VA3SIE Pedestrian Mobile in FYBO 2008

by Martin, VA3SIE

That was a ton of fun!

(Note: There is a slideshow and video diary at the end of the page)

FYBO is a relaxed, fun annual QRP contest sponsored by the Arizona ScQRPion's. The contest has an interesting twist! The temperature at the operating position is a score multiplier, so the colder you are the better you score.

I decided to operate pedestrian mobile this year for the 2nd year running. Pedestrian mobile means that my B doesn't FO :) Last year 20% of the entrants in the "single/field" category were pedestrian mobile - including me!

This year I decided to walk up to the Majors Hill Park, right across the Canal from the Canadian Parliament buildings. It's a beautiful spot offering panoramic views of the frozen Ottawa River.

Parliament Building

According to Environment Canada, the temperature when I left the house at 1pm was -6°C with wind-chill -12°C so I decided to split the difference and I sent my temperature as 19°F throughout the contest. When I got to the top of the hill I realized that I would be exposed right up in the wind. Ah well, that's what FYBO is all about! The wind did die down towards the late afternoon.

I started my journey at the statue of Lieutenant-Colonel John By. His statue stands proud overlooking the Ottawa Locks, at the head of the Rideau Canal. Colonel By helped me to get my antenna going by supporting the tip of my antenna. I hooked my backpack over a fence which runs around the statue.

My antenna consists of 32′ of #26 AWG teflon coated, silver plated wire wrapped helically around a 20′ shakespeare wonderpole fishing pole. I made a harness from PVC pipe which I zipped into a backpack. The fishing pole is carried in the harness retracted and the radio, battery and antenna wire is carried inside the backpack as I walk to the area in which I intend to operate and then I find a spot to sit or hang the backpack - in this case, the statue of Colonel John By.

With the backpack secure I attach the wire to the tip of the fishing pole and then I pull each antenna section out and rotate the antenna section while holding the antenna wire spool, helically winding the wire around the fishing pole in a spiral fashion. The windings at the tip of the antenna are tight - about 1/2″ between each winding. As each antenna section is fully populated with windings I twist it tightly into the start of the next section and continue the winding. I decrease the winding pitch as I work my way down the antenna. In the middle of the fishing pole the winding pitch is around 1″ and at the base of the antenna the pitch is around 2″ inches. The idea is to have lower distributed inductance in the higher current region of the antenna system.

The lower 2′ of the fishing pole sits in the harness center pipe, so the antenna wire covers roughly 18′ vertically. I tape the wire to the fishing pole at the 2′ level to keep the windings tight and leave approximately 4′ of wire free. There is a solder-less banana plug attached to the end of this wire which connects to the radio on the hot side of a BNC to banana plug adapter. Initially I tie the banana plug to one of the backpack straps so that I can easily retrieve it once I am wearing the pack.

Backpack Harness

Once the fishing pole is extended fully and the antenna wire helically wound around it, I unwrap the counterpoise wire.

The counterpoise wire is another 32′ of #26AWG teflon coated silver plated wire, which I keep wrapped up using a velco strap and attached to the back of the backpack. I run the counterpoise wire through tight fingers to flatten out the coils of wire and get it as straight as possible.

The counterpoise wire is attached to the backpack at 4′ from the end of the wire. This is a strain relief measure in case someone steps on the counterpoise or it gets snagged. There is another solder-less banana plug on the end of the wire which connects to the neutral side of the banana plug to BNC converter. The remaining 28′ of counterpoise wire drags along behind me.

I then remove the radio from the backpack and zip it up.

The radio is an Elecraft KX1 and I have it strapped to a clipboard with two elastic bands. I prepare the clipboard before leaving the house. The radio is attached to the clipboard with the KXPD1 paddles, a pair of Sony earbuds and a Pomona BNC to banana plug adapter connected. There is a 3rd elastic band attached to the clipboard and that is used to secure a small notepad. I also hang a mechanical pencil from the rubber bands.

Clipboard

The clipboard is placed in a plastic shopping bag inside the backpack. When I have finished preparing the antenna I remove the plastic bagged clipboard from the backpack and sit it in the snow. The plastic bag protects the radio from the wet snow and allows me to have both hands free to swing the backpack antenna around and attach the backpack to my back - this is an operation that requires both hands free!

