(As is my usual, this article has a bunch of links – click on as many as you wish to receive the full experience)
by Vince (VE6LK)
In May of 2023 I embarked on a two week vacation to Hamilton Ontario, the city of Waterfalls. And I found myself with a spare 30 minutes so I decided to squeeze in an activation.
And as I am an opportunist, I made this decision at 23:25’ish z and I had not yet arrived at the park but the target was only a few minutes away! I would have until 23:59:59z to complete it if I were to be successful. “It’s time to break out the Elecraft AX1 antenna I bought at Hamvention last week“ I think to myself. It would be my first time using the antenna. I had pre-read the instructions and knew what had to be done in order to set it up.
The whole thing would unfold like a Formula 1 pit stop, albeit a wee bit slower <grin>.
I got back from my 2023 Hamvention trip last night and am now trying to catch up after nearly a full week on the road.
A way too close-up of Eric and his son Miles in the background!
As in past years, I traveled to Hamvention with my buddies Eric (WD8RIF) and his son Miles (KD8KNC).
It was amazing to meet so many readers, subscribers, and POTA/SOTA friends in person!
When I wasn’t walking around the Hamvention grounds checking out the inside vendor tables and outdoor flea market, I was hanging out with friends at the Halibut Electronics/Ham Radio Workbench table.
It was great to finally meet Vince (VE6LK) and Mark (N6MTS) in person. Hopefully, next year, we can have the whole HRWB crew at the table!
The Unseen Bean table next to the Halibut table (you can *just* see Mark and Paul to the left).
Side note: It was a true surprise and joy to discover that the amazing crew of The Unseen Bean were next door to us. I’m a bit of a coffee snob, so it was wonderful having Gerry and his amazing team so close. I bought a lot of coffee!
Eric and I didn’t arrive in enough time to enjoy the Thursday presentations, but we did make it to Vendor’s night that evening. It was busier than I ever remember.
As we walked into the conference room, there was already a massive line to purchase Hans’ new QRP Labs QMX transceiver kit.
Of course, I bought one (serial number 28, evidently)! It will take me some time to build this as I have a crazy June schedule filled with travel and camping.
We also attended FDIM Club Night and the Homebrew contest on Friday. It was so much fun.
Receiving my award from the amazing David Cripe (NM0S). Photo by Charlie (NJ7V).
I was over the moon to have been inducted into the QRP Hall of Fame at the Saturday Evening FDIM banquet. I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve this, but I’m incredibly grateful and humbled. Many of my QRP mentors are in the QRP Hall of Fame.
Thank you to those who nominated and selected me! What an incredible honor.
The “Vincester” (VE6LK) operating POTA from the back of his rental car!
On Sunday, we skipped Hamvention altogether and joined Charlie (NJ7V) and Vince (VE6LK) for a few local park activations.
Charlie using my KX2 and PackTenna to hammer out POTA contacts while dealing with the QRM of a nearby rural highway! Impressive op, this Charlie!
Vince and Charlie joined us for two POTA activations (during horrible band conditions, I might add), then Eric, Miles and I capped off the short POTA run with one more activation after lunch.
Monday was all about taking it easy…
Eric and I took all day Monday to “decompress” at the US Air Force Museum. Although I’ve visited this museum a dozen times before, it never gets old and the displays and exhibits are ever-changing.
I think it’s one of the best aviation museums in the world.
Tuesday (yesterday) I drove back to the QTH and fit in one short activation at Yatesville Lake State Park in eastern Kentucky. I recorded this one, so there’ll eventually be a full field report and activation video!
All-in-all, I fit in five POTA activations over the Hamvention trip!
Now that I’m back at the QTH, I’m prepping for a family camping trip. This is going to be one busy summer indeed!
Again, so many thanks to all of you who introduced yourselves over Hamvention and FDIM. It was amazing to meet you all! And, again, a very special thanks to the QRP Hall of Fame committee–being inducted is the true highlight of my amateur radio journey!
Did you attend Hamvention? Or did you have other radio plans this past week? Feel free to comment!
(As is my usual, this article is full of hyperlinks – click on as many as you wish)
The days leading up to my first Hamvention trip were a bit scattered to say the least. While I was pretty sure I remembered everything and even documented most of my gear on Twitter, I would only discover that the bag I intended to carry my gear around in was too small once I arrived in VE3-land. The very next morning I was shopping in several big box stores trying to find the perfect bag only, hours later, to discover an Army Surplus Store across the street from my activation and after the activation concluded.
