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Field Day 2010 site viewed from the CUARC tent early Sunday morning

Well it has been a week since Field Day (FD) and so it is time I gave a report on how it went.

As previously mentioned I have been involved in establishing an amateur radio club at the university where I work.  For this FD, the first one for the club, the Carleton University Amateur Radio Club (CUARC) teamed up with the Ottawa Valley Mobile Radio Club (OVMRC).  Since February there have been 14 new amateurs licensed through CUARC so here was a chance for these newcomers to gain some operational experience and to mix with some very experienced amateurs in the OVMRC.

Ernie, VE3EJJ, talking to CUARC members (copyright Ziad El-Khatibi)

The site was the very front of the grounds of the Canada Science and Technology Museum, by the lighthouse.  We ran a 4A operation as VA3RAM and the CUARC contribution was a 100W SSB station on 10m and 15m.  CUARC used two antennas, an off-centre fed dipole and two nested full-wave vertical loops for 15m and 10m.  These were built by the students, the dipole prior to FD and the loops on the day.  The antenna building was a good exercise, translating theory into practice  and the antennas had low SWRs on the required bands of 10m and 15m when checked with my Autek antenna analyzer. There was quite a lot of interest in the antennas from other amateurs and I will describe these in detail in a later post.

On Saturday 10m was open so operations started on that and it was great to see the thrill the CUARC members had when making contacts on the antennas they had built.  As the afternoon wore on there was a move to 15m.  CUARC members mixed with the OVMRC members and were given the opportunity to run the other stations.  A great report on this is given in a post on Bob’s, VA3QV, blog.

Gerry, VA3GLT, (left) and Campbell, VA3CNS, (right) working 10m (copyright Ziad El-Khatib)

Field Day is a good time to get operating experience and some of the CUARC members took this opportunity, others were a little ‘mic shy’.  One notable operator was Campbell, VA3CNS, who did an excellent  job at calling CQ on 15m and logging stations one after another.  He was almost running a pile-up for a while. Another highlight was Maria, VA3MMI, working 80m with Bob, VA3QV, and receiving some NTS for the International Space Station.  This is detailed in Bob’s blog post.  One contact that I made that pleased me was when I was manning Ernie’s, VE3EJJ, 40m station and I logged W1AW.  Nice to work a station I had heard so often on CW.

The weather was a little damp and not too hot.  Overall, not unpleasant weather which helped to make the 24 hours manageable, even on only three hours sleep.

The busy CUARC tent (copyright Ziad El-Khatib)

Overall a great FD and very enjoyable.

Special thanks to Ziad El-Khatib,VA3ZEK, for most of the photographs.

Steve, GW7AAV, spotted a news item on the NZART web page which states that the authorities in New Zealand have become concerned about IRLP, D-Star, Echolink, APRS and similar modes as they do not appear to fit within the New Zealand license conditions. Their concerns include the use of unattended transmitters and unlicensed digipeaters for APRS and amateurs based overseas operating a NZ amateur station via the internet.

It’s easy to forget that other countries don’t have such liberal licensing conditions as we do in the UK, although I would point out that operating an Echolink, D-Star, IRLP or packet radio (including APRS) node is not within the standard license conditions here either – you are supposed to apply for special permission. I know there are many who feel that is a good thing, and even that internet linking is not amateur radio and should not be allowed anywhere in the world, at all, but my opinion is that prohibiting it devalues amateur radio.

This policy is probably one of the main reasons why the APRS RF network is broken for messaging as many people (myself included) who are unwilling or unable to comply with the requirements for obtaining permission avoid the problem by operating receive-only gateways. Consequently we have the situation where smartphone-based APRS using mobile internet connections are more useful than APRS over radio.

I certainly believe that the point of our hobby is to use radio wherever possible, but where the internet makes possible something that could not practically be achieved using RF alone I think that we should be permitted to use it.

Driving home on Friday evening, Dan (whose call I’ve forgotten, sorry…2E0 from Wootton Bassett) asked me if I was going to take part in the contest. I laughed and said no, I’d retired! And to be honest, though I didn’t say so, I hadn’t really got an plans to ‘give any points away’. I did say to Dan, though, if I heard his contest station, G5FS/P, I’d give them a shout.