Once I have secured the backpack straps, clips and the antenna is comfortably balanced, I can lean down and pick up the plastic bag. I remove the clipboard from the bag and stuff the bag into my pocket. At any point that I wish to take the backpack off I can place the radio clipboard back into the plastic bag and rest it on the snow leaving both hands free to manage the backpack.

I then reach down the strap to find the banana plugs at the end of the antenna and counterpoise wire and hook them up to the radio. Finally I reach into my fleece for the end of the battery wire. I carry an 8-AA cell holder with 8 Energizer lithium primary cells in my fleece where it is nice and warm and run a wire to the radio.

That's it - the pedestrian mobile system is now fully ready. I can walk along making QSOs dragging the counterpoise wire along behind me. The antenna system is naturally resonant at 9MHz, and the KXAT1 internal tuner is more than capable of pulling it up to 20m or down to 40m.

VA3SIE Pedestrian Mobile

I started off on 20m at 1915Z. Wow! The band was fairly jumping with FYBO stations - fantstic! The first station I came across was Bob, N4BP in Florida. I think Bob was the first station I worked in the 2007 FYBO and he would be the first station in FYBO 2008 also. Bob had a decent signal here in Ottawa and I was able to hear Bob right up until dusk. The next station was Mike at NQ7RP in Arizona but the QSB was ferocious. I was able to piece together Mike's info from 3 QSOs and then I timed the fade-in and jumped in and was able to work Mike at ESP levels before he faded out again for my bonus. I shouldn't have been so impatient though, a couple of hours later NQ7RP was more solid into Ottawa as propagation shifted.

Close-up of VA3SIE

The next signal I heard was Doc, KK6MC(/5) in New Mexico quite strong. As I was working Doc I was picturing his photo from Albuquerque, NM which I saw in the 2007 results page. I'm looking forward to reading everyone else's stories and pictures! It was Todd, WD0T was next up in South Dakota, and finally Pat VE3EUR a local station - Pat was in-between snow shovelling sessions, we got a big dump of snow on Friday. It was very nice to work Pat and it rounded out my first hour of operating nicely!

The next hour started with a local contact too! A quick scan around found Bob VA3RKM in QSO. Bob was handing out the same low temp as I was so I figured Bob must have been sitting outside in his backyard. It was nice to touch base with Bob - last time I saw Bob's callsign it was in the "The Canadian Amateur", journal of Radio Amateurs of Canada. Bob was singled out for appearing in no less than 8 of the listed contest results in the January/February edition and it was the photo from that article that was foremost in my mind as I worked Bob - standing next to a vertical antenna in a snow-filled yard :)

VA3SIE Pedestrian Mobile near trees

Next up was Ned KA4MKF in Minnesota and then Joel KB5FCF in Oklahoma. I took a break from 20m and thought to see if I could hear any FYBO stations on 40m, but alas I could only pick out one station Ed, AB8DF in Michigan on 40m in FYBO. I recognized Ed's callsign from the Michigan QRP Club Net. I had been hoping to hear some of the Pennsylvania Polar Bears but the RTTY was brutal around 7040kHz and the FOC contest was going strong around 7030kHz so I didn't spend too much time listening.

A switch back to 20m netted Johm, AB4GK in Georgia followed by Mark K5GQ in Texas, rounding out the next hour of operating. A welcome visitor next, my XYL with some hot ab-gusht (stew) so I gulped down a couple of mouthfuls to warm me up. Fantastic, just what an FYBO'er needs!

In the final hour as dusk settled in, I was able to work Dave, NC8J in Missouri and John, K7UP in New Mexico ... Hey, 7-Up - I wonder if that is intentional?

Dusk

My final two contacts were with Polar Bears. I heard QRL?... QRL?... Great! It's Steve, N0UT perhaps with Rooster and Peanut up Raspberry Mountain in Colorado? coming in nice and clear on 20m so I called Steve. We didn't chat long but Steve had quite the adventure!!

Check out Steve's video, it's FB (!) :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D40m62o1mX0

Lastly but not leastly was a contact with Michael VE3WMB, a local QRP Polar Bear. If not for the bad timing of a flu bug, Michael would probably have been pedestrian mobile too.

I walked back to the Colonel and he helped me take down the antenna, just in time for a ride home from my XYL.

Finally let me leave you with a picture slideshow and a collection of movies from my FYBO effort.

Below, please find:

Photo slideshow
Video Diary

Many Thanks, Arizona ScQRPions and to the QRP community for making this such fun!

The ARS Sojourner