CK8G - Greens Island NA-182

It's now official: I'll be on from Greens Island NA-182 from April 15-20, 2010.

Located at 69 22' 36" N 125 25' 35" W in the southwest corner of the Amundsen Gulf, Greens Island qualifies for the Inuvik Region (East) IOTA Group, as confirmed by IOTA Manager G3KMA. The community of Paulatuk, NWT is a scant 15 miles to the east and from there the island is easily accessible by boat in the summer or snowmobile in the winter. While a summer operation would be far easier, more comfortable, and (probably) cheaper, I wanted to go in April to take advantage of the better spring time propagation. The operating plan for the trip will be similar to my other operations. I'm expecting around-the-clock propagation on 20m so I will concentrate on Europe during their sunrise and sunset, North America during their sunset, and Asia right after their sunrise. This should allow me to work a good balance between all the areas and still get a few hours sleep every night. To insure strong signals in both directions I will again be bringing my TH3JRS yagi and FL2100B amplifier.

Luckily, I am very familiar with the area and do not anticipate any problems actually making the operation happen. In fact, I will likely have an opportunity to travel to Paulatuk on business sometime in the next few weeks which will allow me to make all the final arrangements and maybe even allow for a scouting trip out to the island.

I waited for quite a long time to make an announcement as I was still trying to come up with a plan that included bringing a CW operator along but in the end it was just too difficult and expensive. Air travel costs in the Arctic are astronomical and bringing a second op would have tripled or quadrupled the costs of the operation. Even though Greens Island is only 250 miles from my house, the cost of airfare and air freight for myself and my equipment to get to Paulatuk and back is more than flying economy class from Toronto to Paris! Once you add in the cost of renting a snowmobile, generator, and provisions, this whole operation rapidly turns into a very expensive proposition.

Anyone wishing to contribute can click on the Donate button at the right side of the screen to make a donation via PayPal or credit card.

Thanks in advance for your support and I will post any new developments right here.

73
John - VE8EV

ARRL DX - Life is Like a Box of Chocolates...

Now that we have a grand total of 3 (three!) active amateurs here and (theoretically) some half decent propagation I was kind of planning on this to be our first true multi-multi operation. Unfortunately, VE8DW had to go out of town and VE8GER decided he wasn't quite ready for that yet so it ended up being another single-op effort by yours truly. I didn't have the slightest idea about what to expect going in. The dramatic increase in solar activity has also been stirring up the aurora a lot more and lately I've been starting to get the feeling that overall band conditions are actually slightly worse than they were at this time last year. The forecast was also calling for active geomagnetic conditions this weekend and, with that in mind, my plan was to be ready for anything. If conditions were really lousy I'd go single-band-20m and just take whatever I could get. I also decided to stay off the spotting network for the first day in case I wanted to go unassisted.

I took Friday off from work and spent the morning getting the shack trailer all squared away for moving. The truck and the trailer hadn't moved since Sweepstakes so there was a lot of shovelling to do and I had to buy two new batteries for the truck (grrr!). Fortunately, the weather was unseasonably mild and I spent the day working in bright sunshine and wearing a light jacket. By mid-afternoon I was all set up at the contest site and plugged into the big TH6DXX tribander at 100ft and the 33ft top-loaded low-band vertical. In between trips to the store for supplies I tuned the bands a bit to see how things were shaping up. I was surprised to find that I was hearing stations from any direction I pointed the antenna. Europe and Asia were both booming in on 20m and several JA's and KH6's were loud on 15m. Even 40m already had several Europeans making it over the pole. This was my first hint that this contest would definitely NOT be business as usual!