On Saturday we had a lovely picnic at Blenheim Palace in the sunshine. We headed back in the late afternoon and I checked Twitter. Pretty much the first tweet I saw was from a DXCluster ‘bot’ which tweeted a DX spot of my friend Allan, GM4ZUK/P being heard from Scotland in the Netherlands. I always like to work Allan, so I headed up to the shack to listen. I swung the beam around to the north ( a tricky direction for me, as the antennas are a little shielded by part of the roof). Allan was coming through at fair strength with a few calling. I tried several calls on SSB but didn’t get very far, so I decided to call on CW – Allan managed to dig me out of the noise! Thank you! Conditions weren’t great, but it was nice to make the contact.

Anyway, over the weekend I made a decent number of contacts, purely search and pounce, on 50, 70, 144 and 432MHz. I did work Dan’s contest station, G5FS/P on on 144 and 432MHz. GM4ZUK/P was the best DX on 144MHz, though F6KCP/P in JN18 was a decent distance. ON4AZW/P, EI9E/P, MM0CPS/P, MJ/PA1AW were all nice ones on 144MHz – with lots of G portables worked too. On 432MHz, PA6NL/P from JO21 was (as always) the best DX – with a great number of G portables as well. Should have beamed towards GM on 432, but I didn’t seem to.

With the high noise level on 50MHz, it’s not ideal for working tropo, but I was pleased to work G0FBB/P in JO01 as well more local portables.

On Sunday, I concentrated on 70MHz. Before the contest started, I was surprised to hear EI9E/P from IO62 coming through – and I heard them a few more times during the morning – but couldn’t raise them on the 7W and vertical – I’d have been surprised if they heard me! Best DX on tropo was G3WZT/P in IO90, but G4RFR/P from IO80 was a good one too. There was some Es around too and I worked S51DI (JN76) and 9A6R (JN83) as well.

There was some Es on 50MHz during Sunday afternoon as well – I drove down to see the bees and worked HB9HLM, 9A9AA and IW1ALW (I think!) from the mobile as I drove back and forth. SV9GLW was coming through too – presumably a double hop Es opening.

Photograph 1 taken from our second floor window.

Photograph 2 is a street level few of the 6m 2 element yagi positioned in a difficult operating location.

Photograph 3 taken a few steps upward from street level view.

Photograph 4 highlights additional radials installed yesterday afternoon. The total is thirty across three bands of operation.

Photograph 5 illustrates the cement like quality of our soil just two hundred yards from the Pacific.

Photograph 6 is an example of re-purposed, decorative lawn fencing.

73 from the busy shack relaxation zone.

Nothing like a Drill Sergeant…

I’ve just been for a pleasant afternoon drive down to the coast with Lynn, KJ4ERJ, developer of the APRSISCE software, currently on holiday in Spain. No, I didn’t nip down on EasyJet for the day. Actually I was following him on APRS using the Google Street View feature in the beta version of aprs.fi.

With the new software, when you click on a station you get the option to Track in Street View. If you do then the browser window splits in two, with the top half showing the view the person you are tracking sees, facing the direction he is going, and the bottom half showing the track on the map. It works pretty well. You just have to remind yourself that you are viewing images previously taken by Google, not live images!

This is beta software, so you won’t find it on the regular aprs.fi just yet. But it’s a pretty cool application, I think you’ll agree!

Series Three Episode Fourteen of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast. News Stories include:

• Radio Hams travel to space station
• May RAE - callsigns not yet available 
• Ham radio satellite SO-67 back on air!
• UK Amateur Radio Licences - 31st May 2010
• New UK Amateur Foundation licence syllabus
• Oman on 50 MHz
• Ham Radio - 2010 National Scout Jamboree 
• Thai hams on 50 MHz for contest
• Stealth antenna for 500 kHz
• Ham radio called-out for campsite flood 
• Slow Scan TV from the edge of space
• Kid's Ham Radio tower must come down
• 30-months for hoax mayday calls
• BBC to Investigate Radio/TV Interference
• D-STAR illegal in France
• Power line tech could crash aircraft

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