Biography

For the entire year 2017, I am using CG9EX, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Canada on July 1, 2017.

With the help of the Fredericton Amateur Radio Club, VE9ND, I obtained my licence on July 5, 2010. In 2015, I was glad to become the current treasurer of our club which is affiliated with the Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC); I am also the club's QSL manager. I am a Maple Leaf Operator Member of RAC. I became the sponsor of the club call signs, VE9UNB and VE9YFC, at the University of New Brunswick (UNB) and I created and have been updating Amateur Radio web pages at UNB. I joined UNB in 1997, in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, where I am an Associate Professor and a Senior Member of the IEEE, which I joined in 1984. I am a Registered Professional Engineer of APEGNB.

Currently, I possess the basic with honours, advanced, and morse at 5 wpm. With the help of my father, I got going quickly with HF and VHF. My usual QTH is my home, near Fredericton which is the capital of the province of New Brunswick, in eastern Canada, about 50 miles east of Maine, USA. New Brunswick is beside the Bay of Fundy which has the world's highest tides, around 14 metres daily.

From July 4 to September 6, 2012, in New Zealand, I was able to use the call sign ZL/VE9EX. It was a wonderful experience. Highlights were Westfest 2012 in Murchison as well as the Branch 56 and Branch 05 club meetings in Christchurch. Regarding Westfest 2012, I very much enjoyed the conversation with Simon, ZL4PLM, about a variety of amateur radio topics, including EME, during the drives between Christchurch and Murchison. In September 2012, I returned to Canada. One of my children started grade three and the class asked for postcards from many places in the world to assist their education. I asked Lyn, VK4SWE, Victor, RV3YR, and William, FO5JV, three of the amateur radio operators with whom I had QSOs when I was ZL/VE9EX, if they could provide a QSL card for the teacher. All three responded, wrote letters to the school teacher, and provided a generous amount of information about their locations in the world; thank you.

Art, VE9BP, helped me with CW messaging and provided my first CW QSO. Jerry, VE9CD, showed RemoteHams.com to the VE9ND club and helped me with the setup up at home and VE9UNB. On HF, I have used digital modes, RTTY, PSK31, JT65-HF and JT9. I occasionally use APRS under the call sign VE9EX-7. I found APRS useful to keep my relatives informed of my travels, but a humorous disadvantage is that if I get lost, there is a record. On the last day of a family ski holiday, I took my radio down the ski hill and recorded an APRS track. I was surprised to see Google street view had been on the ski slopes; I should have changed the APRS symbol from a car to a person.

Regarding permission to use RemoteHams.com to transmit from my station, please send me an email and indicate how you intend to give your call sign. For my education, if you are using a non-Canadian call sign, please also inform me why you are allowed to give that form of your call sign in Canada. The international agreements are complex and if you are unsure of how you can sign in Canada, please say "your call sign remote at VE9EX" and I will take responsibility for the radio emissions. I keep a list of names, email addresses and the licence that you uploaded to remotehams; if you object to this information being kept, please email me; I will acknowledge your email, delete that information and remove your transmission ability if it was enabled. Sometimes from 0000 to 0400 UTC, if there are no connections, I turn off remotehams in order to use my radio. Regarding technical aspects of my RemoteHams.com setup, only 2 m VHF and 20 m HF are available. On VHF, four repeaters are reachable. I set the home frequency to the VE1BM repeater, which is part of the International Repeater Group (IRG). Check-ins to the IRG nets by non-members are welcome; if I gave you transmission privileges, please consider checking into the IRG net, 9 pm Atlantic time, 0000 to 0030 UTC April to October, 0100 to 0130 UTC November to March. On HF, I use the 20 m elevated vertical. The 20 m elevated vertical is shown, with four sloping radials, labelled R, and three guy ropes. Shown is only half of the mast of black 2X4s with six guy ropes, a homemade tower. The latitude and longitude point of the vertical is: 45.8816361 -66.7683639, shown in Google Maps, between the trees in the forest behind my house. I set my radio up for remotehams mostly from September 1 to April 30. During the summer, I use my radio.

