I took advantage of the unusually warm November weather yesterday (9th Nov 2020) and drove up to Black Creek Provincial Park with my HF field pack. The park is located right on the Huron shore near Stokes Bay. I set up in the parking lot near the beautiful sandy beach and "activated" the park for the Parks On The Air (POTA) program.
I usually do POTA activations while camping and connected to the campground 110V. That gives me enough juice to transmit at 100W. Yesterday was different. No shore power, just my 15Ah Sealed Lead Acid Battery (SLAB) for power. SLABs are cheap (just like me) but their voltage drops after about half their rated capacity has been used. I figured I had about 7 amp-hours to work with so I dropped my transmit power to 30 watts CW.
At camp I usually throw a nice long wire high up into the trees but yesterday's operating session was short so my hitch-mounted vertical antenna was deployed. The antenna is a MFJ-1979 telescoping whip for 20m. But since I was operating on 40m I used a homebrew loading coil at the base of the antenna. Two counterpoise wires were added, each 26.5ft long laying directly on the ground.
The planned activation was posted on the POTA website earlier in the day. As soon as I started calling CQ the POTA website matched up Reverse Beacon Network (RBN) reports with my activation plan details and within a couple of minutes I had a pileup! RBN gave me 46 spots, many of which showed very strong signal/noise ratios so I quickly obtained the required 10 QSOs for the activation.
The bands have been improving lately. The solar flux index has been in the 90s and sunspots are back. Hopefully we are on our way back to a strong new solar peak!
ARRL 2020 Field Day results. This year’s ARRL Field Day was unlike any other. With most of the country under restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many groups chose to participate from their home stations as Class D or E entrants, rather than gathering as a large group. This year, there was a total of 10,213 entries, with 18,886 participants. ARRL issued two temporary rule waivers for Field Day 2020. The first allowed Class D (home) stations to work all other stations, including other Class D stations, for point credit (standard Field Day rules don’t count Class D-to-Class D contacts toward the total score). Secondly, all entrants, regardless of their entry class, were able to credit their individual score to that of their club. These aggregate scores list each club alphabetically, along with the total score of all entries attributing their score to the club, and the number of entries.
It's trucker lingo. "Barefoot" means operating your CB without a "boot" (amplifier). Truckers probably chose that terminology because CB amplifiers are illegal - at least in Canada anyway.
Some among us have a "boot" others don't. I don't. I operate barefoot (while wearing warm woolly socks in the winter). So let's drop the trucker talk and make the point I meant to raise. An amplifier shouldn't be necessary for local communications on HF. Admittedly, some participants in our club nets are DX and an amp may help there. Whenever Bernie VE3BQM comes on the air, from just down the street, I lose a few shingles and my antenna gives off a puff of smoke. I could use my rig's attenuator but then I would have to turn it off when our kilted Celtic friend Colin VE3FJN in the highlands of Hamilton talks.
A friend of mine in Shelburne ON (who is in the Radio Amateur's Hall of Fame) was chatting with me on CW recently. He dropped his power to 45 watts then boosted it to 800 watts and asked me for a signal report for each transmission. He was 20dB over S9 at either power level. I guess my radio's AGC was doing its job.
A general rule of amateur radio is to use the minimum power necessary to make a contact (I think that's in the RAC Operating Manual). So maybe just give that a thought when checking into the net. A very strong signal from a nearby transmitter might even overload the front end of a receiver and cause distortion. In my humble opinion, a good antenna beats more power any day.
Let's be really honest. How many of us are ready, willing and able to leave our homes during a declared emergency and spend an indefinite period either outside or in an EOC (Emergency Operations Centre) to provide communications support at any time and on very short notice?
Maybe one or two might be willing to take on the challenge. But, what are you going to do when you get there? Do we have a plan? Are we familiar with the comms protocols of the various emergency services? Does anybody reading this have an emergency kit (and I don't just mean a radio and spare battery) ready to grab and go?
Reading the ARES reports in the The Canadian Amateur magazine I see a common theme. ARES activity has been suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Let me re-phrase that: "Amateur Radio Emergency Service activity has been suspended due to an emergency". In what other emergencies would ARES suspend its emergency service; a winter storm, a major flood? In either of those examples the police would close the roads in the area affected. Are you aware that your motor vehicle insurance is invalid if you drive on a closed road?
The idea that hams would be ready, willing and able to provide backup communications to primary responders in a real emergency is bordering on fantasy. But, it did happen during 9/11 in New York City and it did happen in New Orleans during the flooding caused by hurricane Katrina. I am not aware of the exact circumstances in which amateur radio volunteers were able to provide valuable aid to emergency services personnel but I am fairly certain that, here in Canada, an organization that puts everything on hold due to an emergency situation is more likely to just get in the way of first responders.
