About me and my shack
I
was first licensed in 2004, and now hold my Canadian Basic, Advanced,
and (as of December 2, 2006) 5 wpm Morse licences. I am also and accredited
examiner. I've recently joined the Straight
Key Century Club, in an effort to improve my Morse Code, and gain
some proficiency in what has to be amateur radio's most intriguing mode!
I am an affiliate member of the Canadian Forces Affiliate Radio Service, with callsign CIW647. As described on the CFARS website, "the Canadian Forces Affiliate Radio System (CFARS) is a program sponsored by National Defence Headquarters in which military installation, military unit/club and volunteer licensed Canadian Amateur Radio stations and operators participate and contribute to the aim of providing auxiliary communications on a local, national and international basis as an adjunct to existing military unit/club amateur radio communications."
The shack
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| VE3BVC, Bill, was a big help in installing the Force 12 antenna. |
My HF rig is an Icom 746 Pro, and it is a great rig for the money. It drives a collection of four antennas:
- A Force12 C3 beam atop a 60 foot Delhi tower.
- A 13 element horizontally-polarized 2 metre beam atop the tower.
- A 40 metre inverted vee for NVIS.
- An 80 metre inverted vee for NVIS.
The antenna is rotated by a Yaesu G-800SA rotator. This is a great rotator, and cheaper than many comparable competitors.
The tower is new in 2009, replacing my venerable Hustler 5BTV vertical antenna, which tunes-up all ham bands from 10 metres to 80 metres, except the 30 metre band. With a low takeoff angle, its a good antenna for DX work if you don't have a tower. I've worked ZS6CCY in South Africa on 80 metres with the Hustler.
The new beam has already proven to be far superior to the vertical. The far lower noise floor, gain, and ability to reject other stations is great. Despite the poor band conditions, I picked up a dozen new countries in the first weekend of operation.
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George, VE3BIK worked ground crew while VE3BIK
and I hung out on the tower installing the antennas.
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I've also built 80 metre and 40 metre inverted vees for local HF. (Check out my dissertation on NVIS.) They allow me to communicate well within the 500 kilometre skip zone of the vertical.
Three VHF rigs round-out the radios. An Icom 2000 monitors VE3RIB, our local club repeater. It drives a home-built 2 metre dipole based on W4ZT's design. This is a good, easy to build antenna that easily covers the 2 metre band with low SWR. I have two GE MVS radios for APRS and IRLP work.
The APRS radio I-gates local APRS signals, while our club repeater hosts the digipeater (also an MVS). The IRLP radio is tuned to our club repeater to provide VE3RIB's IRLP capabilities. One of these radios drives W4ZT's dipole, the other drives a copper-pipe J-pole of unknown origins. The j-pole is also an easy build, but more difficult to tune, and without the bandwidth of the dipole. (See GE-MVS Mods for information on re-wiring these radios.)
Backup Power
A UPS and two deep-cycle car batteries provide 1400 amp-hours of short-term backup power. A 3 KW generator supplies long-term backup power.
