Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Silent Lake Yurt "DX expedition"

It is time to get the ham radio out in the wilderness again and operate portable for a few days.

The destination is Silent Lake provincial park in eastern Ontario. Trip dates are Feb 15, 16, and 17th.You can see my notes from last years "event" at http://acomeau.blogspot.com/2009/01/winter-portable-operation.html

Travel:

The park is about 240km due west from Ottawa where we live. The drive will start early Sunday morning so that we can arrive at the park entrance at about noon time. From the park gate we will drive to the park Warden's office where we will transfer the camping contents of the truck to snowmobile for the remainder of the trip into the winter camping areas of the park.

Location:

Silent lake park is located in eastern Ontario, not far from the eastern sea coast of North America.



Radio Equipment:

The key radio equipment will be an ICOM 7000 which is a compact 100W HF and VHF radio. Antenna tuning, if needed will be delivered with an LDG AT-7000 auto tuner.


Power:

Power plant will be 4 50AH 12V Gel-cells. 200AH should provide me with about 18 hours of operation.



The battery booster will "step-up" voltage from the gel-cells to a stable 13.5V even as the gell-cell discharge. This helps the radio perform. The efficiency used in the calculation below is 80% and the booster is only enabled on tansmit.










Battery Storage 50 (Ahr)




# batteries 4





Total Storage 200 (Ahr)












Radio (A) (W) Eff. (min) (A)

Transmit 22 264 0.8 15 5.5

Recieve 4 48 1 60 3.2










(A) (W)




Radio 8.7 104.4




Laptop 3.0 36




Total Average Current 11.7 140.4












Expected time 17.1 (hr)













Antenna: (HF)

HF Antenna will be the Buddipole, I have a configuration for 20m and 40m. Both are L shaped.

Antenna: (VHF 2M) & Repeater Access:

I'd like to have a chance to hit the repeater near by and link with IRLP back to Ottawa. The nearest node is imaged below.


There are really only two nodes which are candidates within 50km of the park.


Operation Plans:

Plans are to operate 20m during the day, and 40m in the evening. I will be equipped to operate PSK and a SSB.

I will not be able to operate VHF and HF at the same time as I will only have the 1 radio.

Packing List:

This is my packing list for the the expedition.

Booster Battery Regulator 1
Booster Coax (3ft) 1
Booster SO239 to BNC adapter 1
Booster UHF T adapter 1
Budipole Black Coil 1
Budipole Carry case 1
Budipole Dipole arms 4
Budipole Guy rope ground pegs 3
Budipole Long whips 4
Budipole Mini Banana to BNC converter 1
Budipole Red coil 1
Budipole Short whips 3
Budipole SO239 to BNC adapter 1
Budipole Spare thumb screws 5
Budipole Tripod base 1
Budipole Tripod mast (w/ 3 guy ropes) 1
Budipole TRSB 1
Budipole Versatee 1
Computer Fused power cable (15A pair inline) 1
Phone HTC Phone 1
Phone USB Cable (Phone) 1
Computer Laptop 1
Computer Laptop Power Inverter 12V i/p 1
Computer Laptop Power Inverter Power cable 1
Computer USB Mouse 1
Creature Reading glasses 1
IC7k Coax (75ft) 1
IC7k Earphones 1
IC7k Extra cooling fan 1
IC7k Fused power cable (30A paired) 1
IC7k Icom 7000 Power cable 1
IC7k Mic HM-151 1
Power 12V Gellcell 4
PSK31 12V battery jumper cables 6
PSK31 13pin ICOM to Signalink Cable 1
PSK31 RS232 – CIV Converter 1
PSK31 Signalink USB 1
PSK31 USB Cable (Sugnalink) 1
PSK31 USB to Serial Converter 1
Soft AT-7000 manual pdf 1
Soft DM780 1
Soft HRD 1
Soft IC7k manual pdf 1
Spare Fuses (15A Paired, ¼ in inline) 4
Spare Fuses (30A Paired) 4
Spare Fuses (40A Single) 2
Spare Fuses (5A mini Single) 2
Spare SO239 to BNC adapter 2
Spare SO239 to SO239 adapter 1
Spare Spare fuse / misc box 1
Spare USB Mouse Batteries Spare (AA) 2
Tools Leather man tool 1
Tools Tiewraps 1
Tuner AT-7000 Auto tuner 1
Tuner AT-7000 control cable 1
Tuner Coax (1ft) 1
VHF (2M) Coax (25ft) 1
VHF (2M) Vertical 1
YP-3 1inch nuts 6
YP-3 Boom – Center (w/ pigtail and h/w) 1
YP-3 Boom – Director 1
YP-3 Boom – Reflector 1
YP-3 Carry case 1
YP-3 Coils () 6
YP-3 Coils () 6
YP-3 Cresent Wrench 1
YP-3 Elements (ends) 6
YP-3 Elements (first) 6
YP-3 Elements (tips) 6
YP-3 Hairpin shorting bar 1
YP-3 Hairpin stub elements 2
YP-3 Measureing tape 1
YP-3 SO239 to SO239 adapter 1
YP-3 Spare thumb screws 2
YP-3 (STAND) Guy rope clips 3
YP-3 (STAND) Guy rope ground pegs 4
YP-3 (STAND) Guy rope ground pegs hammer 1
YP-3 (STAND) Guy rope ring 1
YP-3 (STAND) Guy rope ring spacer 1
YP-3 (STAND) Guy ropes (10m) 3
YP-3 (STAND) Through keys 4
YP-3 (STAND) Tripod base 1
YP-3 (STAND) Tripod mast 1

Pad Paper 1

Pen 1


Thanks
Adrien
VE3IAC

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pretty darned cool, literally and figuratively. Glad I could be a contact during this "DX Expedition"!
73 de KD0AZR

Coral Springs Sandblasting said...

Thank you for sharing.