2005 Maple Island

Sunday 25th September 2005

Did you hear or work us? Send us a report!

This is the date that Bob (VA3QV/VA3RCS) and Martin (VA3SIE) cycled into Maple Island and activated it for the Canadian Islands Award Program, contacting 68 amateur in 3 countries to earn the island a new number:

The Big Day

The big day was upon us before we knew it, and it was... wet! Bob (VA3QV/VA3RCS) arrived at the site around 8am and erected a G5RV for HF work, and a J-pole for 2m & 6m. Martin checked environment Canada's weather radar around 9am and discovered that there was a rather large and active weather system about an hour away... he called up Bob on the local VHF repeater VE3TWO and let him know. He then rushed down to the site himself to get setup before the rain arrived...

Read more...

Send us a Report

Did you hear or work us? Send us a report. Fill in as many of these fields as you want and then hit the send button. You can see a summary of reports already received here or the reports themselves here.

QSL Cards

We will be issuing every station whom we contacted a QSL card:

QSL Card (Click on picture for full size image)

QSL cards would be gratefully received by Bob & Myself also. If you want to supply us a mailing address please do so in the report card above (in the comments field).

Visitors

We had a lot of support on the day from our fellow club members who came down to lend us a hand, for either the whole day or part of it. Some brought food and hot drinks, and some brought welcome moral support (see my comments about the weather below). For that we would like to extend our thanks to:

• Harold (VE3UNK)
• Larry (VE3WEH)
• Jose (VA3PCJ) & his wife
• Mike Kelly (VE3FFK)
• Robert (VA3PCJ)
• Patrick (VA3CMD)
• Brenda

* Note: Since I was in the tent all day I may have missed some visitors!

The Weather

We had a very wet day. It rained most of the day varying from light misty rain to heavy soaking rain. Bob brought a tarp which he tied off in a tree, and Martin brought a tent with which to shelter from the rain.

The Ionosphere

There were only very minor geomagnetic, particle and radiation fluctuations throughout the day. The K-index started at 3 and declined to 0 throughout the day. Our on-air experience confirmed this; Natural noise was low and fading was hardly noticeable.

Location

Maple Island is just south of Green Island, which is at the Rideau Falls, at the end of the Rideau River where it meets the Ottawa river. It is connected to Union Street in New Edinburgh via the most easterly section of the Minto Bridges. It appears on an official map and is therefore eligible for consideration in the Canadian Islands Award Program.

The location can be seen in google maps by clicking here or if you install google earth then you can save this kml file and open it in google earth.

Setting up the Stations

Bob set up a horizontal G5RV made from 300 ohm twinlead oriented East-West, up about 30 feet, with the ends tied off onto a couple of sturdy maple trees on the island. He also some cord from the G5RV to a third tree upon which was suspended a J-Pole made from twinlead for 2m and 6m.

Bob's Antennas (Click on picture for full size image)

Martin set up a 20m (66 feet fed in the center) inverted vee dipole oriented North-West to South-East, made from #26AWG teflon coated wire. It was fed with 300 ohm radio shack TV twinlead, the apex supported by a Shakespeare 20m fishing pole generously loaned by Mike (VE3FFK) for 20m, 30m and 40m. The apex was at around 18ft (secured by a velcro band), and the ends were brought down to around 5 feet supported by fluorescent laneway markers (for visibility).

Martins Antenna (Click on picture for full size image)

I had tested the antenna on a previous evening (see here) and I made a couple of improvements. Since the test, I raised the apex of the antenna from 15ft and brought the dipole elements out at an angle of 180 degrees from each other. This should result in a mild gain increase over the antenna used in the test, and also give an NVIS pattern for 20m.

Comparison to Test Antenna (Click on picture for full size image)

20m Prediction (Click on picture for full size image)

Bobs bike & operating position was beneath a tarp underneath a tree, to provide cover from the rain. He was sitting in a camping chair with the battery and radio in a coolbag (for shock absorption) at his feet. Harold came along to help out with the whole thing, and we really appreciated his help and support - it was great to have company in the rain...