I received the ARRL's WAS mixed #57,629 on October 16, 2013, and DXCC mixed #58,608 on December 3, 2013.

Please email me if you would like a sked. My previous sked request was unsuccessful because I do not have great antennas, but I am most certainly willing to try.


Additional QSL Information:

LOTW: I use LOTW with the call signs VE9EX, CK9EX, CG9EX, ZL/VE9EX, VX9EX, VE1/VE9EX and VE3/VE9EX.

DIRECT: I respond to direct QSLs and SWLs and I do not require an SAE; I do not require an IRC; I do not require US dollars.

BUREAU for Canada: I am a member of the bureau for Canada. The bureau prefers that you write my call sign in the upper right corner, front or back, of your card.

BUREAU 3905CCN: See http://www.3905ccn.com/buroinfo.htm.

BUREAU OMISS: I am #8572, as of December 13, 2012; see http://www.omiss.net/Facelift/QSLBuro.php.

QRZ: I use the QRZ logbook with the call signs VE9EX, CK9EX, CG9EX, ZL/VE9EX, VX9EX, VE1/VE9EX and VE3/VE9EX. Each call sign has its own logbook.

eQSL: I use eQSL (AG) with the call signs VE9EX, CK9EX, CG9EX, ZL/VE9EX, VX9EX, VE1/VE9EX and VE3/VE9EX.

CLUBLOG: I enabled OQRS for my call sign VE9EX.

SKCC: I am #10792, as of June 7, 2013. I maintain credits in the SKCC buro, http://www.skccgroup.com. I will try to use a buro if you indicate one your QRZ, otherwise I will direct mail my card.

Email: I will QSL by email.

From time to time, I upload my logbook to LOTW, QRZ, CLUBLOG, HRDLOG.net, eQSL, QRZCQ and QSOmap.org.

If you requested my QSL card and it has not arrived, please email me.


VE9EX Portable and Special Event Call Signs
Call Sign Dates Grid Notes
CG9EX 2017 Jan 1-Dec 31 FN65ov Canada's Sesquicentennial
VE1/VE9EX 2016 Aug 24-26 FN64xm Digby Neck, Nova Scotia, Canada
CK9EX 2015 Jul 7-31 FN65ov 50th Anniversary of the Canadian Flag
VE1/VE9EX 2014 Jul 11 FN64tg Brier Island NA-127, Nova Scotia, Canada
VE3/VE9EX 2013 Dec 26-31 FN25ek Ottawa, Canada
CG9EX 2012 Dec 29-30 FN65ov Diamond Jubilee Year of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
ZL/VE9EX 2012 Jul 4-Sep 6 RE66gl Riccarton Road, Christchurch, New Zealand
VX9EX 2011 Dec 6-30 FN65ov 75th Anniversary of the CBC/Radio Canada
VE3/VE9EX 2010 Aug 25-30 FN25el Ottawa, Canada
VE3/VE9EX 2010 Aug 20-24 FN25ek Ottawa, Canada
VE9EX - FN65ov Main call sign, Hanwell, New Brunswick, Canada
From time-to-time, many Canadian amateur radio operators may briefly change their prefix, as documented at a special event call sign page from RAC.

Worked DXCCs:

Equipment

I use an Icom IC-7000, a Yaesu FT-857D and a Yaesu VX-8GR. For digital modes, I use a SignaLink USB. For CW, I use a 9251 Canadian leg-mounted Westclox straight key. My antennas are:
A.) a G5RV 102 feet, beaming 90 and 270 degrees, 8 m high,
B.) a 40 m dipole, beaming 17 and 197 degrees, 7 m high,
C.) an elevated 20 m vertical with four 45-degree-downsloping ground wires, and
E.) a Diamond DIA-X50A, horizontally omnidirectional, 5 m high.