2009 ARRL Field Day
07/26/2009 |
VE8YK
The propagation from Yellowknife, Northwest Territories is usually not very good. This Field Day was no exception. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that there is no darkness at this time of year and Yellowknife is generally located right under one of the elongations of the auroral oval. Other operating challenges include the swarms of mosquitoes, more active this year than in previous years due to our wet summer. I counted at least 50 welts on my arms from the weekend. Fortunately we are too far north for West Nile.
This year we tried out a 45 ft ex-US army fibreglass mast and it worked very well. VE8RT constructed a delta loop and used it to operate the CW station using an FT-1000MP. We also used an FT-857 on a G5RV for PSK contacts. A vertical 6 m antenna was hooked up to an FT-706, but we missed any 6m openings during the weekend. About half of our contacts were via PSK, 35% by CW and 10% by SSB. There are definite advantages to PSK and CW operating in the north and our club is now oriented towards this as the primary operating mode.
We managed contacts mostly on the West Coast of Canada and North America. While we had som from the East Coast, we had none from Canada's East Coast. We had a CW contact with OH6R in Tampere, Finland and a PSK contact with GM0SDV in Hamilton, Scotland. These are significant contacts for us in that they are made within the auroral oval.
We also carried out some NVIS experiments think this may have some interesting possibilities for northern operations. We trialed the PRC-320 with the wind up generator and it was actually quite amusing.
Local interest was not that great as it was the 75th Anniversary of the founding of the first mine (and therefore Yellowknife). Perhaps next year we will have more interest.
As always an interesting and exciting weekend. We thank all those stations with whom we had QSOs. To those stations in the south, please remember to rotate your beam now and then (we could hear quite a few but on their back ends). 73s.
Ian -- VE8IR
This year we tried out a 45 ft ex-US army fibreglass mast and it worked very well. VE8RT constructed a delta loop and used it to operate the CW station using an FT-1000MP. We also used an FT-857 on a G5RV for PSK contacts. A vertical 6 m antenna was hooked up to an FT-706, but we missed any 6m openings during the weekend. About half of our contacts were via PSK, 35% by CW and 10% by SSB. There are definite advantages to PSK and CW operating in the north and our club is now oriented towards this as the primary operating mode.
We managed contacts mostly on the West Coast of Canada and North America. While we had som from the East Coast, we had none from Canada's East Coast. We had a CW contact with OH6R in Tampere, Finland and a PSK contact with GM0SDV in Hamilton, Scotland. These are significant contacts for us in that they are made within the auroral oval.
We also carried out some NVIS experiments think this may have some interesting possibilities for northern operations. We trialed the PRC-320 with the wind up generator and it was actually quite amusing.
Local interest was not that great as it was the 75th Anniversary of the founding of the first mine (and therefore Yellowknife). Perhaps next year we will have more interest.
As always an interesting and exciting weekend. We thank all those stations with whom we had QSOs. To those stations in the south, please remember to rotate your beam now and then (we could hear quite a few but on their back ends). 73s.
Ian -- VE8IR
Photo Gallery
-
-
The QTH
-
The QTH
-
Wet weather - ide...
Back