After the opening bell I spent the first couple of hours bouncing back and forth between 15m and 20m and alternating between S&P and trying to get a run started. Conditions seemed to be pretty good out to Asia and the Pacific. A couple of rare mults (VU and E51) called in and quite a few low-power JA's and VK's but no decent rates ever developed. With just over a hundred in the log at 0400z and the jury still out on whether conditions were good or bad I popped down to have a go at 40m. Surprisingly, I was able to work almost everyone I could hear and in a half hour I picked up a dozen new mults from Europe, Asia and the Caribbean. Things were starting to look up but it was soon time for the real test. European sunrise was coming up and if the 40m conditions were any indication we were going to get a huge opening on 20m. I pointed the beam north, found a frequency and did a 100/hour run of Europeans. I should have just stayed at it but the opening was so good that the DXer in me took over and I spent the next few hours hunting multipliers on the low-bands. 40m was still cooking and I even spent a bit of time on 80m. No mainland Europe was heard on that band but I did manage to work G, GM, EI, KH6 and KL7. Because of the auroral forecast I hadn't bothered to install the 160m coil on the vertical. As a result, my only 160m contact was KL7RA. I heard KH7XS both times we tried on 160m but couldn't make the contact. If that was the only mult I missed on 160m then it was probably worth it to not having had to wade through the waist-deep snow and monkey around in the cold for an hour. Eventually I decided to try to get my head back in the game and went back up to 20m to work more Europeans. After doing another 100/hour run to Europe I just couldn't help myself and had to go up and see if anything was happening on 15m. I love sneaking over the pole in the middle of the night on 15m and sure enough I worked a few Eastern European and Middle Eastern mults. After that it was back down to the low-bands for a bit more DXing. Several more mults went into the log on 40m (including JT1CO) and I even worked JA, UA0 and LU on 80m before turning in for a much needed 3-hour nap. I set the alarm (and the timer on the coffee pot!) for 5:30am and sacked out with a smile on my face and 400 Q's in the log. Even if the bands tanked over the next two days I already had enough points for a respectable showing so anything from this point on was just gravy. Little did I know that for the rest of the weekend the gravy would be flowing like Niagara Falls!

The bands were still kicking when I got up the next morning so first thing on the agenda was another run of Europeans. For the next three hours I kept the rate meter at 100/hr until the aurora flared up a bit and the run came to a screeching halt. While I was waiting for the aurora to subside I S&P'd a bit, had a nap and ran home to grab a shower. Around 2000z guys finally started answering me on the first call so I went down to my usual watering hole at the bottom of the band. I did another 100/hour to Europe and then after that took a quick spin around the globe and Worked-All-Continents. I left the beam pointed out west for Asian sunrise and did a 100/hour of JA's and Pacific stations. Band conditions were great and only getting better. By midnight zulu the DXer in me was screaming to be let off the chain so I made the call to go single-op-unlimited and pulled up the cluster on the internet. A flurry of Caribbean and South American mults followed and I even made a successful pass from 15m to 10m with LT1F for my only 10m contact. For two solid hours virtually every needed spot on 15 and 20m made it into the log and I even worked a handful of Europeans on 40m (early!). It was a very strange situation but by that point I didn't know what to do with myself anymore. In all my previous contesting experience I had always reacted to conditions. If conditions were good, I'd run. When they weren't then I'd search and pounce. When they got really bad, I'd take a nap. Having outstanding propagation, for so long, on so many different bands was a situation that I just wasn't prepared for. I sat back and was listening to a very loud JT1CO running stateside stations on 20m while I ate my supper and after some thought I decided not to worry about strategy and just enjoy it while it lasted. I always knew that if the sunspots and the aurora ever cooperated our unique geographic location could be huge advantage instead of a disadvantage. It seemed like this was that weekend and being a rare multiplier in the contest was just icing on the cake! By 0600z the greyline had finished tracking across Asia and now the Europeans were again booming in on 20m. I worked TL0A in Central Africa and then did yet another 100/hour running Europeans. Once the run slowed on 20m I spent the next couple of hours DXing on the low-bands. After that, even with all the excitement, I was getting pretty tired. With almost 1000 contacts in the log and closing in on 'weekend-DXCC' I decided to turn in and grab a few hours of sleep.

