Over thirty Radio Amateurs and a
dozen or more spouses (some Hams and some not) from around the region (New
Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia) gathered in the small
St. Margaret's Bay community of Hackett's Cove Nova Scotia (forty kilometres
west of Halifax) on Saturday, August 6th for the second annual Maritime
DX Forum. The Forum is intended to provide an opportunity for Radio Amateurs
with an interest in DXing and contesting to meet and discuss this and other
aspects of our hobby, to encourage those new Hams who now have access to
the HF bands to become active DXers and contesters, and above all, to enjoy
ham radio fellowship.
About our 2005 Hosts:
The event this year was hosted by
Nautel Electronics Ltd., a world leader and innovator in the development
and manufacturing of marine and airport non-directional navigational beacons,
commercial AM/FM & digital broadcasting equipment and other radio frequency-based
innovations. Nautel specialises in high power, totally solid state RF equipment
operating in LF through VHF frequency bands.
Nautel has earned an international
reputation as a world leader in the design and manufacture of exclusively
solid state radio transmitters. Nautel was established in 1969 by Denis
Covill, and their AM and FM broadcast transmitters and navigation assistance
applications can be found in more than 160 countries, on every continent,
and in climates ranging from arctic, to desert, to jungle.
* AM radio broadcast
transmitters
* FM radio broadcast
transmitters
* Aeronautical
radiobeacon transmitter systems (NDB)
* Marine radiobeacon
transmitter systems (NDB)
* Navtex transmitters
* MF telegraph
transmitters
* Differential
Global Positioning System transmitters (DGPS)
Getting Aquatinted:
An pre-Forum barbecue for fifteen
invited speakers and guests was held at my home in Seabright (just north
of Hackett's Cove) on Friday evening and provided an opportunity for presenters
to get to know one another in an informal setting prior to the Forum on
Saturday.
| The Forum itself was
organised primarily by Scott Wood (VE1QD) with assistance from Dick Grantham
(VE1AI) and myself, and was held under the auspices of the Halifax Amateur
Radio Club.
Getting Down to Business:
Following registration on Saturday
morning, Scott (VE1QD - right) welcomed the group on behalf of Bill Elliott
(VE1MR), President of the Halifax Club.
Radio for Peace International:
The first of two keynote speakers
for the day was James Latham (TI2DU and KA7KDU - below), a long-standing
friend of Scott (VE1QD). James told the fascinating story of how
an American, living in Costa Rica used his Amateur Radio experience and
expertise to build the first commercial short wave broadcast station in
Costa Rica - his topic was: From Ham Radio to International Broadcaster:
lessons Learned Along the Way. |
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James was a journalist by profession
but worked with Radio for Peace International to build a successful
30 kW short-wave broadcast station in Costa Rica. He described how
his experience in the US Army Communications Corps, together with his Amateur
Radio expertise enabled him to cobble together the first phase of their
station from scrounged bits and pieces of electronic and Ham gear, including
a used three-element Cushcraft beam. Unfortunately - and Ed Hammond
was quick to point out - the Ham antenna was not designed to handle 3 kW
of power and in the humid and foggy environment of mountainous Costa Rica,
they got huge coronal discharges at the tips of the elements. When
this unexpected light show coincided with a fundamentalist religious broadcast,
the locals thought that something supernatural was occurring.
James described experimenting with
different antenna designs including rotating Yagis and cubical quads, but
the constant high winds in the mountains destroyed even the most robust
of rotors.
As the station evolved, they settled
on a six-element home-brew cubical quad at 200 feet, operating at 30 kW
on two bands (15mHz and 21.5mHz).
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However, the lack of international
authority and control over the radio frequency spectrum in the short wave
broadcast area brought many challenges. At one point they found themselves
sandwiched between the Voice of America and a Russian International
broadcast station, both operating "Megawatts" of power.
As their station grew in popularity,
with a listening audience throughout the Caribbean and especially in Cuba,
they were approached by the government of Costa Rica to get involved in
short-wave distance education to schools in the more remote areas of the
country. So in the daytime, they broadcast to the schools in Costa
Rica and other parts of the Caribbean, but at night their audience was
the world!
Sadly, in recent years, the evolution
of Internet broadcasting has made the relatively small short-wave broadcasters
redundant, and their station, that had operated from 1987, was forced to
close down in 2004.
Thanks so much to James Latham for
a most fascinating and entertaining talk and for taking time to visit and
share his radio experiences with us.
The Cushcraft Story:
The second of our keynote speakers
was equally entertaining and informative. Ed Hammond (WN1I - right)
was introduced by Dick Grantham (VE1AI) a friend of many years. Ed has
been with Cushcraft since 1988 and met Dick through Dick's former Ham Radio
business (R&S Electronics) in Dartmouth Nova Scotia, Ed has been a
Ham since 1971 and worked in the radio and communications area with a police
force in Florida before moving to New Hampshire and joining Cushcraft,
where he currently is in charge of Amateur Radio Antenna marketing and
sales.
