Canada C3 Expedition update

Last edited:

On June 5th I wrote a blog post about the Canada C3 Expedition. Yesterday in Victoria, British Columbia, the epic 150-day expedition came to an end. The expedition ship "Polar Prince" had sailed 23,000 km from Canada's east to west coast via the infamous Northwest Passage in the Arctic.
For the complete duration of the Canada C3 voyage the Polar Prince could be tracked by radio amateurs by monitoring for the ship's WSPR beacon with callsign CG3EXP. At PA7MDJ over the summer many CG3EXP listening sessions were done. During the first legs of the voyage, the 200 mW CG3EXP WSPR beacons on 40m could be received relatively easily, and most nights around midnight UTC I could count on the CG3EXP callsign to show up in the decode window of my WSPR program at least a couple of times.
As expected, whilst the Polar Prince got more northerly and westerly spots became more seldom. Spots already became scarce when the ship had reached the northern part of Newfoundland. From this point on during listening sessions if I could get one or two spots I was lucky.
Nevertheless I managed to receive the CG3EXP beacons from various locations in the Arctic. The northern and westernmost location of the Polar Prince I managed to receive a WSPR beacon from was Pond Inlet, Nunavut at approximately 73ºN 78ºW in grid locator FQ02xq. And I'm still amazed! Receiving a 200 mW signal on 40m from this far into the Canadian Arctic with just a simple wire antenna! The fact that the antenna of the CG3EXP beacon was located aboard a ship surrounded by salt water must have been of huge benefit.

The Polar Prince at Bylot Island in the Canadian Arctic (photo from the Canada C3 Facebook page)

Below you can find the Canada C3 WSPR logbook (click to enlarge) that I kept during the summer. It does not contain all received beacons as it was more or less a logbook for all the different ship locations I managed to hear the WSPR beacons from. It includes locations like the previously mentioned Pond Inlet and other locations in the Arctic, and also L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, famous for being an archeological site with the remains of a Viking settlement dating to around the year 1000. It's the only certain site of a Viking settlement in North America and is widely accepted as evidence for pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact.

Canada C3 Expedition logbook. The original Excel logbook spreadsheet was provided by Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) to keep a log and to send in at the end of the expedition. Each received unique 6 character grid locator gives points for a Canada C3 Award certificate (more information on the CG3EXP qrz.com page) . Unfortunately I didn't manage to obtain the required 150 points.

Electronic QSL card received for my reception of the CG3EXP WSPR beacon from Pond Inlet. Electronic QSL cards can be requested by e-mail (see CG3EXP qrz.com page for more information)

Pond Inlet, Nunavut (source)

CG3EXP in Pond Inlet heard by PA7MDJ

QRP Labs U3B and an update on my U3S

Last edited:

This is Hans Summers G0UPL:

Photo taken by PA7MDJ at HAM RADIO 2017 in Friedrichshafen

Hans is the designer and developer of amateur radio kits like the already legendary standalone Ultimate3S (U3S) 200 mW WSPR transmitter. The kits are sold through his company QRP Labs. Previously I've already written some blog posts about the U3S, of which I've built one myself, and of which I'm an extremely happy user! I met Hans at the QRP Labs booth at HAM RADIO 2017 in Friedrichshafen, and had the pleasure to have a chat with him. We all have our ham radio heroes, Hans is definitely one of mine.

This is the QRP Labs U3S:

U3S as built by PA7MDJ

And this is a prototype of the new QRP Labs U3B:

Photo taken by PA7MDJ at HAM RADIO 2017 in Friedrichshafen

The U3B basically is a miniature version of the U3S and was designed by Hans mainly to be used as a HF WSPR tracker payload for High Altitude Balloons. The U3B currently is still in its test phase, and the past few months about 9 test flights have been done. Most of the test flights were launched by well known WSPR balloonist Dave VE3KCL from Canada. I managed to catch the WSPR signals of two of the balloon test flights, the U3B-2 and the U3B-8.
The miniature size and the almost weightless SMD components make this a very lightweight payload ideal for single "party balloon" WSPR flights. The power of the U3B will be in the range of 10-20 mW, and the current draw will be extremely little. During the test flights, the current draw was so little that the tiny solar powered WSPR tracker remained awake and transmitting well into darkness where most other solar powered WSPR trackers would have already gone to sleep with a depleted battery quickly after sunset. The U3B "slept" for only a couple of hours. Although the power of 10mW might look very little, with the wire antenna of a WSPR balloon hanging in free air at about 10 km height it's sufficient to be picked up by the worldwide network of WSPR monitoring stations.

Eventually the U3B will be taken in production and will be sold through QRP Labs. Contrary to most other QRP Labs products, the U3B will not be sold as kit but as an already finished product, as the SMD components will be impossible to work on for the average kit builder. In Friedrichshafen Hans told me he was aiming at having the U3B ready for production in about three months. I think however that the popularity of the new QRP Labs QCX 5W CW transceiver kit might have slowed things down on the U3B development side, although test flights are still being launched; the U3B-9 is over the Atlantic Ocean as we speak.

I'm really looking forward to the U3B being taken in production and to experimenting with the tiny WSPR transmitter myself. My goal eventually is to launch a WSPR balloon myself, but I still have a lot to learn, about solar cells, insulated casings, helium, balloon pressure, the ideal launching weather, wind conditions, trajectory predictions, and probably many more things still unforeseen at this moment. It will be an interesting, but relatively long-haul project. Stay tuned!

Meanwhile my 200 mW U3S is still going strong, and since it started sending WSPR beacons for the first time in February, its signals have been picked up all over the world. Some places I want to mention are Reunion, Australia, Brazil and Vladivostok on 20m, and South Africa on 40m, all with an EFHW wire antenna. Do a search on U3S for more of my blog posts on this wonderful little transmitter.


See also:

https://www.qrp-labs.com/flights.html