In the week leading up to a contest I always plan to get plenty of rest. I know that if I'm well rested I can do a 24-hour contest non-stop and a 48-hour contest on 3 hours sleep each night. Unfortunately, life always seems to conspire to prevent me from getting the rest I need before the contest and this time was no exception. Several busy days in a row at work (including a 12-hour day on Thursday) and several late nights meant I was running on empty even before the contest started. When I woke up Sunday morning at 1300z the bands seemed only marginal (aka: normal) so I decided to go back to sleep and try again in a half-hour. Two hours later when I finally got going, the bands had bounced back and I jumped right onto 20m and started running Europe. It's easy to calculate how many Q's I missed by sleeping in because my operating pattern was pretty much the same all day long: run for an hour then play DXer for an hour. 15m never really opened to anywhere except Japan (around their sunrise) but there was just enough weak African and South American stations to keep my attention on that band in between runs of Europeans on 20m. D4C (Cape Verde) was audible on 15m all afternoon and every so often someone else would pop up out of the noise. Despite all the time and knob spinning the end result of my Sunday afternoon efforts on 15m were less than a dozen multipliers. I was also religiously checking 10m every half-hour or so but never heard anything.

The last few hours of the contest were the most fun of all. After the final 100/hour run of Europeans on 20m I was up on 15m digging out a few more South American multipliers when I kept hearing (and easily working) loud JA's off the back of the beam. I decided a good strategy might be to try to run JA's on 15m with the beam on South America. I did that for a little while but with no takers from South America I eventually just turned the beam to Japan. In a half-hour I worked about 50 very loud JA's, most reporting power of 50 watts or lower, many with 10 watts and even a few QRP stations! With the time running out I turned the beam back to the southeast and spent the last 30 minutes picking up the remaining Caribbean and Central American multipliers on 20m. The band was wide open and everyone was incredibly loud. Every continent except Africa and Australia was booming in, even with the attenuator on and the gain turned down. Most of the stations had huge pileups going but one way or another I managed to get through to most of the ones I needed. The last one went into the log at 2358z and then it was all over.

As one might expect, there were LOTS of high points on this outing:

• Setting up Friday afternoon in the unusually warm early spring sunshine.
  
• Working a handful of stations on four bands. The exclusive club: D4C JA1ELY JA1YPA JA3YBK KH7X KL7RA RT0C
  
• Working DXCC in a single weekend. Back in the day it took me three years to work 100 countries!
  
• Working several all-time-new-ones for DXCC: New Caledonia (FK8IL), Central Africa (TL0A), India (VU3DJQ), Cambodia (XU7ACY).
  
• Making the 10m contact with LT1F.
  
• Eating supper on Saturday night while listening to JT1CO run a huge pileup of stateside stations on 20m when suddenly he announces that he's going to 15m and gives the QRG. I hit the bandswitch and was the first to work him for a new mult on 15m (I had worked him the night before on 20m and 40m).
  
• Working Antarctica (again!). I caught VP8DMH Saturday night on 20m. I get a big kick out of making 'inter-polar' contacts and I've only ever done it twice before.
  
• Having almost all the bands open to somewhere at the same time. In the middle of the night, during the 0800z hour on Saturday, my log has four contacts in a row that go 15m-20m-40m-80m (Africa, Europe, Hawaii, Japan)
  
• Spending five futile minutes near the end of the contest shouting into a humongous pileup on YN2EA when a W2(?) gets through and after his contact tells the guy to 'listen up for the VE8 calling you'. I was so surprised I didn't have a chance to remember who it was but thanks for the multiplier!
  
• Having the presence of mind right after the contest to take advantage of the excellent conditions and the big antenna to work Maine and Rhode Island on digital for my Triple Play Award. I still need 2 more on CW and 3 more on digital but propagation-wise they're all easy ones (ND, SD and NE).
  

The only low-points:

• Spending almost an hour on Sunday morning calling V51YJ on 15m for an all-time-new-one. He never did hear me. Once again, that's for all the guys that spent time in the pileups unsuccessfully calling me this weekend. It usually goes both ways...
  
• Demobilizing the station during a surprise blizzard on Sunday night.
  
  

From up here you never know what you're gonna get...

This will likely be the last 'serious' contest effort from here until Field Day and Canada Day this summer but we should be able to dabble in a few events between now and then. Also, listen for me in April as CK8G from NA-182.