Bobs Position (Click on picture for full size image)

Martins bike was left against one of the trees supporting Bobs G5RV. Martin brought along a tent to keep dry rather than a tarp. The tent was setup right at the base of the fishing pole which was anchored to the ground with a length of PVC pipe and some steel rods. The twinlead feeder was routed through a gap in the tent door.

Martins Position (Click on picture for full size image)

We were using QRP equipment! Bobs station was a Yaesu FT-817 running from a 7Ah gel cell for all frequencies. Martin was using an Elecraft KX-1 for HF and a Yaesu FT-51R for 2m. Martin was monitoring 2m FM on 146.520MHz and 146.525MHz throughout the entire event but was only able to contact two stations. Maybe the rubber ducky just wasn't good enough?

Our QRP Radio Stations (Click on picture for full size image)

Working the Contacts

For the first hour of the day we were able to stick to our published schedule. Bob controlled the Pot Hole Net from 1400UTC to 1440UTC and Martin worked on our published 40m frequency 7.026MHz. We received a visit from Mike (VE3FFK). Bob was able to pull in a few net stations and Martin worked a couple of stations on 40m. Bob switched over to 20m and pulled in a couple more stations before 1500UTC. We had worked 17 unique callsigns in our first hour.

Larry arrived with some welcome coffee towards the end of our first hour. We decided to deviate from our schedule at 1500UTC because the pot lid 80m CW net was running, and we thought it would be a hoot to check in from the island, so Martin got out his Ukrainian military surplus miniature morse key and hooked it up to Bobs FT-817 and we checked into the net.

Well actually since it was Martin's first time in a CW net and since the net was going a smidgen too fast for him, he just inserted his callsign between the net regulars checkin totally confusing everyone. Anyway the checkin was made, however Martin was struggling to keep up with the morse and thought it best just to return to the schedule...

Larry walked around the site taking all the beautiful pictures you see on this web site (and several more including some videos). We will probably be showing off all of Larrys photos and movies at the meetings of the Ottawa Amateur Radio Club and the Ottawa Valley Mobile Radio Club at the next club meetings.

We also received a visit from José and his wife around 11:30, and they brought us some very welcome doughnuts.

In the second hour, Martin hooked his 2m H/T to Bob's J-pole to see if there were any local 2m FM stations around.

Bob called a few times on our 80m scheduled frequency but with no takers he moved up to 20m and was able to pull in 3 more contacts there. Martin then went over to 40m but had to operate 1kHz off the 40m scheduled frequency due to a close-by station. At half past, Bob was unable to contact anyone on 2m SSB so switched up to 6m and was able to pull in a few. Martin was able to make another couple of contacts on 40m. We worked another 8 stations in the second hour.

Martins wife Fariba popped around with Chile and coffee to get some heat back into us around mid-day, and boy was it welcome. You can see our smiling faces! Well it goes without saying that our QSO rate took a dive during lunch. We got back on the air but we discovered to our dismay that some kind of locally generated interference was S9+ on all the HF bands. It was likely coming from the government buildings on the adjacent Green Island. Through the QRM, we just made one contact apiece, one SSB and one CW, both on 40m.

At 1700 UTC We decided that since 80m SSB and 40m CW were quite quiet we would move ahead in the schedule and try out 20m CW and 40m SSB. Martin started on the scheduled 20m frequency 14.026MHz and Bob tried 7.260MHz but we discovered that we could only hear the very strongest stations in the band through the interference. By this time, the interference became intermittent and we would get 5 or 10 minutes between bursts. We decided therefore just to scan through the bands and call any station we could hear calling CQ. By the end of the fourth hour we had racked up another 5 callsigns. We also received a visit from Robert (VA3PCJ).

