[CQ-Contest] ARRL SS CW - Practice with VY1EI

[Eric Irvine]

For contesters who want to warm up their shack, and perhaps give VY1EI some
additional experience in handling pileups, I'll be on 20 meters on friday.
For the purposes of practicing before the contest, I'll be on 14050 or
21050, from 1 pm to 5 pm pacific time on friday. Solar condx are not great
now but the forecast is good for Saturday.

I'm heading out to my radio shack tonite, I won't be in email contact.

VY1JA (Jay) isn't running this year, but another NT contestant is likely.
He's directly to the north of my QTH, near the arctic coast.

Below is the link to the webpage to my favorite propagation website. Click
on the aurora and if you see its over southern Yukon, you won't hear me
untill till it subsides. But I'll be able to hear you, and that's
frustrating.

http://dx.qsl.net/propagation/propagation.html

>From my radio shack I'll be monitoring the aurora on my blackberry, using
the webpage I set up, as per below. You need to refresh the view when coming
back to the page. No home email on my blackberry.

http://www.ericirvine.com/MobileSpaceWeather.htm

I am not running unlimited so I won't be checking the packet list or asking
folks to spot me.

For folks curious about my setup, my radio shack is in a travel trailer in
an industrial area in southern Whitehorse. Good signals there, no
neighbours, 30 amp power, and low interference as power is underground. I'm
using a mobile tower that was a mining camp lighting tower in the 1980s,
converted to a mobile radio tower. Yagi is up at 60 feet. I'm using a
cushcraft AS-3 Tri-bander, and an alpha delta 40 meter resonant dipole. I
have an ICOM AH-4 tuner for 80 meters.

Radio is a ICOM 756 Pro III. I have a second Pro III for backup. Amplifier
is an Ameritron AL-811H. Its proven its ability to handle a heavy CW duty
cycle. The amp doesn't work on 15 meters, but 100 watts is fine there
anyway. I'll be using writelog.

Its cold in Whitehorse. Minus 20 degrees this morning. Snow on the ground.