your wheels and not getting to far. In the evenings once dinner is done I am just to tired to hit the radio. The weather last week was great very warm and showers only now and then. The temp's were in around 24C dinners were BBQ's each night and even turning on the A.C was being considered. That was short lived when this weekend came

Male Polar bear

around and the temp's dropped. When I say dropped I mean it has gone from 24C last week to snow falling today and frost warnings for this evening. My Saturday was spent with Julie at the Metro Toronto ZOO.    We are about an hour and 20 minutes away from the zoo but this place is amazing and well worth the drive.

Sumatran tiger...seeing us as dinner dinner

Julie and I were there for 9 hours and we still did not cover the entire property. There are over 5,000 animals, about 1.3 million people visit the zoo each year. There are both huge outdoor exhibits and very very well done indoor as well. Julie was able to take 1500 pictures (and now is editing them) if you ever come to visit Toronto this is a must see venue. Here are some of Julies ZOO shots from our amazing day.

White Lion not to camera shy

Jaguar having his say