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V E 3 H OAbout VE3HO PageCanadian Amateur Radio Station |
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To assist people unfamiliar with the hobby, Ham Radio or Amateur Radio Italicized Words in red appear in a dictionary table at the bottom of the page. Click on the word and you will be taken to the dictionary section and a return button in the dictionary will return you to the text here. My first personal callsign came after leaving the navy and moving to Kingston Ontario to return to school. This was the fall of 1964 and the DOT issued me the callsign VE3EUP which I held until 1985 when I was given a two letter callsign of VE3HO. . In 1968 I took a job in Africa with the "Canadian University Service Overseas" as a aircraft pilot assigned to the Game Division in the Ministry of Agriculture and Tourism, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, East Africa. From here I operated portable for a few months in 1968 before being assigned the local callsign, 5H3LV. At the time Tanzania was part of what was known as the East African Community. The community included Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania and had a common currency, and common government services such as hydro power generation, railway system, telephone system, airline, customs and excise tax, and postal services. Tanzania was know as Tanganyika before its union with the islands of Zanzibar. During my five year stay in Tanzania, I was licensed in all four East African regions, 5X5LV in Uganda, 5Z4LV in Kenya and 5H1LV in Zanzibar. I was the last person to operate from Zanzibar before it was dropped as a separate entity under the ARRL DXCC program. In 1972 I returned to Canada and my old callsign VE3EUP and I operated my station from our apartment in central Toronto. In 1973 I spent the summer in BC working as a co-pilot on a water bomber and operated as VE7PT. In 1974 I was back in Ontario again as VE3EUP until 1975 when I moved to Quebec where I operated as first as VE2EUP and then later as VE2VY. While living in Pierrefonds, I was one of the operators at CZ2O, the amateur radio station at the Olympics in Montreal. Then back to Ontario in late 1976 as VE2VY/3 then VE3EUP again in 1978. In 1980 I was in Manitoba as VE4UI and then late in the year to New Brunswick as VE1CDX where I operated 6M for the first time from Andy's (VE1DX) QTH. It was superb with openings into Japan over the pole. In 1981 I was once more back in Ontario and it would appear to have been my last move as I am still here and retired now in near the end of 2006. In 1985 I had been a ham operator for just over 20 years and had an "ADVANCED" license. So I qualified for a two letter callsign in Ontario and in October was issued the callsign VE3HO. In 1988 while laid off from work for 5 months, I was asked to join the Russian/Canadian Trans Polar Ski Trek Team (it was officially known as "The Polar Bridge Expedition") as a Radio Operator. The skiers were from Russia (7) and Canada (5) and they departed from Sredniy Island in the Russian Arctic to ski to Canada via the North Pole over the polar ice cap starting the first week of March 1988. This trek lasted until the middle of June 1988. My Callsign in the Artic was VE8HO, but we were allowed to use a special prefix for this event so I operated as CI8HO. Radio stations were set up on Sredniy Island in Russia and on Cornwallis Island at Resolute Bay in Canada. I was one of two operators to be assigned to Resolute for the first two week tour at CI8C, the Canadian Arctic Base Radio Station.. Our job was to communicate with the skiers every evening taking news releases from the team members for Canadian and Russian Newspapers and business traffic for the Polar Bridge Team Office in Ottawa. In addition we monitored the satellites for emergency traffic around the clock and communicated with the Russian Arctic Base Radio Station every four hours. From Resolute Bay in my spare time I operated as CI8HO in March of 1988. When I returned home I became the southern communications link between Sredniy Island, Resolute Bay, Ottawa, and Moscow as my location seemed to have the best and almost uninterrupted propagation to all these points while they were unable for much of the day to communicate directly with each other. I used the special callsign of CI3HO during the period from March 1988 to June 1988. Since returning to Ontario in 1981 I have made several vacation trips to other countries to operate. In 1987 to Montserrat where I operated as VP2M/VE3HO and to New Zealand where I operated as ZLØAWE. In 1996 it was to the Island of Guam in the Pacific where I operated for two weeks as KH2/VE3HO. In 1989 I was appointed as the Canadian Representative from the Canadian Radio Relay League to the "DX Advisory Committee of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) at Newington CT. I held this position until I resigned in December 31st 2001. Today the name of the official organization representing Canadian Amateur Radio Operators has been changed to Radio Amateurs of Canada or Radio Amateurs du Canada (RAC). In 1999 I was among the first 10 Canadians appointed by the ARRL to be DXCC Field Representatives for the ARRL's DXCC program, an appointment I still hold. My main interest in Amateur Radio (Ham Radio) was DXing. For this I had a medium size tower with several beam antennas, which allowed me to talk around the world. The premiere award for this activity is called "DXCC Award" or the DX Century Club Award. It is issued for working and confirming at least 100 countries or entities as they are called from a list that contains 336 current entities. To be on the "Honor Roll" you have to have worked and confirmed at least all but 9 or less of these entities. If you have received the "#1 Honor Roll Plaque" , which I have, it means that at some point in time you had worked them all. The list of entities changes from time to time as the political map of the world changes and for a DXer the thrill is working another new one and then getting the QSL CARD. Currently in the DXCC 2000 program I have only 1 on CW and 1 on SSB left to work to once again have them all worked. So I have confirmed at ARRL 335 on SSB and 335 on CW and 335 mixed. The last one for me like many other DXer's is North Korea on both modes. There has been limited activity from North Korea since Korea was partitioned. Only two North Korean operations have been approved and the first had about 100 QSOs worldwide during a demonstration of the hobby to the government of North Korea in the 1990's. The Second by World Food Aid Worker in 2001 and 2002 was P5/4L4FN who made about 16,000 contacts world wide. 25th of September 2009 is the date of end of my days as an active ham on HF came to an end, after 47 years of activity. This was the date I had to hirer a commercial tower crew to take down my antennas which needed to be repaired. I realized that since my heart attack on the 24th of September 2006 I would not be able to climb my tower and do the routine maintenance that this sort of an antenna system would require and the financial cost of having others do this for me was beyond what I was willing to fund to stay active. So my station, antennas and tower have come down and are all for sale. Details available here http://www.ve3ho.ca/ve3ho/ve3ho-ham-equipment-for-sale.htm. AR 1st of September 2010 is the date I resigned from my last DXCC and Ham related appointment. I had been a DXCC Field Checker as one of the first Canadians to be appointed to the post. I advised RAC and the DXCC desk at ARRL in early July 2010 that I was resigning from my position as Field Checker effective the 31st of August 2010 and it was accepted. |
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WWW.VE3HO.CA |
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