Holey Moley lookit all the molle and backpacks!Thomas’ reaction upon seeing this photo was predictable 😉
Anyways, the short summary on the shopping trip was that I figured out a way to get me through the trip without spending a fortune.
The day’s goals were to make a simple activation at a park near the family where we were visiting east of Toronto. Before travelling I scoped out POTA entities that were nearby and had not yet received a CW Activation thus putting me closer to my CW goal for the year.
I landed up at Lakefront West Park VE-1480 in Oshawa Ontario. A recreational trail winds along the waterfront of Lake Ontario about 100m away, and eight baseball diamonds are the central feature here. Given the lack of trees at the park, and that I do not have a small mast on this trip for my EFHW -although I may remedy that at Hamvention- I chose to deploy my Comet HFJ-350M with some simple ground radials. With the solar reports showing SFI 149, SSN 134, A 19 and K 2, I chose 20m as the band for the day. 5W on my KX3 into a ground mounted vertical with one each 66′ and 33′ radial wires would have to be enough.
DX Toolbox on iOS – click for App Store link
I have the full Comet HFJ-350M kit including the bag to carry all the pieces in. I also have a ground stake from eBay that comes with a 90 degree SO-239 adapter allowing me to attach feedline on the side and the antenna on the top. Not including the ground radials, the whole kit rolls up reasonably small, about 3″ in diameter and 12″ long. Continue reading Lakefront QRP and Bags Galore!→
(As is Vince’s usual, this article is full of educational and fun links – click on as many as you wish)
Picture this .. you are getting a bit twitchy due to lack of POTA activation and you have run out of Potaxxia. Further, You publicly stated a New Year’s eve goal to make at least 200 POTA CW activation contacts per month for 2023 (there may have been beer involved), and now you must stay accountable to your goal and you are currently behind plan. It’s too early in the season to be lawn mowing while listening to podcasts such as QSO Today, Ham Radio Workbench, ICQ Podcast, AP/DZ or Soldersmoke. Thus, chasing contacts is [always] a good use of your time.
Lastly, if you are like me, the the solar indices are still an art form being learned and the numbers for today aren’t all in the green zone.
One of many charts that help decode the magic behind propagation values – click through for source webpage
So you begin to wonder just how much effort it’s worth to load up your gear and try to activate. You think to yourself that there won’t be much action on bands other than 20m which has been noisy lately, so why bother as it’s at least a 45 minute trip to the nearest POTA entity.
With this background, on Saturday I placed myself in the city at the nearest-to-home spot I could park in the south part of Calgary adjacent to VE-5082, the Trans-Canada Trail. I was trying to make the best of what I perceived to be a rough conditions day and had no real plan except a convenient location requiring minimal effort for a minimal return. My expectations were, sadly, met in this regard.
The author in a suburban and *very* RF noisy place that he won’t return to.
I was at the edge of suburbia with large homes on my left overlooking the ravine and pathway on my right. To say it was RF noisy would be a colossal understatement. I made 18 painful contacts in an hour and I’m sure people called me but I didn’t hear them given the S7 noise floor on 20m. At least I made one DX contact to Denmark along the way. Overall feeling frustrated, I went back home.
Sunday morning rolls around and again I wonder “is it worth it”?
(This article is full of educational and fun links – click on as many as you wish)
Antenna tuning on Superb Owl Sunday
by Vince (VE6LK)
While many in North America were watching a number of Superb Owls move a pigskin around a playing field, I was off to play radio, successfully, for the first time in weeks. This is part of my goal to activate 200 CW POTA contacts per month this year.
During recent visit to Vancouver attempting to operate from within my hotel room, and utilizing the Edisonian Approach, I was shown -more than once- what did not work. This will no doubt be a discussion point on an upcoming Ham Radio Workbench Podcast. I was therefore in very bad need to get back on the air while operating portable. I was close to feeling twitchy and in need of some POTAXXIA (Hyperradio Moduzolium). A plan was needed!
My goals were to trim out a new-to-me EFHW (thanks VE6VID), and make some contacts while operating outdoors. The weather was forecast for 50F, but turned out to be unexpectedly windy. Also, when the wind comes off the Canadian Rockies in Southern Alberta, it cools the area where I’d be (downwind), so a choice of operating location was key. I love going to this park for the moment that you drive west along Highway 533 and come around the corner as you see here in this short video.