During the next hour, 1800 to 1900UTC, Bob was not having any luck on our published 40m SSB frequency, so he tuned into the Trans-Provincial Net and performed net control duty, pulling in a whopping 25 contacts!! Martin was also out of luck for operating on our published 20m CW frequency of 14.026MHz because there were several very high power stations already on frequency taking part in the Texas QSO Party and the Alabama QSO Party. So Martin decided to CQ around the 20m QRP calling frequency and also work some of the contest stations. This brought in an additional 4 contacts.

Bob turned over to 20m around 1900UTC and pulled in an additional 3 contacts while Martin switched back to 40m and pulled in a single contact. Bob decided to call it a day (a successful day!) at 1930UTC, and with Harold's help he tore his station down. Brenda, the last of our visitors, arrived just as Bob was taking his station down. Martin & Brenda contacted a station in Wichita, and after Brenda left, Martin continued to operate until 2115UTC and was able to complete another 2 20m QSOs, one of which was European, and one on 2m, ending the day for Martin too.

Our Log

Location

Maple Island is just south of Green Island, which is at the Rideau Falls, at the end of the Rideau River where it meets the Ottawa river. It is connected to Union Street in New Edinburgh via the most easterly section of the Minto Bridges. It appears on an official map and is therefore eligible for consideration in the Canadian Islands Award Program.

The location can be seen in google maps by clicking here or if you install google earth then you can save this kml file and open it in google earth.

Martin's CW Antenna Test

I put together an inverted vee dipole to use for the CW station. I bought a 4 foot PVC pipe and fitted an end piece. I then attached three steel rods to the outside of the pipe section with jubilee clips. This is the base. I push the rods into the ground and it holds the 4 foot PVC pipe vertical. I borrowed a 20ft fishing pole from VE3FFK (Thanks, Mike!) and the base of this sits into the PVC pipe. In light winds the fishing pole remains upright, but for heavy winds I fashioned a velcro and nylon rope guying system from an ARS article. I run 16.5ft of Radio Shack 300 ohm TV twinlead up the fishing pole to a velcro strap, where it attaches to two 33.5ft sections of #26AWG Teflon coated wire. The ends of the wire are normally supported by 8ft laneway marker poles which are nice and bright for pedestrians.

I took the antenna on my bike to Maple island on Wednesday 21st September to use it in the NAQCC sprint, as a test. The antenna went up quite quickly and easily, but I forgot the laneway markers so I ended up having to use a couple of trees to support the ends of the dipole. In the dark I didn't feel like trying to find two trees far enough apart so I ended up having only an 80 degree azimuth separation between the dipole ends, as shown in the EZNEC model.

The antenna performed pretty well in the contest. I only made 5 contacts but one was to Georgia and another to Kentucky so I'm quite pleased. Still, I tried calling a couple of strong stations and they were just not hearing me at all.

Still, the contest was a very enjoyable experience. I heard one of the Russian spy stations on 7.040kHz sending 'D ... D ... D ... ', and I also heard a really odd sounding morse code station with a signal from 7.045kHz to 7.049kHz sending 'CQ CCN CCN' over and over... I'd say it was RST 353! Very odd sounding morse code. The funniest part of the contest was when AF4LQ was calling me... every time I heard his call as 'AGN' and I resent my CQ even although he could hear me fine. Ah well, I was very tired!!

Well the object of the exercise was to test the antenna and I did discover that the antenna performed adequately but not brilliantly. In fact I was only getting about 1dBi gain at useful elevations, but the antenna was close enough to resonance that the KX1 autotuner was able to tune it on 40m without a balun:

And I did learn that there are some basic improvements I can do to the antenna system to improve the gain. In this elevation plot we have been able to achieve 5-6dBi gain at all useful elevations by:

• Raising the ends of the dipole to be horizontal, not inverted vee.
• Turning the ends of the dipole in azimuth to be 180 degrees apart.
• Raising the dipole to a quarter wave above ground (33ft at 40m).

Contact Details

We can be contacted by email at RAC:

• Bob - va3rcs@rac.ca
• Martin - va3sie@rac.ca