Many thanks to Jeff (VE7EFF) who shares the following guest post:

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Hiking and Activating the Backcountry  – Two Activations on one Day Trip

by Jeff (VE7EFF)

Today’s field report, and three more to come, outlines the outdoor hiking/activation adventures of Jeff – VE7EFF and his wife, Alexis – VE7LXE in the backcountry of south-central British Columbia, Canada.

On today’s hiked-in POTA activation, I will be accomplishing three firsts. This is my first backpacked-in activation this summer.  As well, I will be the first person to activate White Lake Grasslands Protected Area, CA-4289, and I will also be the first person to activate Mahoney Lake Ecological Reserve, CA-3766.

Mahoney Lake is essentially located inside the perimeter of White Lake Grasslands and is on-route to my targeted activation area on a small mini-summit, about 45 minutes hike from the trail head.  Once I successfully activate White Lake, we will try to activate Mahoney Lake on our trek back to the car.

The drive here is 1.5 hours south of Kelowna, BC where we live.  It’s also about 15 minutes drive south of Okanagan Falls, BC.  We park just off Green Lake Rd, across the road from the trail head.

This is the trailhead where today’s adventure begins, heading deep into the woods.

Realistically, I could have activated White Lake Grasslands Protected Area just past the fence boundary, right from the start.  But, for me, that just isn’t very exciting or interesting.  As well, being near a valley bottom and surrounded by mountains doesn’t make for the best radio propagation.  My goal is to usually get as much altitude and line of sight to the horizon as practicable.  This way I feel I’m more assured of a successful activation.  At age 73, this isn’t as easy as it was for me and my wife Alexis, 30 years ago.  Back then, I was a regular mountain goat frequently hiking the Canadian Rockies of Alberta, Canada.

Off we go.  A short distance in we stop for a quick photo-op.

The beginning of the trek starts out fairly docile. We hiked on an established trail that passes by Mahoney Lake.  I hope to stop in Mahoney Lake Ecological Reserve on our trek back.  Continuing on, the trail mostly follows the valley bottom and circumvents nearby mountain slopes.

After following the trail for about 30 minutes, I decided it’s time to blaze our own route up a mountain side.  Out here, elevation is the path to POTA heaven. And from what I can see from here, it looks like there may be a plateau, meadow, or mini-summit that I can operate from up there (fingers crossed).

The trek up turns out to be a fair bit of work.  Not only is it steep but is also a scree slope which makes it even more challenging to make our way up.  I don’t think Alexis is too happy with me right about now.

After a short rest, we press on.

`We have made good progress up the mountain side.  Gaining some good elevation.  I can see the horizon which means good low angle propagation.

After another rest stop and knowing that we are nearing the top, Alexis has gained her 2nd wind and is feeling much better about the situation (me too for that matter).

Finally, we have reached a plateau, meadow, or mini-summit (whatever it’s called).  We have arrived (somewhere) !

I’m quite happy with the views and a good propagation path to the SE direction, which is right behind me in this photo.  SE propagation tends to give me my preferred coverage towards the USA southeast coast.

Hiking just a short distance further up, I find my optimal activation spot amongst a few Ponderosa Pine trees.

Oh yes, the lake you see down below is Mahoney Lake Ecological Reserve, which I hope to activate on the trek back, if there is enough time (and if I have the energy left).

As far as the trek to this location is concerned, my Backroads Maps app indicates that we traveled only about 1.2 Km distance in,  with an elevation gain of only 82m (270ft).  Most of that elevation gain was due to the steep scree-laden slope up this mountain side.  Either way, the views are great up here (and hopefully the propagation, too).

My antenna plan is to use the pine tree in the center as my antenna mast center support.  I will be deploying a 20m dipole, so the pine trees to the left and right will support the dipole guy line ends.  Stringing the dipole between these trees should give me my preferred optimal SE propagation that I’m looking for.

Ok, now that I have an antenna deployment plan, it’s time to unload my shack-in-the-pack.

I’ll be using my Elecraft KX2 and running at about 8 Watts into a N9SAB center-fed dipole.  I’ll be keying with the Elecraft KXPD2 paddle.

I’ve used this 20m center-fed dipole many times in the past with good results.  It’s made and sold by N9SAB on eBay [QRPer.com partner link].  I also use his choke balun at the feed point of the dipole. For my transmission line (when backpacked-in activating), I’m using EnviroFlex 316 (blue in color), a high quality RG-316 equivalent purchased through DigiKey.

And of course, I use the Weaver 8 Oz throw bag to get my antenna support line as high as I can into the treetops (I hope).

This is only my 2nd year of POTA activating.  I was partly inspired by watching Thomas’ K4SWL POTA videos.  I picked up some good tips from watching his videos.  Things like using the Weaver Throw Bag and winding the antenna and coax using the figure-eight method.  All good tips, plus many more.

A couple attempts gets the arbor line close to where I need it.  The challenge here is to keep the dipole sections from getting tangled in those lower sprawling Pine tree branches.

