06/27/2008 | VE3WCC This was a grid expedition to FN04xa by members of the West Carleton ARC of Ottawa. We thought we had found the perfect secret operating location until we approached the farmer who owned the property. "You guys want to set up your radios on top of the hill?" he asked before we even had the opportunity to mention that we were Hams! Turns out that the site was very well known to rovers, about 6 of whom visited during the weekend. When the weather was nice we had a beautiful view overlooking Lake Ontario. When the weather wasn't nice, we were close to the clouds!

We put up 3 towers, with boomers on all bands from 50 to 1296 MHz. We also had a 10 GHz station thanks to the generosity of Ray VE3FN. We initially had problems with the 903 MHz station, but were able to substitute another rig with the arrival of Dean VA3CDD for the overnight shift. The stations were set up in a 10-foot cargo trailer, with power provided by a 3 KW generator. An assortment of tents completed the setup.

The location was very nice, both from a picturesque point of view, and in terms of line of sight. The guys in Rochester NY sounded like locals! Six meters provided a consistent QSO rate - we never had a "big opening", but the sporadic E was sporadic enough that the band was rarely ever dead. Unfortunately, the meteor scatter skeds on 6 and 2 using WSJT overnight were a bust. We didn't even hear any pings. Did we have equipment problems, or was that the experience of others? To all those with whom we had WSJT skeds - we tried!

Operators included Ken VA3KA, Doug VE3XK, Andy VE3NVK, Barney VA3BGB, Dean VA3CDD, Jeremy N0CALL and yours truly, Al VO1NO / VE3.

We dodged bad weather most of the weekend, but finally had to shut down with 2 hours 45 minutes left in the contest when a severe electrical storm moved in. The good news - we're looking forward to going back next year!

73 -- VO1NO