Rally Radio Operators;
Dana and I went to the venue (the Powderface area of Kananaskis) this past weekend to check RF propagation and look over the general state of the area. Here are a few notes for your review.
The South Jumping Pound Loop is closed for construction and will not likely be available for this event. The rally organizer did not plan to use this road, so this should not affect the rally.
Parts of the North Loop are also closed and there is some remediation being done to the Interpretive Building at the North Loop Lookout. The event organizer is aware of this and is following up to determine if the work will be complete in time for the rally.
The paved part of Hwy 68 between the Jumping Pound Loops and Powderface Trail is being re-paved. This is very good news, as the road had reached a level of disrepair that made it dangerous to travel at the posted speed limit. The paving was ongoing over this past weekend, so it should be done in time for the upcoming rally.
Powderface Trail is in generally good condition, for the kind of road that it is. There was some rockfall along the sides of the road in several places, so operators posted to this road should use caution to avoid the larger rocks. While washboard effects were no worse than usual, there are some places where extra care is needed to maintain good control of the vehicle, especially going up and down the steeper hills.
For those unfamiliar with this road, Powderface Trail is a back country road. It is gravel / rock and sees less maintenance than typical gravel secondary roads. In places it is narrow and there are blind curves that require care to navigate successfully. Operators travelling on this road should reduce their speed, minimize distractions, and drive well within their own capabilities and those of their vehicle(s). Good tires are important for driving on these roads. If your tires are getting worn out, this may be the excuse that you need to get something new before winter arrives.
There was some snow in low lying areas and on the north sides of some hills! I saw no snow or ice on the roads, though. This can change over the next few weeks, so please be prepared.
We tested various repeater and simplex paths for communication at the rally. Of course, multipath is always a problem in this area, especially toward the south end of Powderface Trail. Our tests confirmed that nothing has changed out there in this respect. if you are unfamiliar with multipath effects, a quick Google search will return several pages that describe why this happens. In the Powderface area, the signals reflect off of, and refract around, the hills and mountains. So, in any location, multiple "copies" of a signal can arrive simultaneously at your antenna from various different directions. These different copies can essentially cancel each other out, resulting in a "null" or "dead spot" at which you can't receive one of the repeaters. Moving the antenna (i.e. your vehicle in most cases) often gets out of the dead spot and into a place at which you can hear the repeater again. Sometimes moving as little as 50cm can achieve the desired effect.
We concentrated much of our radio testing on VE6RYC and VE6AUY, the repeaters that we'll likely use for this event. It was often necessary to move the vehicle around a bit to find spots at which the repeaters were accessible. However, with some work, both repeaters were accessible from all of the currently planned radio operator locations.
Having a good antenna does make a difference in RF fringe areas, such as Powderface. If you are considering any upgrades to your existing radio equipment ahead of the rally, look into what improvements are possible for your antenna. While more power is nice to have, it won't do you much good if your antenna isn't pushing that power out as effective RF energy! What's more, all the transmit power in the world won't help you to receive any better - and if you can't hear them, you can't work them.