So what can we do to make ourselves useful in the real world? I can think of two things, one of which we already do (but not very well).
First, support of community events. GBARC has been successfully supporting community events for a long time. If a walker, or runner, is lost or injured during a charity event we can relay a support request to St John Ambulance or Red Cross or even by calling 911. For that injured person this is a very real emergency and we are very well qualified, ready, willing and able to respond.
But let's say the event is taking place in a remote location, out of our repeater range. Now what can we do? I have heard discussion within our club about whether we maybe couldn't support an event in those circumstances. Poppycock! "When all else fails there is Amateur Radio!" The solution is very simple indeed. Put a repeater in the right place at the right time to meet the need! Think laterally. A repeater isn't always a permanent installation at the top of a cell tower. It can be a mobile repeater in a trailer. Heck, it can even be a member's car with a mobile dual-band radio set to cross-band repeater mode (Advanced Licence required). Park that temporary repeater in a location where every station can get into it and Bob's your uncle. Since GBARC doesn't have a club trailer with a mobile repeater it's high time we started planning how to raise funds to get one!
A second example of how we can realistically provide emergency support doesn't even require volunteers to stray from a warm comfortable shack and the coffee pot. I used to live in a valley where the hydro seemed to go out every time the Sun went behind a cloud. It would sometimes stay out for days on end. One winter, heavy ice brought down the phone lines too. The local cell tower was on a hill accessed via a steep, narrow lane. It was backed up with a gas-powered generator but couldn't be reached until the road and access lane were cleared of snow. After a couple of days without power the generator ran out of gas and cell service just stopped. I had no power, no landline, no cell service and no Internet; but I had amateur radio! All my neighbours knew I was a ham and I was ready, willing and able to call for emergency support if any of them needed it.
To make neighbourhood emergency communications support work all we need is for volunteers to routinely monitor the repeater. And, if the repeater goes down, we have proved through our club HF nets that we can communicate on the 80m band as well.
So, fellow hams and GBARC members, we are ready, willing and able to undertake emergency communications. But let's re-focus our efforts and aspirations on what is practical and put a stop to the fantasy about bravely marching in where the professionals with their full-time training and multi-million dollar budgets have failed.
We tried the parallel Zoom meeting this week. It was difficult to juggle hosting the Zoom meeting, being net control for the VHF net and responding to email requests to join the Zoom meeting. As a result it was a scrappy net. I apologize; it was my idea to run Zoom and VHF in parallel and I struggled. Nevertheless, we established that Zoom is a viable option for conducting club meetings. We had 9 participants in the Zoom meeting and everybody gave positive feedback. Thanks to all who took part.
NB: The log for the VHF part of the net reflects all who checked in either via radio or Zoom, or both.
Zoom could be used instead of, or as well as, Echolink for remote check-ins in future. Any comments on that idea?
Please submit errors or omissions in the comments.
This Wednesday evening, 28th October, we will hold the regular GBARC VHF net on the VE3OSR repeater as usual. In parallel with the net there will be a Zoom meeting for those who wish to join in. Anybody wishing to join the Zoom meeting will be sent an email invitation with a link they can click to take part.
Several of us have now tested Zoom and are comfortable that it meets GBARC needs for club meetings for the foreseeable future. The continuing pandemic restrictions make it unlikely that we will be able to hold physical indoor meetings any time soon. Outdoor meetings during the warmer months may still be possible but clearly nobody wants to meet outdoors through the winter.
If you haven't already done so, please download the Zoom client or app. There is a Zoom solution available for every hardware platform imaginable!
Posted by: VA3KOT John - 2020-10-25, 17:26:47 - Forum: Antennas
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Ok, now I have your attention with that provocative title let me confess that this isn't about sending secret messages - that would be contrary to the terms of our licences. But, I do want to dispel one very common myth that says: WSPR is not a QSO mode. Yes you can hold a conversation using WSPR and here is how you can do it.
But first, for those who may not be familiar with WSPR, here is a quick explanation. WSPR (pronounced "Whisper") stands for "Weak Signal Propagation Reporter". It was designed by Nobel Laureate Physicist Joe Taylor W1JT. It's purpose is to test propagation conditions by transmitting a low power signal that is encoded in such a way that it can be decoded by a remote station - even when the signal is far below the noise level and maybe even inaudible. It carries a fixed data payload containing only: CALLSIGN + MAIDENHEAD GRID LOCATOR + TRANSMITTED SIGNAL POWER (in dBm). For example VA3KOT EN94 37. Receiving stations upload signal reports to a website so that transmitting stations may see where their signal has been received. WSPR is a one way test signal mode not designed for QSOs.