Chain Lakes Provincial Park (VE-1168) is located between the Porcupine Hills and the Rockies on Highway 22 (locally known as the Cowboy Trail) in Southern Alberta, about 90 minutes south of Calgary. It’s especially gorgeous at sunrise and sunsets. A campground, lake with boat launch and a day use area all adorn this park created for water management with an earthen dam. While it is in a valley, the wind can be howling on some days. On this day it would prove to be just above a nuisance, sort of like mosquitos in the spring -you can live with the nuisance, but only for so long before you blow a proverbial gasket.
I located a lovely spot below the dam -and the majority of the wind- however it was outside of cellular range. I’d need to rely on the Reverse Beacon Network to spot me. The RBN will, in turn, post your spot to the POTA website once it hears you if you schedule your activation in advance.
RBN showing spots on 30 to 10mOverhead site view showing my two operating positions
The place I found would only be more perfect were it warmer than 45F and without wind. A babbling brook was by the picnic table, and a nearby footbridge had built-in supports for my painter’s pole that would serve as the far end support. I’m pretty sure that they weren’t intended for me specifically, but they were the perfect size to simply slide the pole into place and hold it firmly. By luck I parked the truck the correct distance away with it’s drive-on mount and 28′ Fibreglass Flagpole from Flagpoles-To-Go via Amazon. Continue reading VE6LK: Antenna tuning on Superb Owl Sunday→
Many thanks to Vince (VE6LK) who shares the following POTA field report:
Canmore Nordic Centre VE-1167, Alberta
#POTAThon1231 – The RAC Portable Operating Challenge
by Vince (VE6LK)
It’s the final day of December 2022 and I find myself, a non-hiking non-climbing city kid, trudging around in the snow on a nature preserve not far from my home. I’m in shape -round- and it’s not helping me much. I’m not really dressed for this but I’m not far from the warmth of my truck. My goal is to do an activation and move on, for I’m in the middle of the final day this month of a set of #POTAThons and I still have one more park to get to.
But, before I tell you the story of how I happened to be trudging through the snow, let me tell you that someone said something to me that set me off on the journey that had me trudging through snow on that day and hefting a wire into a tree.
Revelstoke National Park VE-0061, British Columbia
I do public service events throughout the year, and in December I travelled from my home in Alberta one province westwards to Kelowna B.C. to the Big White Winter Rally. RallySport is fun to get involved with as a ham radio operator, and is especially trying -for all the right reasons, as you’ll see in this clip from 2015– in Net Control where we run logistics for the event. You’ll be able to read that story in the March-April edition of The Canadian Amateur magazine.
In Net Control, set up and ready to run the race. 6 people will be in here. (Click to enlarge)
Anyway, I’m to the point in my life where a long one day drive is no longer enjoyable, thus along the way to BWWR, I planned to activate parks and take two days to make the trip each way. A week off to play radio sounds like a great vacation to me at any time! Thus, the plan was struck to do this and have fun. This means that multiple #POTAThons would be required! Continue reading VE6LK’s #POTAThon1231: The RAC Portable Operating Challenge→
Many thanks to Vince (VE6LK) who shares the following guest post and field report from Alberta, Canada:
#POTAThon1111 – report from the field
by Vince (VE6LK)
My goal is to activate all of the parks I can that have never been activated.
I’m blessed to live in such a beautiful part of the world and see these parks up close. One wall in my shack has a map of all the un-activated parks and routes within a day’s drive of me, and most are already planned with routes. There will be more #POTAThons!
[Click all images to enlarge.]
#POTAThon is what I call it when I plan on getting to more than one park in a day. Usually these things aren’t thought of for weeks in advance, they are more like a “tomorrow morning” kind of thing. Opportunistic, if you will.
But first, a note about the day I chose…
November 11 is called different things in different countries, but what we share in common is we honour our Veterans and we give thanks for the freedoms they fought for. So today I paused to give thanks and think of the lives they gave so that I have the freedoms I do today. I would bundle up that giving of thanks into an urgently needed day away from the office.
And with that, #POTAThon1111 was born.
#POTAThon is what I tag these activities on my Twitter feed and the month and day denote when it happened. By definition a #POTAThon is more than one activation in a day; I’m simple like that. #POTAThon1111 is the third such event.
The first was #POTAThon0930, an ambitious day attempting 8 sites with two operators and most of them in backcountry outside of cellular range. You can see the video from that day when you click on this link. We didn’t get to all 8 but we had a hoot trying.
Just before I departed for #POTAThon0930, Thomas Witherspoon K4SWL (you know him, right?) said words to me I’ll never forget: “Vince, just work CW at a speed where you are comfortable, people will adjust. If you work the sacred language, I will find you.”