Ed described how Cushcraft was founded
in 1950 by Ed Cushman and how the company was built, initially, on TV antenna
sales and then Amateur Radio antenna sales. Cushcraft Corporation is now
a world leader in the manufacture and development of communication antennas,
and has become a leader in the development of antennas for high-speed data
transmission, as well as antennas for other emerging RF technologies. Because
of the many restrictions that are now in place regarding communication
towers in newer subdivisions, Cushcraft has recently focused their effort
on building more efficient low-profile vertical antennas.
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Ed and Cushcraft were good enough to
provide one of their new MA6V six-band restricted-space vertical antennas
as a door prize for the DX Forum. I am pleased to report that Bill
Elliott (VE1MR and Radio Amateurs of Canada, Amateur of the Year in 2003)
was the proud winner of this new, state-of-the-art vertical antenna.
Nautel - a Nova Scotia
Success Story:
After lunch, the group was treated
to a presentation and a tour of the Nautel R&D and manufacturing facilities
by Tim Hardy (right), our Nautel host. Nautel was founded in 1969
and was known first and foremost as a producer of world-class non-directional
navigational beacons. The company quickly grew to include commercial
broadcast equipment, and in 1982 they were the first in the world to introduce
a 50 kW, solid-state commercial AM transmitter to the marketplace. |
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Located in Hackett's
Cove, a tiny ocean-side village on St. Margaret's Bay about a 45-
| Tim Hardy guides a
tour of the Nautel manufacturing plant in Hackett's Cove. |
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minute drive from downtown
Halifax, Nautel is one of the best-kept secrets of entrepreneurship and
commercial successes in Nova Scotia.
From their first 2 kW solid state
AM transmitter that was introduced in 1974, the company has grown and evolved
over the past 31 years, introducing a 10 kW AM transmitter in 1982 and
in 1995 a 100 - 300 kW version. In 1994 they introduced their first
solid state FM transmitter, a 10 kW version with a 50 W digital FM exciter.
In 2003 the Nautel DRM 200 kW Medium Wave transmitter went on-air in Europe,
and in 2004 they introduced a Digital Radio compatible FM transmitter.
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| Tim displays the "guts"
of the latest 50 kW AM transmitter that is on the "burn-in" bench. |
Always wanting to be on the "cutting
edge", one of the new innovations using RF energy that Nautel has developed
is a high-power RF Vacuum Kiln that dries wood in 36 hours instead of a
month using conventional heat dryers. A RF Hay Dryer that dries hay
in four hours instead of four weeks is currently in testing. Interestingly,
all of the R&D that is performed by Nautel takes place in Hackett's
Cove Nova Scotia.
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Panel Presentations:
The DX Forum concluded with a panel
presentations and discussion on the topic: The Challenges and Joys of Award
Chasing, Contesting and DXpeditions - the presenters were Dick Grantham
(VE1AI) talking about Award and Certificate Chasing; Fred Archibald (VE1FA)
speaking
| about his DXpedition
experiences and John Currie (VE1ZJ) covered Contesting. The Panel
was chaired by Scott Wood (VE1QD).
As part of the wrap-up, John Scott
(VE1JS) urged all present to join the Maritime Contest Club and to submit
their scores from all Club Competitions.
The Afterglow:
As the formal part of the Forum
ended, the group moved a few kilometres down the road to the local United
Church Hall where a sumptuous banquet of barbecued Atlantic salmon, and
a variety of salads awaited the ravenous crowd. The dinner provided
yet another opportunity for informal Ham talk that carried on well into
the evening. |
| The panel - L>R are:
John Currie (VE1ZJ); Fred Archibald (VE1FA); Dick Grantham (VE1AI) and
Scott Wood (VE1QD) |
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A Special Thanks to our Corporate
Sponsors:
The 2005 DX Forum was supported
by:
Nautel Ltd. through the provision
of meeting space at their Hackett's Cove facility and a tour of the facility;
Cushcraft Inc. by covering
the cost of having Ed Hammond attend and present at the Forum, and through
their generous door-prize donation of one of their new MA6V six-band restricted-space
vertical antennas; and by
Elecraft who also provided
a door prize of a substantial discount on one of their innovative HF Transceiver
Kits.
Looking to the Future:
The Maritime DX Forum has grown
considerably from its tentative beginning in Scott's living room last summer.
We expect the 2006 Forum to be even bigger and better and invite all Canadian
Radio Amateurs to visit Nova Scotia next August and take part in the Third
Annual Maritime DX Forum.
For more pictures from the DX Forum,
go to: http://photos.yahoo.com/d_howard_dickson
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