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August 18, 2023October 1, 2023

New Gear – GSI Coffee Rocket

Time for some new gear. I found this little wonder about a month ago while investigating some options for making go-juice in the field.

It is similar to the standard pour-over coffee solutions that are out there, but it channels all of the hot water into a small perforated cup containing the coffee grounds. Thereby (in theory anyways) making the coffee stronger than what the other pour-over setups can produce. It also has the added benefit of coming apart and fitting inside a GSI Infinity mug.

And yes, I’ve found it to make a stronger cup of coffee, but with one major flaw.

All that space where the top of the cup and the bottom of the rocket meet allows for cooler air to get in and cool the coffee down quite a bit before it hits the bottom of the cup, resulting in some cold coffee! While I do hate boiling hot coffee, I still prefer it to be quite warm while drinking it. I’m planning on using this during the colder months, and if it can’t keep up with the air temperature of an air-conditioned apartment, it definitely won’t be able to hold up to the cooler outside air during the autumn and winter months.

I found a cheap solution to this issue. The top of the mug will fit the lid from a cream cheese container, with the lid being slightly wider than the cup. I cut a hole in the lid just a bit larger than the coffee pod on the Rocket. This allows the pod to sit in the cup, but not for the heat from the coffee to escape while waiting for the full drip to complete (which is usually a few minutes). Works like a charm and takes up a negligible amount of extra space in my camp kitchen setup.

I managed to find a smaller lid from a Starfucks cup I had kicking around with a straw cutout which also sits perfectly on top of the Rockets water reservoir and allows the snorkel to still do its thing. This allows for even more heat to be retained.

I’ll be fielding this during my usual autumn excursions coming up and will provide an update on this, should one be required.

February 7, 2023March 13, 2023

Manpack Radio Project

New year, new project!

My main goal with amateur radio (at this time) is to push standard VHF and UHF (non-SSB) comms to their limits, but there is only so much you can do with a handheld yagi antenna attached to a 5W handie-talkie. I had experimented with long range stuff during my voyage to Main Duck Island in August 2022 and had some good results. The thing is, this was over mostly open water and shoreline, likely bolstered by some tropospheric ducting over such terrain. This was handy, but I normally don’t operate in that type of environment. According to K0NR’s website and book (VHF, Summits and More: Having Fun with Ham Radio), more range is usually possible with a better antenna (which I already have) and with applying more power.

There is also a chap on the Tube of You that goes by the handle “The Tech Prepper” who has come up with a modern take on manpack field radios used by the military. A concept that I had been thinking about for some time, but without any decent idea of how to make it work properly. He has a series of mobile and HF radios fitted with custom rail kits that allow mobile-style radios (those you would normally mount inside a vehicle) to be taken anywhere and used similarly to how an HT would be used. This gives the ability to use more power than you normally would be able to for a VHF/UHF field deployment.

I purchased a Yaesu FTM-200D in September 2022 in preparation for this project. I snipped the power connector off a week after I received it and fitted it with some powerpole connectors (there’s no going back now!)

Yaesu FTM-200D Powerpole-Equipped — Powerpole-equipped

It took me a few months to get around to it, but I finally ordered a set of rails from Armoloq and fitted them to the radio. The basic rail kit consists of an aluminum rail for each side of the radio and an antenna relocation mount. I chose this radio as I wanted to use it in the field, as well as my vehicle, and wanted to have APRS capability built-in to reduce the amount of extra stuff I’d need to carry. I do use APRS on the reg. If I need to do any other fancy-crazy digital modes, there is a data port on the rear of the radio. The radio so far has only been powered by the solar box I built and I plan on upgrading to a LiFEPO battery setup sometime in the near future to reduce the size and weight. The radio is capable of transmitting with 50W of power, but will only be used in manpack configuration at either the 5W or 25W settings (I’d like to not die from RF exposure anytime soon).

Yaesu FTM-200D Armoloq TPA-300 — Rail kit attached with antenna relocation mount up top (cable not included)

A new antenna will need to be procured to make this setup more compact. I’m looking at picking up a Slim Jim antenna and running it up a collapsible carbon fishing rod. This will be way lighter and more compact than the Arrow II mounted to a tripod. The goal is to be as efficient as possible, while not dying after sliding down a slope and being buried by my gear.

Yaesu FTM-200D Maxpedition Colossus — Fits in my Maxpedition Colossus with some space on the sides. Just need to remove the antenna to zip up

The antenna relocation mount can be attached anywhere on the frame kit and is currently setup with a coiled up 3 foot section of RG58 until a shorter length arrives at a later date.

More to come as the parts come in.

February 3, 2023February 3, 2023

More from Main Duck Island

I was sent some more images from the excursion to Main Duck Island back in August 2022. Most are personal, and as such, will never have a place here out of respect for the privacy of others.

However, you can see this handsome bum sitting on the beach having a QSO with VE3GSI near the lighthouse at the northern tip of the island. Enjoy!

Sitting well below where the waterline normally is, bit of a dry summer

February 3, 2023February 3, 2023

International Space Station SSTV Status

There haven’t been any SSTV events from the ISS recently, this being due to new laptops being deployed to the station and the Russian segment (where the gear used for SSTV transmissions is located) not having a proper interface for connecting the radio to the newer computers.