73
John - VE8EV

ARRLDX SSB VE8EV SO Unlimited HP

ARRL DX Contest, SSB

Call: VE8EV
Operator(s): VE8EV
Station: VE8EV

Class: SO Unlimited HP
QTH: Inuvik, NT
Operating Time (hrs): 36

Summary:
Band QSOs Mults
-------------------
160: 1 1
80: 16 9
40: 68 39
20: 984 96
15: 149 27
10: 1 1
-------------------
Total: 1219 173 Total Score = 631,661

Club:

Comments:

The short version: Wow!

Long version at http://ve8ev.blogspot.com

73
John - VE8EV

Fun in the Sun From J6

Getting permission to operate from St. Lucia took many months of negotiating and cost me a lot of money. However, once the XYL finally agreed to it the rest was relatively easy. Since this was going to be a holiday trip I didn't plan to spend a lot of time playing radio. The RAC Winter Contest was going to be the held the weekend before Christmas. It's one of my favorite contests and would make the perfect opportunity for a little DX operating adventure. VE8 is a rare multiplier in the contest but J6 is only a 2-point "DX" contact. Signing J6/VE8EV from the sunny West Indies in the dead of winter would be a hoot!

I had almost given up even before I started. Back in the spring I started looking around for a station on the island to operate from. A few inquiries were made but by October I still hadn't confirmed anything. Since all available information said it took several months to get a J6 license I was pretty sure my time had run out. I mentioned the situation to Tree, N6TR, during our SS CW operation and within an hour he came up with a couple of contacts for me. Soon I was corresponding with Lionel, J69KZ. His contact at the St. Lucian National Telecommunications Regulatory Commission led me to believe that if I acted quickly there was a chance I could get a license in time for my visit. With that in mind, I downloaded the application forms and had all the required documents couriered to the island.

The licensing process in St. Lucia is somewhat complicated. The main problem is that the process is much the same no matter whether you are applying for a temporary amateur license or a commercial broadcasting license. All applications have to be personally signed by the Minister of Telecommunications and of course they have to negotiate several layers of bureaucracy both before and after they hit the Minister's desk. Fortunately, the islanders are the friendliest people on earth and there was certainly no lack of will on their part to get me licensed in time for the contest. A special thanks, though, is reserved for Bill Schmidt, K9HZ. His detailed information on how to obtain a J6 license was invaluable especially the 'Amazing Race' directions to navigating the several different St. Lucian government offices that have to be visited to complete the final paperwork.

Concurrent with licensing was the issue of finding a place to operate from. The original plan was to operate from Lionel's QTH however this was complicated by the fact that his rental suite was unexpectedly occupied and his family was also in from Canada for the holidays. He suggested that while he'd squeeze me in somewhere if it became necessary, he also had a well-equipped suitcase portable station containing an IC-7000, tuner and power supply, and a G5RV antenna which perhaps I could operate from the resort? I scoped out the resort and found the perfect spot to string up the G5RV from a 4th floor stairwell window over to a convenient tree in the courtyard and our 2nd floor balcony was exactly half way in between. I thought long and hard about how to ask about putting up the antenna. In the end I decided it sounded better to describe it as 'a wire aerial for my radio' instead of a 'hundred foot long ham radio antenna'. I shouldn't have worried. The resort specialized in catering to their guests needs and the best line I heard on the whole trip was 'Are you sure you wouldn't like us to have the maintenance workers put up your antenna for you?' Now that's service!

With the license in hand (it's actually a very official looking 10-page document, printed and bound!) and the G5RV hung in the garden it was time to get on the air. I had never used an Icom IC-7000 before but I knew what I wanted to do so after an hour of flipping through the manual I had the mic gain, ALC and compression set up and programmed the voice memories. I didn't bring a keying interface for the computer and Lionel didn't have a key so I was going to give the CW part of the contest a miss. It wasn't long before I changed my mind. I'm not a big CW operator but the RAC contests (Canada Day and RAC Winter) are two of the few where the exchange is simple and the operators don't seem to feel the need to send CW at 40wpm. On a hunch, I dug a bit deeper into the IC-7000 manual and sure enough, the internal memory keyer had a serial number function. Within a few minutes I had the front panel buttons programmed for the basic exchange information and working VE multipliers on CW was the highlight of the whole contest.