So if WSPR is not a QSO mode how can we use it to hold a conversation over the air? That requires lateral thinking and some devious ingenuity. Anybody who has participated in traffic handling nets will be familiar with the ARRL's FSD-3 Relief Emergency - Routine Messages Recommended Procedures. FSD-3 contains a set of sixty nine packaged messages referred to only by their number identifier. For example ARRL 46 means "Greetings on your birthday and best wishes for many more to come".
WSPR transmissions are scheduled on even minutes and are 2 minutes in duration. Received signals are scheduled on odd minutes and are also two minutes in duration. Thus WSPR transmissions begin on minute numbers 2,4,6,8 ... 58, giving a total of 29 possible timeslots each hour. If the transmitting station and receiving station both share a set of 29 packaged messages then a "secret" message may be sent by selecting the appropriate timeslot for sending a message. If one or more of the packaged messages are a reply then we can see how a two-way conversation can be conducted. Alright, it's a constricted QSO, not a conversational free flow kind of rag chew but it is a QSO.
But wait. Let us suppose that 29 packaged messages are not enough. Well, there are other variables that can be used to encode our secret messages too. For example, we can vary the transmitted power. Transmitted power is expressed in dBm. That means power relative to 1 milliwatt. You can do the math if you wish using the formula dBm=10log(P2/P1) where P2 is transmitted power in watts and P1 is 1mW. A power of 37dBm is equal to 5 watts. The WSPR software restricts us to specific power levels but, all the same, we can use power level as another parameter to determine which packaged message is being sent.
If we select, say, five different power levels and assign an index number of 1 to 5 to each of those power levels, we can expand our list of packaged messages to 5 times 29 or 145 different messages. The list could be expanded much more by incorporating other variables such as the hour of the day in which the message is sent. That would give us 24 x 145 or 3480 packaged messages.
In order to avoid scrutiny by Industry Canada (or whatever fancy title the ministry has adopted these days) it would be necessary to make the list of packaged messages public.
One final note for the "prepper" community. In a "SHTF" situation in which society has broken down, government has stepped down and armed gangs are roaming the streets, won't you be glad you have a ham radio licence and you read this post!
It's getting a bit late in the year and the weather in MacGregor Point Provincial Park was cool and damp earlier this week when XYL and I took our trailer for 3 nights camping. MacGregor Point is just south of Port Elgin and has some fine beaches on Lake Huron. We had to run the furnace in our trailer every night to stay warm. Trailers are not insulated and can become quite chilly in late October without a good source of heat - especially when parked along the shore of a big lake.
So why did we go? It was partly because of my new found obsession with the amateur radio Parks On The Air (POTA) program. I went to "activate" the park, which means to make at least 10 contacts in the same UTC day. It was my fourth park activation this year.
Our campsite was spacious enough for me to erect my 132ft long End Fed Half Wave (EFHW) wire for 80m that is also resonant as a full wave on 40m. I set it up as an inverted-L using two trees for supports. The vertical section was about 30ft long, fed at the bottom through my home-made 49:1 transformer. You can see the transformer, wearing it's stealth hat, in the accompanying image. EFHW antennas can be fed quite close to the ground because the feedpoint is very high impedance. That means the feedpoint current is very low and the radiation at that point is insignificant.
The far end extended out over the campground road, lying on a thin branch and held in place by a very thin cord that was tied back to a bush at the side of the road. I try to keep my antennas in stealth mode to avoid questions about how I got them up in the trees without damaging mother nature. Actually, I launch soft, sand-filled balloons tied with a special very thin but strong cord that I buy at Deals in Owen Sound. I use the thin cord to pull up the antenna (#20 AWG, stealthy dark green colour wire).
I was a little wary of wading into the bush behind my campsite because there was a bear roaming the park (yes, near Port Elgin, the heart of bear country?). We heard bear bangers going off one morning and we think we saw the creature asleep in a tree a couple hundred yards off a trail in the park.
Anyway, the activation was a success. I fired up the Yaesu FT-891 that I reserve for field operations and made 24 CW contacts on 40m in just 40 minutes. I only stopped because of a sudden change in band conditions. It always gives me a thrill to work a POTA pileup. The next day I tried again on 80m and made a further 12 CW contacts in only 14 minutes.
POTA would make a good club activity. It is very like Field Day in many respects. Camping is not really required since the time needed to make an activation means the process could be completed with just a "day use" permit. And, there a lot of POTA entities in our area. Anyone want to try it?