Alexis helps pull the coax feed line away from the tree branches while I work the dipole end wires trying to keep them from snagging on the lower branches.

Admittedly, dipoles do take a lot more time to deploy than say an end-fed or vertical antenna.  But, elevated dipoles are known for their efficiency and I generally get decent results with them.

Here is a view from the SE side of the center support tree to basically illustrate the deployed orientation of the dipole.  The black wires are almost invisible, so I tried to enhance the view with red lines for the antenna and blue lines for the guy wires.

Now that the antenna is deployed, Alexis is all set to relax and enjoy the next couple hours reading and sketching.

In the meantime, it’s time for me to see if I can get this White Lake Protected Area activated for the first time ever, by anyone.  I will only be here a couple of hours as I also want to try to activate Mahoney Lake Ecological Reserve on the way back to our car, too.

As always, I start on 20m CW.  Once I bag the first 10 contacts (hopefully), I move on to the upper bands to see what’s happening there.

Here is my play-by-play account of how it went.

My first contact was made at 17:55 UTC (10:55 PDT) with W9AV in Wisconsin.  Over the next 15 minutes I logged 12 contacts fulfilling my initial quota for the 20m band, plus 2, including the states of  WI, OR, CA, OH, MT, FL, CO, TX, UT, and as a bonus, KL7AC in Alaska.

Time to check out the upper bands.  Let’s see what’s happening on 17m.

Over the next 17 minutes I rounded-up 7 contacts on 17m starting with VE3LDT in Ontario, followed by the states of, UT, CA, IL, IN, MI, and  finally WD5EEI in Texas.

Ok, so what’s going on in the 15m band?  Here, I was able to bag 4 contacts in the states of TN, IN and AZ.

For a final contact I moved back down to 20m to log one last P2P contact with K6BBQ in California.

Looking back at my logbook, I’m a bit puzzled to see that I had a one-hour gap between my last 15m contact and my final contact of the day on 20m.  Not sure what happened in between those two contacts.  Either the bands went totally dead during that time (it happens sometimes), or if I was possibly abducted by aliens with no memory of the events?

Either way, time to pull the plug on today’s White Lake Grasslands Protected Area activation and move on to my next activation destination.

Over the two-hour period I was set up here, I logged 24 POTA contacts on the 20, 17, and 15m bands.

As well, I get the honor of being able to claim to be the first person to activate White Lake Grasslands Protected Area, CA-4289.

I would have liked to stay here longer, but my goal today is to claim two activations in one day.

So, we pack up and trek back down the mountain and head to the boundary of Mahoney Lake Ecological Reserve.

Mahoney Lake is the lake you see in this photo below.  It’s larger than what can be seen from here.

The 35 minute or so trek back to Mahone Lake was fairly uneventful with the exception of getting off track for a while due to crisscrossing trails that were a little confusing.  But, with the aid of my Garmin 66sr GPS I quickly realized the route error and reversed course to get back on track after a few minutes of backtracking.

Unfortunately, because we were getting tired and I was starting to feel the time crunch, I didn’t photo document the activation at Mahoney Lake Ecological Reserve, CA-3766.  But I did get it activated.

Same routine of stringing up the 20m dipole and setting up the operating station.

I didn’t have great expectations for this location at the north end of the lake because we are much lower down in the valley and surrounded by mountains.

I started the activation at 22:38 UTC (15:38 PDT) on 20m.

Over the next 20 minutes, I logged 9 contacts covering the states of NV, PA, AR, NC, GA, CO, ON, and as a special bonus, SM3RNY presumably in Sweden!  I couldn’t find him listed on QRZ.com, so I hope he was legit.  (Not all hams set up a QRZ page).

On the 17m band, I was able to pick up two more contacts, one for WI and one for NM.

So, I can call this activation of Mahoney Lake Eco Resv a success with 12 contacts over a 35 minute period.  And, it’s nice to be able to claim to be the first ham to activate this reserve, CA-3766.

It’s getting late, so we pack up our gear and head back down the trail to our car.  Fortunately, it’s parked only about a 15-minute hike from here.  Then the 1.5-hour drive back home to Kelowna.

Thank you for reading!

73,

Jeff-VE7EFF and Alexis-VE7LXE

My Equipment List

Note: All Amazon links are affiliate links that support QRPer.com at no cost to you.

• Elecraft KX2
• Elecraft Internal KXAT2 Automatic Antenna Tuner
• Elecraft KXPD2 Paddle
• Weaver 8 oz throw bag
• GM CLIMBING Throw Line 1.7mm, 180 Ft Roll High Strength Arborist Outdoor Utility Cord
• West Coast Paracord Plastic Ladder Winder Cord Storage Organizers (Blue, 20 Pack)
• PARACORD PLANET 95 Type Paracord, Variety of Colors, 100 ft
• 5.11 Rush 72 Tactical backpack, military grade
• Helinox Speed Stools
• Garmin 66sr GPS