OVQRP Weekend At Rideau River Provincial Park

It’s the weekend and not a drop of rain. The weather is cool at night, dropping to 6C last night at the campground on the Rideau River near Kemptville.

Members of the Ottawa Valley QRP Society (OV-QRP) group are still out there tonight working qrp and some really great DX. Bill VE3CLQ worked France and Zagreb Croatia with 20 watts and 10 watts with his Buddistick antenna and his Yaesu FT-857. Goes to show that even with low sunspot numbers you can still work some great DX with low power. Martin VA3SIE, Mike VE3WMB and Jim VE3XJ did kitchen duty.

Here are a few pictures of this weekend’s event on the Rideau >

The group will operate through part of Sunday and it was a good effort and not at all a contest type operation. 

QRP To The Field (QRPTTF) 2010 This Saturday

The Ottawa Valley QRP Society takes to the field this Saturday April 24th. The Ottawa location will be at Hampton Park, near the Island Park exit westbound from the Queensway. Start time is 11am EST and it’s a CW QRP (5 watts or less) only exercise. I’ll be joining them in some capacity. I have my FT-817 station almost ready to go with just wiring up a CW key left to do. I also have to cut a 40 meter radial for my Buddistick. I have the Buddistick tuned for 20 and 40 meters. I take along my MFJ antenna analyzer just to be sure all is good for the final section on my FT-817. Power will be from an 18AH gel cell and a spare full size 12v deep cycle wet cell battery. I haven’t operated the 817 on cw and don’t have any filters installed yet. Still a few things to get ready but it should be an interesting day. For suggested operating frequencies see the QRP To The Field web site.
 
QRP To The Field (QRPTTF) site

About Hampton Park, Ottawa