Tag Archives: ATNO

Articles, Field Reports, Mobile, Morse Code, POTA, Travel

Sometimes you need a little cryptaesthesia

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As always, there are lots of links within the article. Click one! Click them all! Learn all the things!

by Vince (VE6LK)

It’s time for another return trip to the correctional institution that I spoke about in my last post. And that means only one important detail: more time to POTA en route. This trip will carry me, via a ‘short’ 325km detour from the direct route, into Castle Provincial Park and Castle Wilderness Provincial Park, with a stop or two along the way.

The Research and planning

Castle Provincial Park CA-2971 is within the larger Waterton Biosphere Reserve CA-0109, so any activation I can do is automatically a 2fer. Looking more closely at the map, I see Castle Falls CA-2969 is within Castle PP, and that makes it a 3fer. I printed off the park info sheets from POTA.app, studied some satellite imagery, printed some, and bundled it all together. I have been in this area once before, camping in August (and the bugs were awful, yuck!), so at least I knew three things…where I was going, an expectation of cell service (not great off the main roads) and bugs would be minimal to non-existent, given it’s mid-November.

In thinking about a route that needs to get me closer to my hotel and one that increases the number of unique parks I’ve activated, I decided upon Beauvais Lake Provincial Park CA-0632, another 2fer with CA-0109. A satellite view shows easy-peasy road access, and even if the main gates are closed, I’m still on the property, so it will be a valid attempt/activation.

But I also really want to get to the Castle Wildland Provincial Park CA-2972, as it’s never been activated before. And while there is road access through the entire Castle area, I opt to take paved roads as winter driving and gravel (and no cell service) can be unpredictable at best. I’ve also never been to Castle Wildland, but in my mind, I’m imagining views reminiscent of Waterton Lakes or Glacier National Park, given the very close proximity. As it turned out, I wasn’t too far wrong.

I also tacked on one park at the last minute and was happy I did so, even if I could not activate it.

Continue reading Sometimes you need a little cryptaesthesia →

Articles, Field Reports, Mobile, Morse Code, POTA, Travel

Vince gets out of jail long enough to do a handful of activations

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As always there are lots of links within the article. Click one! Click them all! Learn all the things!

Dear readers, admittedly the title is clickbait, but I assure you that there is truth behind it. As you already know, I occasionally travel for work and lately I’ve been working inside a correctional institution for my primary employer.

And, as you’ve seen before, while traveling usually I make a detour to go activate a site in the area or along the route, and to get a break from the drive. Usually that detour is only 10 or 20 kilometres. I enjoy the driving and the travel, and I’m always on the hunt for parks I’ve not yet activated and especially the elusive ATNO -All Time New One- or phrased another way, not yet activated at all or with one of the common modes of Phone, Digital or CW.

For this series of trips over the month of November, they were the first real road trips with my new-to-me 2023 F-150 PowerBoost hybrid. In the month leading up to this trip I was a busy beaver getting the radios installed in the truck to help pass the many hours on the road. Frankly I was excited to set up a new mobile installation and correct some major shortcomings with my last; experience is an excellent teacher if you are willing to listen. The video link below summarizes my mobile installation and is complete with chapters so you can jump to the section that interests you the most.

With all of that background and with an unseasonably warm November, I wanted to visit Waterton Lakes National Park which hosts several POTA entities, namely First Oil Well in Canada NHS CA-4776, Prince of Wales Hotel NHS CA-6101, Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park CA-3157, and all of those (and many others) are encompassed within the Waterton Biosphere Reserve CA-0109.

Waterton-Glacier is a Unesco World Heritage site and the second such I’d visit in this series of road trips. On a prior week I twice activated Head Smashed-in Buffalo Jump CA-6093.

Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park encompasses both the Waterton National Park in Alberta, Canada and Glacier National Park in Montana, USA. It’s the first international designation of a park anywhere, ever. You’ve seen me write about Glacier National Park here on QRPer last year, and now I’d get a chance to complete that entity activating within the Canadian side. Needless to say I was pretty excited about the detour and hopeful that weather would be on my side for some spectacular photos.

Continue reading Vince gets out of jail long enough to do a handful of activations →

Field Reports, Morse Code, News, Portable, POTA, QRP

The prettiest activation ever – Spray Valley Provincial Park

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As always there are lots of links within the article. Click one! Click them all! Learn all the things! ?

Ahhh .. few things in life compare to the view one sees while lakeside in the mountains. The flat water is a stark contrast to the towering mountains nearby. There is at least a 4000′ difference in height between the two at my destination in this story. For me, nothing so succinctly tells me where I fit in the world as when I stand among these giants.

So It was with that big goal in mind that a drive through the mountains of Alberta’s Kananaskis Country region was called for. The drive would take me through sweeping vistas, over high mountain road passes, along nearly 100km of gravel roads in no-cell-service backcountry while racking up nearly 400km of travel in one day.

