I finished the contest with a disappointing 63 contacts over a total operating time of 6 hours - all CW on 40m. I used Search and Pounce instead of running a frequency. I usually find S&P works better for me and allows me to copy the other station's exchange before calling them. Some stations were sending at speeds over 30wpm and I had to listen a couple of times to get the info right.

I used the memory keyer built into my radio and set my transmit speed to 22wpm. I found that was a good compromise that everybody was able to copy (even though I received a few "agn" responses).

I operated from my trailer plugged into my home 110V and operated as 1D ONS. It felt more like a regular field day being in the trailer. That also meant I was using my lightweight gear. Logging was on my tablet with a bluetooth keyboard and the HamLog app. HamLog has a Field Day logger (buried in the tools menu) which did a fine job (see image).

I missed the camaraderie of a regular field day. If we had been working as a group out in the field I would have worked more hours and more stations. But what the heck, there's always next year.    

Operating from my trailer on my home driveway in Owen Sound. Yaesu FT891, 100W into a sloper End Fed Half Wave (actually a loading coil shortened 80m EFHW) on 40m. I made a modest 32 CW contacts in 3 hours Saturday afternoon. I plan to be back at the key after a family obligation at about 11am Sunday.

John VA3KOT

6 meters has been open every day for a few weeks now. Just got my hardware and software setup and tuned and my first contact from Sauble Beach north was J68HZ on St. Lucia. Using an Icom 7300 with a 35 year old 6m AEA isoloop loop antenna up about 28 feet.

   

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ARRL is launching an electronics course via their online magazine QEX.  It will be presented by Eric Nichols, KL7AJ, who is a very good writer & teacher.  So if you have time on your hands and want to get the brain cells working, here's your chance.  If you are an ARRL member the cost is zero.  Otherwise the cost is the price of ARRL membership.

I attached the writeup (hopefully).

73
Dave, VE3WI

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  ARRL course.pdf (Size: 99.25 KB / Downloads: 2)

AO-73 now in full-time transponder mode
After some eight months in continuous sunlight, AO-73 (FUNcube-1) has now started to see some eclipses during each orbit.
The telemetry received has shown that the spacecraft continued to function perfectly during this period and the on board temperatures did not reach excessively high levels.
After this became clear, our next concern was the battery. Having been kept fully charged for this period, would it actually hold a charge and do its job when in eclipse?
After three weeks of increasing eclipse periods we can now see that indeed the Li battery appears to be ok and the bus voltage has not yet dropped below 8.1 volts.
So today we have changed the operating mode from high power telemetry educational mode to continuous amateur mode with the transponder ON.
The telemetry continues to be available, albeit at low power.
We will, of course, continue to carefully monitor the data but are planning to leave the spacecraft in this mode for at least the next week.
Please enjoy using it!
Graham Shirville, G3VZV
of the FUNcube Team, and AMSAT-UK

https://www.amsat.org/two-way-satellites...funcube-1/

A group of hams in Port Elgin and Southampton regularly meet on the the Port Elgin repeater VE3PER on Sunday night at 9 p.m.  There is also a more informal get-together on Wednesdays at 10 a.m.  Any station is welcome to join us.  146.820 MHz -, no tone.
73 Jim

With the spare time at home, I have been playing on the bench. I built a '29 era transmitter from a 1934 QST. It uses a pair of #245 tubes in a push pull collpits design. It runs on 80 and 40 metres with a maximum of 3 watts output. The coils are wound from some heavy square copper wire that I think was for large transformer winding. Even the board is vintage, it was in the scrap heap in the old barn. It cleaned up in the planer. A very enjoyable project with lots of learning along the way.

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The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) International Special Committee on Radio Interference (CISPR) has rejected a proposal by the Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) lobby that would have resulted in pollution of the precious HF RF spectrum
While Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) systems nominally operate on frequencies below 150 kHz they can pollute the entire HF spectrum up to 30 MHz not only ruining people's enjoyment of radio but also potentially disrupting the communications of key services.
A WPT paper notes:
"the business case for WPT systems expects a wide spreading of their usage; in the ideal case, nearly one system per household when mostly electric vehicles will be used in the future."
Such an outcome could result in horrendous interference levels and ruin the HF radio frequency spectrum which is a precious natural resource.

See the WPT paper at
https://fe.um.si/images/jet/JET_november
_2019_FINAL_splet-11-17.pdf

CIS/B/737/CDV Voting Result
https://www.iec.ch/dyn/www/f?p=103:7:3840419693584
::::FSP_ORG_ID
,FSP_LANG_ID:1298,25
RSGB: Overview of WPT
http://rsgb.org/main/files/2018/06/WPT-f...2brief.pdf

Sable Island DXpedition (October 17-26th)
Randy, N0TG, reports:
Hmmm..... Coronavirus Stay At Home and bored---looking for something to do?
Check out our Sable Island Dxpedition Web site (www.CY0dxpedition.net).
Check out the sponsors, maybe even become one, visit the team page to see who's who, and enjoy viewing the team's previous video Dxpedition to St. Paul Island ---2019--- you can even download it as MPG4 and share with
friends, clubs, etc. at:
http://cy0dxpedition.net/video-of-team-d...-2019.html

And, take the survey as to your Sable most needed band, mode, ATNO, etc.
Planning continues for OCTOBER 2020

There has been an upsurge of interest of late in the the low VHF spectrum around 40 MHz and 60 MHz as radio amateurs in some countries have gained access to the experimental 8-metre and 5-metre bands.
Radio amateurs from Ireland, Lithuania, South Africa and Slovenia can currently transmit on the 40 MHz band while amateurs from several other European countries are interested in trying cross band experiments, usually from 10-metres or 6-metres.
In order to promote the sharing of information about equipment, antennas, propagation and tests, a new Facebook group has now been established and anyone with an interest in this part of the low VHF spectrum is welcome to join and contribute.
The group can be found at... https://www.facebook.com/groups/2897330140356898/