So I was at the OVMRC Club Station VE3JW today and managed to make 14 contacts on HF and 3 contacts via satellite. Between contacts, I enjoyed chatting with the museum patrons – of which were were a great deal today.
At around 14:00 Robert (VA2AGE) and Ernie (VE3EJJ) showed up. Today was my first chance to speak with Robert (a fellow club member, whom I may in fact purchase my first HF rig from). Robert is a really great guy who is very personable and we share a variety of similar interests. This seems to be a common theme amongst club members which is great!
Robert spent the afternoon becoming more familiar with the club’s newly acquired Kenwood TS-590S and told me of a Maritime net that he checks into on occasion. Ernie was patiently working the various satellites as they came overhead throughout the afternoon.
One notable visitor was a Scouts Canada leader for 11th Ottawa who was interested in getting members of his group on the air to chat with other Scouts for a badge. I explained the technical and logical challenges that the endeavour would propose, and directed the leader to contact Darin (VE3OIJ) who is the station manager.
At one point, Ernie said he heard what he thought were voices on AO-7 (one of the oldest satellites still in orbit) whereas I had heard nothing from the bird earlier. He passed me the head-set and sure enough it sounded like voices far off in the noise. Moments later we heard the distinctive sound of someone calling CQ in Morse Code.
We weren’t able to resolve the amateur’s call sign because the signal faded rather quickly and would come back in at the point where they were calling CQ. At first I thought it was operator error (me) but it appears that the satellite tumbling was more to blame as I had managed to maintain the same rate of change on the VFO through the silence and “recapture” the Morse tone at nearly the same frequency each time.
All in all it was another nice day at the club station. I really do appreciate having access to such great equipment! I really am blown away by how great the OVMRC and the Museum are!