Each year on July 1, the anniversary of Canada’s Confederation, Radio Amateurs of Canada sponsors the Canada Day Contest and Amateurs all over the world are invited to Canada’s Birthday Party on the air.
Similar to years past, NORAC club members met up at Aaren VA7AEJ Jensen's QTH to participate in the contest together.
The contest started at 5 PM Pacific time on Saturday, June 30 and continued until 5 PM on Sunday July 1, 2018.
On the Saturday, 13 club members and guests were in attendance, many staying for the BBQ and operating late into the night. On Sunday, 10 club members and guests attended.
Highlights for the weekend included:
- Karl VE7ZDL working voice on Saturday evening and collecting a lot of points+multipliers to start us off very strong
- Murray VE7MH working DX to Brazil, our most distant contact
- PJ Rudersdorfer third-party contest voice calling with Mike VE7KPZ
- Bob VE7EZI and Aaren VE7AEJ working voice into Saturday night's rainstorm, and getting wet in the process
- Aaren and Mike VE7KPZ calling late into the evening on Aaren's Flex (inside the house and out of the rain) getting some more multipliers from rare Canadian provinces and territories
- Aaren continuing the calling Sunday morning with a newly installed voice keyer for his Flex
- Ralph VA7NU collecting more multipliers working CW on Sunday afternoon
The end result:
It sounds impressive, but we'll confirm how well we actually did in 6 months when the official results are published. The most interesting thing was that when we called out for contacts we got a lot more contacts and a lot more rarer ones vs if we just scanned the bands and responded to calls of others.
Thanks to everyone who helped with the setup, takedown, BBQ dinner and pancake breakfast. Thanks to all of our operators, loggers and our guest YL caller.
FYI and 73,
Mike VE7KPZ
NORAC Vice President