With those words of encouragement, I gave it a go. On that day I worked CW and a bit of SSB, but since then it’s been all CW for POTA. While the propagation wasn’t with Thomas and I on 0930, we did connect some weeks later – KX3 to KX3 no less.
As I noted last week, I participated in the W4G SOTA campout at Lake Winfield-Scott Campground in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest in north Georgia.
In short? It was amazing!
I thought I’d share a few photos and memories…
Campsite and friends
These SOTA campouts typically involve an announcement via the W4 SOTA group then we all make individual reservations at the chosen campground. Since we’re not reserving the whole campground as a block, we tend to share our individual camping sites with others who might not have been able to reserve a spot.
At Lake Windfield Scott campground, the SOTA group did reserve one large group campsite, but only a couple months ago it was canceled by the park service due to a trail maintenance group that needed it.
Typically, I camp with my friend Monty, but he had other family plans that weekend.
When I found out my buddy Joshua (KO4AWH)–the fellow behind Tufteln products–needed a spot to pitch his tent, I offered up my site.
As you can see in the photo above, both of our tents fit on the tent pad with absolutely no extra room to spare. 🙂
It was such a pleasure getting to know Joshua. What a kindred spirit and super nice fellow.
KO4AWH (left) and K4SWL (right) on the summit of Black Mountain.
We ended up doing all of our SOTA activations together as you will see in upcoming activation videos and field reports.
Joshua is as pack and organization obsessed as I am. A proper pack nerd! I really enjoyed checking out his bags, cases and all of the brilliant accessories that are a part of his field kits.
He brought both an IC-705 and TX-500 along for the ride. He logs in the field using the HAMRS app (same one I do) but on an iPad Mini (see photo above) and I must admit that the size of the iPad mini is nearly ideal–much better than a phone for logging.
He also used the SDR-Control app to connect wirelessly with his IC-705 and operate digital modes.
Summits
We activated a total of three summits during the weekend (Big Cedar,Black Mountain, and Yonah Mountain). It would have been easy to activate six or more if that was the goal–the area is chock full of accessible summits.
I mentioned in a previous post that I’ve been studying for my Canadian Basic license exam.
I’ve been working on this in my very limited spare time for a few weeks now, balancing study from the book above and HamStudy.org–both brilliant resources.
Now that I’m actually on Canadian soil, I scheduled an online exam with my friend, the amazing Vince (VE6LK).
Vince must be one of the busiest remote examiners in all of Canada. He’s professional and has the process down to a science which makes the whole experience very fluid and low stress. His website has a load of resources!
Although I’d been on the road most of the day yesterday and was a bit tired, I was ready to write the exam. I gave Vince my schedule and told him I would even be willing to schedule as early as 9:00PM last night or anytime this weekend.
The 9:00 time worked for Vince, so he sent me a Zoom link and I did a bit of last-minute study before meeting him online for the exam.
The Canadian Basic is a 100 question test, so it takes some time to get through it all.
I was absolutely chuffed to pass with 94% which meant passing Basic with Honours.
Vince started the online process which allowed me to create an account on the ISED website.
Getting a call
I’d been giving my callsign a little thought.
Since my mailing address is in Prince Edward Island, I knew the prefix would be VY2.
Every new call issued in Canada is essentially a vanity callsign and you’re allowed to choose from available suffixes (and even purchase additional callsigns in the future).
PEI is one of the few provinces that also allows Basic licensees to claim a 2×3 or even a 2×2 call. If I were in Ontario, for example, I could only request a 2×3 as a Basic with Honors license.
This morning, with my first cup of coffee in hand, I finished setting up my ISED account and requested my callsign.
VY2SW
I decided that I wanted my Canadian call to reflect the suffix in my US call, so I requested VY2SW.
As soon as I hit the SUBMIT button on the ISED website, it confirmed that the call had been assigned to me. A couple hours later and I’m showing up in the callsign database.
The Canadian licensing system is incredibly efficient and effortless to use.
POTA and SOTA in Canada
Now that I’m VY2SW, I cannot use my US callsign as K4SWL/VE3 or K4SWL/VE2 while on the air.
I’ve already added VY2SW in the POTA system as my second callsign, so I believe it’ll compile all of my park activations under one account. I suppose there’s a way to do this in the SOTA system too.
Sometime within the next two days, I will be doing my first activation as VY2SW here–a park somewhere in the Ottawa region. I can’t wait and I certainly hope to work you!
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(As is my usual, this article has a bunch of links – click on as many as you wish to receive the full experience)