I wanted to do a full 24-hour effort but it didn't work out that way. I got a decent six hour sleep that night and moseyed on down to the buffet table whenever it was required. Propagation wasn't bad but it also wasn't as good as I was expecting given the location and the solar flux. Still, I managed to work all the provinces and only missed VY1, VE8 and VY0. I heard Wally VE8DW with a good signal on 20m right around my sunset but 100 watts and the wire wasn't enough to get his attention. I spent most of the afternoon running on 15m but the rates weren't that high. The biggest Canadian signals in the contest all came from VE6RAC operating from the VE6JY superstation. I heard them on four bands and worked them in both modes on three of them.

The dichotomy of the J6/VE8EV callsign wasn't lost on anyone, especially with the snow and cold spreading across North America. I got lots of comments along the lines of 'I wish I was there' and, not surprisingly given the contest, a lot of 'I wish you were at home'. All in all, I had a ton of fun in the contest but once it was over I was anxious to get back to the sun and surf. I left the antenna up for an extra day and ran a couple of skeds but that was it. Two more weeks and I'll be back to the 40 below zero and 24 hour darkness. I need to soak it all up while I have the chance!


Sunset across the harbour at Gros Islet, St. Lucia.
73 and Happy Holidays
J6/VE8EV

NA-108 St. Lucia

All is looking good for operation from J68. Still waiting to hear on licensing, I'll either be J68/VE8EV or J68EV. If all else fails I'll be able to use the call of my host on the island, Lionel J69KZ.

I'll be operating mostly during the RAC Canada Winter Contest. The contest starts at 0000z Dec 18 (Friday evening in North America) and runs until 2359z. Everyone can work me during the contest. If you are outside of Canada (like me) send RS(T) and a serial number. Canadian stations sent RS(T) and province or territory.

Look for me on all bands but I'll be mostly working 40m and 20m SSB. If 15m is open to Canada you can bet I'll be up there as much as possible.

73 and Season's Greetings
John - VE8EV

SS PH - Making the Grade!

I've always come away from Sweepstakes with a vague sense of having let everyone down. Knowing that there are several thousand stations all needing that NT multiplier but only a couple of hundred in my log somehow meant I just hadn't measured up to the task at hand. This year, however, was different. Somewhere between the experience gained in the past year of contesting and expeditioning, incremental improvements to the station, and ever-so-slightly better propagation, I walked away satisfied that I'd put in a pretty good effort.

It's surprising how all the little things just keep adding up. Some might just call it experience but there's an old saying along the lines of "First, you need to know what it is you don't know." Knowing when to run, when to search and pounce, and when to grab some rest for later. Keep the rate up! If you're running then RUN! Go as fast as you can without getting a lot of requests for fills. Always come back to something as fast as you can so stations don't start calling out of turn. If you can't run then S&P as fast as you can. Know what multipliers you need and when they're likely to be around so you can assign a mental 'value' to every station you hear. If they don't come back to you after a certain number of calls then move on and try them again on the next pass up (or down) the band. If everyone is answering on the first call then you should be running. Keep track of where stations are and what they sound like so you don't have to wait around for them to ID to find out you've already worked them. If nobody is answering you at all except for the one really loud guy who needs twenty fills to complete the QSO then it's time to go take a nap! Those and hundreds of other little things that all come from study, practice and experience. Subtle little lessons from here and there that make a big difference when they're all in play at the same time!

VE8DW was going to be out of town for SS this year so I was on my own. Fortunately, we got all the hard work at the contest site done before CQWW in October so all I had to do was pull the shack trailer up there and plug it in. Even so, it took several hours of hard work at 25 below zero to get all the snow shovelled, stow all the antennas and get the trailer hitched up to the truck. I thought I had everything in place and ready to go an hour before the contest but only 10 minutes before the bell I realized that I hadn't recorded the exchanges for the voice keyer. I scrambled around for 15 minutes with sound cards, microphones, inputs and outputs before I got it all working and then dived into the contest.