Along the way I activated two never-before done parks in the POTA system and scouted out one more to be done at a future date. This is the story of the lakeside activation… but first, watch the short video to understand why I’m gushing on the beauty of this particular spot and written this atypical (for me) article about the activation itself.

The Drive to the activation

Overview of the trip. Darker lines indicate gravel roads. First activation is along the westernmost gravel road along the lakeshore.

For those of you that want to replicate this trip, here’s the route I took shown on the map above.

From just before when I turned north off Highway 541 to Highway 40, and until I reached Canmore, there is zero cell service. Same again turning onto Highway 68 from 40 until Bragg Creek.

Alberta has much backcountry that is well beyond cellular range. Working at The Candy Store(tm) as I do, I have access to items like the Zoleo Satellite Communicator to give me text messaging and SOS capabilities should I need them. Before I discovered SOTAmat, I used the Zoleo for all of my spotting in backcountry.

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Field Reports, News, Portable, POTA, QRP

Activating Plaines d’Abraham in Old Québec with the KX2 and AX1 combo

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When we spend the summer in the province of Québec, we always set aside at least one day to hang out in Old Québec. This portion of the city of Québec is simply stunning: it’s a UNESCO World Heritage site and the birthplace of French North America.

No other place in North America reminds me more of the years we lived in Europe than Old Québec.

We’ve been to Old Québec a countless number of times over the past two decades; we enjoy checking out the architecture, the window boxes full of flowers, and the numerous museums.

Old Québec is, of course, quite touristy–especially if you visit on a weekend. It can be incredibly busy and also challenging to find parking especially if, like us, you have a cargo box on top of your car (many parking decks have strict height restrictions).

On Tuesday, July 26, 2022, we decided to make a trip into Old Québec to visit some of our favorite book shops, small businesses, enjoy a lunch together, and soak in some of the amazing weather.

My wife encouraged me to find a nice POTA site and–wow–is one spoiled for choice! There are no fewer than 10 POTA parks in/around Old Québec. Check out the POTA map–each yellow dot is a park:

I know Québec City well enough to know that some of these parks wouldn’t be terribly easy to activate since they’re historic buildings and sites–I think it could be done, but you might need to seek permission in advance. I think it would be incredibly fun to set up a multi-park rove on foot; in fact, I’ve put that on my bucket list for a future trip!

The park I was eager to activate is the largest in central Québec City: The Plains of Abraham. It’s a beautiful and open urban park that overlooks the the St-Lawrence river. It’s Québec City’s version of Central Park.

Plaines d’Abraham (VE-1019)

I was very fortunate: after we dodged a little road construction, I found parallel parking on Ave Winfred-Laurier next to the Parc Jeanne d’Arc.

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Field Reports, News, Portable, POTA, QRP

Side trail POTA ATNO at Boisé des Compagnons-de-Cartier in Québec City

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On July 4, 2022, I plotted a multiple park POTA run that included four urban parks all clustered in the Sainte-Foy region of Québec City.

The first park I activated that day was Parc de la Plage-Jacques-Cartier (VE-0970)–click here to check out my full field report and activation video. The second park was Parc Cartier-Roberval (VE-0964)–click here to check out that field report and activation video. The third park was Boisé de Marly Provincial Park–click here to check out that field report and activation video.

My fourth park was Boisé des Compagnons-de-Cartier which essentially adjoined the previous park I activated. As I mentioned in the previous field report, I could have simply walked through the trail system to this park from my previous site, but I needed to find a different parking spot for my car, so I simply drove to a large lot next to the secondary school I spotted on Google Maps.

Turns out even though that lot was nearly empty, it was a paid parking, so I reserved a parking spot for one hour.

Boisé des Compagnons-de-Cartier (VE-0958)

When I first parked, I wasn’t entirely sure where the park entrance was until I spotted a bench and park sign at the far corner of the lot.

This park, much like the previous one, seemed to be an urban park with trails for walking and running.

I walked the main path into the park and looked for a park bench like I found at the park entrance (above). I thought it might be nice to set up along the path and do a park bench activation much like I did at another urban park in Québec City.

I walked for a decent distance and couldn’t see a bench in sight.  The path was fairly busy with walkers and runners, so I was very pleased when I found a side trail cutting through the middle of the park.

I could tell that this path–while very well-worn and obvious–was not one maintained by the park admin. It looked more like a simple foot trail that local children have probably used in the past (I spotted a little wooden fort/lean-to in the woods.)

Keep in mind that this was my fourth park activation of the day and by this time, I was running behind–no surprise there. After the activation, I had two errands to run in QC before heading back to our condo and enjoying dinner and a movie with the family.

Continue reading Side trail POTA ATNO at Boisé des Compagnons-de-Cartier in Québec City →