2021-07-19, 16:34:41
We just got back from a short 3 night stay at Mikisew Provincial Park near South River. It's quite busy and noisy in July but has great beaches on Eagle Lake.
I took my portable HF rig and a shorty end-fed half-wave for 80m. I got my line up 42 feet over a tree branch (I measured the height using a known length of paracord) and pulled my wire up to about 35 feet, configured as an inverted-V.
The SFI was down at 71 and the bands were very noisy but I managed 13 CW QSOs for a valid POTA activation on Tuesday 13th July, and another 15 QSOs for a second activation of the same park (VE-0300) the next day. I also checked into the Dufferin CW net on 80m for a great half hour rag chew with my friends in Shelburne on Wednesday.
I was struggling on 40m; contacts in Ontario (just one) were probably too close and many POTA hunters in the US were too far away considering the poor daytime band conditions on 40m. So, I switched to 20m and had much better luck there.
One observation about my inverted-V; the angle between the arms of the antenna was barely 90 degrees the first day. Before operating on the second day I relocated the tie-off point of one end to a different tree to increase the angle and improved my SWR noticeably.
Footnote: Doug VE3DGY, also stayed at Mikisew on the Tuesday night but we didn't get a chance to meet up.
I took my portable HF rig and a shorty end-fed half-wave for 80m. I got my line up 42 feet over a tree branch (I measured the height using a known length of paracord) and pulled my wire up to about 35 feet, configured as an inverted-V.
The SFI was down at 71 and the bands were very noisy but I managed 13 CW QSOs for a valid POTA activation on Tuesday 13th July, and another 15 QSOs for a second activation of the same park (VE-0300) the next day. I also checked into the Dufferin CW net on 80m for a great half hour rag chew with my friends in Shelburne on Wednesday.
I was struggling on 40m; contacts in Ontario (just one) were probably too close and many POTA hunters in the US were too far away considering the poor daytime band conditions on 40m. So, I switched to 20m and had much better luck there.
One observation about my inverted-V; the angle between the arms of the antenna was barely 90 degrees the first day. Before operating on the second day I relocated the tie-off point of one end to a different tree to increase the angle and improved my SWR noticeably.
Footnote: Doug VE3DGY, also stayed at Mikisew on the Tuesday night but we didn't get a chance to meet up.
John VA3KOT
Blog: HamRadioOutsideTheBox.ca
Blog: HamRadioOutsideTheBox.ca