from THE FRONTENAC TIMES (Newsletter of the Frontenac ARES Group)
February 2011
Well it was a great weekend for Winter Field Day. VE3FRG operated as a multi-indoor station. On Saturday, we had light snow and -5C and on Sunday, we had more snow and -18C.
The road into the cottage was interesting, as it was not properly ploughed out, and the “slide all over the road” factor was high, but we all made it safely, including Bill, VA3WOW, from Belleville.
Once we unloaded the small mountain of gear into the cottage and got the wood stove going it was back outside to string up the antennas. It took us a little over two hours to get two dipoles into the air and run the coax for them. Dave,
VA3ORP, erected his vertical antenna and radial system on the lake ice and that took him over an hour to do.
It really is amazing just how much longer it takes to do simple things in the cold weather (about 4 times as long). The other winter problem we experienced was working with gloves on. It’s very hard to do, and it is very easy to drop parts into the snow if you are not extremely careful…….and on that subject, George is looking for a new pair of wire cutters, if anybody has a spare pair.
It took a good five hours for the cottage to warm up to a comfortable level, but after seeing the photo’s of Bob, VA3RCS, standing out in the cold and operating, I shall not complain…….because I know Bob would never let me forget it.
It was a tight fit with the 5 of us in the cottage, and sleeping space was at a premium……just ask Dave!
Don VE3MNE made his usual field day supper...."Gilroy's Gourmet Road Kill Chili", and as usual it was superb.
Bill VA3WOW contributed a very nice bottle of Cabernet merlot for supper, called "Cape One". It's a blend of Canadian and South African red wines and was outstanding. It is highly recommended to all our resident “winos”.
Operating wise, we made 70+ contacts, 35 on SSB, 1 on PSK31, and the remainder on CW. For the most part, the daytime propagation on the bands went from “bad” to outright “bloody miserable”. But, on Saturday evening 160m was just hopping with CW signals, but no SSB was to be heard. George, VE3SIQ, operated 20m to good success, and Don VE3MNE and Bill VE3CLQ operated 80m, 40m SSB and PSK31.
We made a number of good DX contacts, including EC2DX, Imanol in San Sabastian, Spain, YT1A, Vladan in Kraljevo, Serbia, PI4DX a club station in Walsoordeu, Netherlands, and IK6CWQ, Lou in Torrebecchia, Italy. Dave
also completed a CW contact to Paris, France, but I do not have the CW log to note the callsign.
Sunday morning Bill, VE3CLQ, checked into the Pothole Net, run by the Ottawa Valley Mobile ARC, and had three short QSO's with ED, VE3GX, Glenn, VE3XRA, and Ernest, VE3EJJ. He was hoping to have a short contact with Bob, VA3RCS, or Martin, VA3SIE, but they where nowhere to be found.
All-in-all it was a good weekend with lots of lessons learned.
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