Hi!
For a day where I did not plan on doing much radio, I was on more than I had thought I would attempt. I got on an early AO-51 pass around 1410 UTC yesterday morning from where I spent Tuesday night (Port Alberni, CN79). After that, I drove down to Victoria on the southern end of Vancouver Island, and worked 5 passes on 3 different satellites in CN88. I was on an SO-50 pass from near Mill Bay, north of Victoria in CN88fp (thanks Brock W6GMT for keeping me from talking to myself and the polar bears on that pass), then an HO-68 pass from the Victoria suburb of View Royal in CN88gk. I made it to Victoria proper for a pair of SO-50 passes and an AO-27 pass, working from the Mile 0 monument (the western end of the Trans-Canada Highway) near the waterfront in CN88hj.
After some sightseeing and filling up the fuel tank in my car, it was time to wrap up my stay on Vancouver Island. I took the 3pm (2200 UTC) sailing from the Swartz Bay ferry terminal north of Victoria to the Tsawwassen terminal south of Vancouver, but that did not end my time operating from CN88. I saw there was an AO-27 pass coming around the midpoint of the 95-minute trip on the ferry. I decided to try working that pass, but not with my log periodic and mobile radio. With my IC-T7H HT and a Smiley Antenna tri-band telescoping whip, I was able to make a pair of QSOs with K7WIN in Arizona followed by KG6NUB in California. I tried to also get KL7XJ in the log, but being so far north I simply ran out of time before the post-repeater telemetry. All of this took place in grid CN88hu - taking that from my Garmin GPS receiver's display while I was on for that pass. I also had the GPS receiver's compass function on, to verify what direction the ship was moving while I was on the rear open-air deck of the ferry.
I did not realize until I had parked on the ferry and gathered my gear for the AO-27 pass that I left my Maldol AH-510R telescoping whip at home. This is similar to the more popular AL-800, but also covers 6m and has a BNC connector that makes a better physical connection to my HTs' BNC connectors. I still had the Smiley whip, and made that work as good as I could considering the AO-27 pass. In any event, the shipborne QSOs were a learning experience.
From this point on, all my operating will be on the Lower Mainland
of British Columbia, and not from an island. I may be on some passes this afternoon, but since CN89 is not a rare grid thanks to local operators like VE7JRX I am not looking to set a schedule nor plan on being by the radio for many passes. I will make a point of working more passes on Friday - similar to how I worked from the Vancouver Island grids earlier this week - when I go up to Whistler and operate from somewhere around that town in grid CO80. Depending on how early I start out, I will work as many passes as I can while mixing in sightseeing and wandering around Whistler Village at the base of the ski hills up there. For Whistler/CO80, that will be using both FM and SSB satellites.
So far, with Whistler still to come, I have logged 271 QSOs from 5 grids on Vancouver Island (CN78, CN79, CN88, CO60, CO70) and on the ferry, and one grid in the metro Vancouver area (CN89), since arriving in Vancouver Saturday afternoon. It's been fun handing out new grids, and working some passes with challenges - AO-27's timer in relation to being so far north, shallow passes, dealing with surroundings that don't help satellite operating, etc.
73!
Patrick VA7EWK/WD9EWK - North Vancouver, British Columbia http://www.wd9ewk.net/