With an ongoing geomagnetic disturbance I was planning for conditions to be lousy, at least on Saturday. Being exactly 28 days after CQ WW, the optimist in me was hoping for a repeat of those conditions where a solar flux in the low 80's gave enough of a boost to the bands to push the signals through the aurora. Even though the flux didn't get quite as high this time, it still made a big difference. Shortly before the start of the contest there was even a 10m opening to the west coast, literally the first contacts I've made on that band in years. After that I wasn't quite sure what to expect at the start of the contest. I decided to start on 15m and managed to average over 60/hr for the first 3 hours. I even managed to do a 105/hr between 2220z and 2320z but when that band died suddenly I had to QSY. 20m was still shaky from the aurora and for the next two hours the rate meter was stuck at 24/hr. I knew once 20m was closed it was going to be a long, difficult night. The K-index was still at 2 and between 0200z and 0700z, while all the stations down south were filling their buckets from a seemingly endless well of contacts (or so I've heard), I struggled on 40m to put a dozen contacts in the log. By 0700z I'd had enough. I set the alarm for 1200z and went to bed.

20m was already open when I got up. I heard lots of DX and a handful of east coast DXers so I grabbed a spot and started calling CQ while I drank my coffee and had some breakfast. Apparently I had set my alarm an hour earlier than everyone else because a few minutes after 1300z the rate jumped up to 75/hr and stayed there for almost 2 hours. After the morning rush was over I spent the next several hours looking for multipliers. I knew I had to find NL, MAR, and as many New England sections as I could early because they just wouldn't be workable later in the day. I did pretty good with New England and worked VY2SS and KP2M. Late in the morning I found VO1HE running stations high up on 15m. It was a bit early for 15m from here but I hung in there and kept calling. At first I thought it would be easy because I couldn't hear anyone else calling but soon realized that there were lots of stations that I just wasn't hearing. After a half hour I decided to move on. I kept coming back to his frequency every five or ten minutes but after a little while he was gone. For all the guys that spent a long time in the pileup unsuccessfully calling me this weekend: I feel your pain!

After missing out on NL, I knew a sweep was unlikely so I decided to just concentrate on rate for the rest of the day. The aurora was still flaring up occasionally but by 1800z I was hitting 15m hard and just stayed there for the rest of the afternoon. Every time I got knocked off my run frequency I'd S&P the band until I found a new spot and started running again. After an hour or so I had a stroke of luck. I had just worked one of the east coast big guns down at the bottom of the band and had left the radio on his frequency while grabbing another cup of coffee. He wasn't getting very many takers and then he disappeared! After a minute of silence I practically dove for the F1 key and a few minutes after that the run started. I knew the aurora must have let up because I got lots of comments that I was loud and no one crowded me off frequency. For the next five hours I kept the average rate steady above 60/hr even during a QSY from 15m down to 20m at an opportune moment when 15m started going out.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. Just like clockwork at around 0100z the 20m propagation followed the grey line off the west coast and out to sea. With KH7XS and a few JA's the only ones left on the band I knew it was time to head back to 40m. Conditions were better than the previous night but only the big stations were audible and almost all of them were already in the log. I did get spotted by a KL7 station which resulted in a little mini-run of eight stations but after that I was back to kilowatt QRP again. In the next half hour I worked two stations and both of those required lots of calling and fills. Even though it was only 0130z I knew that it was over for me. I saw the QSO count was at 749 so I thought I would try to get one more to make it an even 750. After about 5 minutes of searching I found W0CN and after 5 more minutes of calling and fills he was in the log and I was done.

As always, lots of highlights:

• Working former co-worker and local operator VE8GER for the first time. I was very happy to hear him on the air doing his first SS!


• The long Sunday afternoon run that seemed like it would never end.


• Working 16 QRP stations. I love it when a QRP op cracks a big pileup of high powered stations!


• Hearing the whoops and hollers in the background at multi-op stations when I work them.

The only lowlight was missing the sweep. In addition to NL I also needed ND but I'm sure if I hadn't missed on VO1HE I would have put a bit more effort into finding someone from North Dakota.

That's all from here for this year. I was going to run SO2C (single-op, 2 contest) during the ARRL 160 and the ARRL EME contest but it would have been only one night due to a prior commitment. Now that the geomagnetic forecast is calling for disturbed conditions during the contest weekend (again!) I'm not going to bother. I leave right after that for J6 and hopefully I'll be on from the island during the RAC Winter contest as J68/VE8EV.

73 from the frozen Arctic
John - VE8EV