This issue was noted on the ARISS website on December 22, 2022. There’s usually a bunch of Russian SSTV events (usually planned around times when the station is primarily over Russia, unfortunate but understandable) and to a lesser extent some standard SSTV events around the holidays and earlier in the year.

All that being said, the radios on the station are still available for other uses. The radio located in the Columbus module is in a crossband repeater configuration (of which I was completely unaware of until a few weeks ago) and the radio onboard the Service module (likely the Russian module mentioned earlier) is configured for packet data.

I was able to send some APRS packets to the station on December 30, 2022 and they were picked up by VE2UAL-2 in Quebec and K4KDR-15 in Virginia.

The station is usually in the sky for around 10ish minutes during a really good pass, likely that this 800+km APRS contact could also be duplicated using the crossband repeater

I’ll need to do a check for the best ISS passes for next weekend as I’ll be winter camping and will have plenty of time to mess around with the radios. I’ll definitely be testing out the crossband repeater functionality.

If you go here, you can check out the status of the onboard radios. This also includes info on planned shutdowns for docking/undocking procedures with supply ships and what-not.

October 1, 2022

Maxpedition Colossus Revival

This piece of kit had been sitting in tropical storage for 4 years. It, and some other gear, was unfortunately the target of a massive amount of mildew during that time.

I was worried that I would end up losing the versipack. I had a three-day assault pack made by Tactical Tailor that I ended up ditching that was stored with this bag because it was much worse shape (the Colossus was stored inside the pack). The Colossus went back to Canada with me slung across my body. The smell was overpowering at times. When I got home, I just let it sit for a few months to see if the smell would lessen. It didn’t. Eventually I purchased some Borax and mixed it with a sink full of hot water and went to town scrubbing every piece of the bag, both inside and out. It took a few hours, but it was way better than it looked when I had recovered it. The smell had mostly abated, but was still noticeable. With a big camping trip coming up, I purchased a pack of cedar balls and tossed them in every pocket of the bag in the hopes that it would fix the remaining scent. This seemingly worked and the rest of the smell was gone after a week in the outdoors.

October 1, 2022

Main Duck Island

Over the summer I had the chance to go camping on Main Duck Island in Lake Ontario. The place is rather inaccessible, unless you have a boat. Luckily, I do know someone who has a boat.

The trip out to the island was fun. I normally don’t get seasick, but I had a very light brunch before we departed and the choppiness of the lake didn’t play nicely with that. There was some talk about diverting to a closer island because of me tightly holding onto the bucket, but I told the skipper to keep on going. No point in turning back half-way to our destination.

We made it and I quickly got off the boat and kissed dry land (clearly I’m no sailor). We were told the island is a busy place most of the time, but when we pulled up to the dock there were no other ships in sight. We set up camp on some high ground near the dock.

The view from the port side of the vessel

We spent the next 2.5 days on the island, exploring what it had to offer. The island used to be settled for a time with a lighthouse, school, some homes and various other buildings. The lighthouse remains but is automated. Not much else exists except a few abandoned buildings and ruins.

The lighthouse. The water was apparently quite low this year, these rocks are normally underwater up to the treeline.

I also brought an HT with me as well as my Arrow II beam to see what repeaters I could successfully hit from the island. Some good contacts were made across a number of repeaters. My Yaesu FT-70D was programmed with a list of repeaters that fall within 80km of the island. The results of my testing are below:

Near Lighthouse:

VE3KTO (Picton) – S9. Had a QSO with VE3GSI.
VE3KBR (Kingston) – S1. No QSO.
VE3TJU (Picton) – S9. No OSO.

West Side of Island:

VA3LGA (Lansdowne) – S5. Had a QSO with VA3ASZ mobile.
AC2GE (Dexter, NY) – S6. No QSO.
KD2CPX (Dexter, NY) – S1. No QSO.
KC2ELX (Watertown, NY) – S4/5. No QSO.

East Side of Island

VA3LGA (Lansdowne) – S9. No QSO.
AC2GE (Dexter, NY) – S9. Had a QSO with WD0DBT, heard me calling on another repeater and was waiting for me.
KD2CPX (Dexter, NY) – S5. No QSO.
KC2ELX (Watertown, NY) – S9. No QSO.
W2OSC (Oswego, NY) – S9. No QSO.
WB2OOY(Watertown, NY) – S9. Heard another station but didn’t catch the full callsign, possibly K3QT-, no response to further calls.
W2WLR (Watertown, NY) – S9. No QSO.
WN8Z (Fulton, NY) – S1. Very scratchy, no QSO.

The furthest repeater I was able to connect to was VA3LGA in Lansdowne, ON which, from the lighthouse at the northern tip of the island, is ~72 kilometers. Granted, this is mainly over open water, but has been my furthest VHF contact to date, excluding any packet connections to the ISS in orbit.

I had originally planned to see if I could do some satellite operations from the island too, but I had forgotten to load my UV-5R into my bag when we departed for Kingston.

All-in-all it was a nice and relaxing experience with some good testing thrown in. I am hoping to get back out there again next year with more transmitting capabilities.