Tag Archives: Jeff (VE7EFF)

Experimental Antenna Reins-in Surprising Results

Editor note – Please enjoy this guest post from Jeff Bourgeois VE7EFF.

Today, September 6, I hope to POTA activate Inonoaklin Provincial Park CA-3626 in Southern BC, Canada, located on the shores of the Lower Arrow Lakes. On this activation, I will be using my novel experimental homebrewed Coaxial-Sleeve Dipole. The results were surprising!

We have been wanting to come back to this park since a brief visit to the area last summer.  I especially wanted to come back because, at that time, it had never been activated by anyone. I had plans to activate another park in the area that day.  Unfortunately, I was beaten to the draw just a few weeks ago by another ham.

The other reason I didn’t get here sooner was because it is a 3-hour drive east from our home in Kelowna, BC. 3-hours is pushing the limits of how far I’m willing to drive on daytrips, especially in mountainous areas. We rarely, if ever, do overnight trips.

We left the house very early in the morning on Sept. 6, 2024.  While the countryside is very beautiful enroute to the Arrow Lakes, I kind of dread the drive as the roads are often narrow, twisty-windy and up and down steep mountain passes.  At times it felt like being on a roller coaster.

Continue reading Experimental Antenna Reins-in Surprising Results

Trekking into POTA Heaven: Wrinkly Face Provincial Park Activation

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


2.5 km Trek into Wrinkly Face Provincial Park, BC, CA-4307

by Jeff (VE7EFF)

My goal this summer is to do more backpacked-in POTA activations. This is my 3rd POTA outing over the past week.  Being in Canada, I don’t have much time left this season to do this before the weather turns too wet, cold or snowy for my liking.

I attempted to activate Wrinkly Face Provincial Park, CA-4307 last summer.  However, I couldn’t get there because the FSR forestry service road was washed out about halfway to the park.  My Subaru Forester is an amazing SUV on outback FSR roads, but this washout was too much to even attempt.

So, this year I decided to attempt to hike to the park on foot which turned out to be a 2.5 km trek with about 653 ft elevation gain.  As always, my wife Alexis (VE7LXE) is my travel companion.

Our trailhead starts about an hour’s drive north of Kelowna, BC which is where we live.  We park on the side of a gravel road near the trailhead. We will be following a 2.5 km segment of the Okanagan High Rim Trail, which will take us to our destination in the middle of Wrinkly Face Provincial Park.

We aren’t sure exactly where the trail starts from here.  But just around the corner ahead of the car, is an adjoining FSR road. Here we find a sign and map of the Okanagan High Rim Trail (OHRT).

A closer look at the sign shows the OHRT trail starts near the sign.  I have circled our starting point and ending point on the map photo, marked in yellow.  (We ended up setting down about midway in Wrinkly Face Prov. Park.)   So, off we go.

We found the trail!

Apparently, there was a heavy rain downpour early this morning. So, the trail is quite soggy and damp for most of the trek up.  It’s also feeling quite cold this morning.  We actually felt the need to put gloves on.

The beginning of the trail is a steady uphill trod.  However, it also crosses a couple of FSR roads, which gives us some flat areas to walk on.  While most of the trail is well marked with small markers, there were a few areas where we got off track for a short distance and had to backtrack.  There are also free-range cows up here and they tend to create their own network of trails which often crisscross the OHRT trail, which causes periodic confusion as to which one for us to follow.

Thank goodness, I pre-plan these trips on my Garmin GPS and Google Maps to help with navigation.

I don’t think the OHRT trail is very heavily traveled.  In some areas, the pathway is almost overgrown with vegetation.

Along with overgrown vegetation, fallen trees can also create an occasional obstacle.  Often, the trail doesn’t amount to much more than a game trail.

Finally, some open views to the south!  This could be a viable operating area.  One problem though – we haven’t crossed the park boundary yet.  Good news – the sky is starting to clear!  Onwards and upwards…

Making good progress.  We are now crossing into the park boundary.

Welcome to Wrinkly Face Provincial Park, CA-3407.  You won’t find any parking stalls, camp sites, picnic tables, or outhouses here.  But what I do hope to find here is… POTA heaven!

After trekking about halfway into the park, we finally came across an open meadow.  Looks like this could be our POTA ops spot.  In the far distance is a glimpse of Kelowna and part of Lake Okanagan.

It’s nice to finally offload our packs.

Time to start breaking-out my shack-in-the-pack. Continue reading Trekking into POTA Heaven: Wrinkly Face Provincial Park Activation

Jeff’s Backcountry POTA Adventure: Campbell-Brown Ecological Reserve Activation

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


Off The Beaten Path – Campbell-Brown Ecological Reserve, CA-3925

by Jeff (VE7EFF)

This is the 2nd backpacked-in POTA activation outing that my wife and I have done this summer.  I’m the 2nd person to have ever activated the Campbell-Brown Ecological Reserve (CA-3925).  Last year was the first time I activated this eco reserve and that was also my first ever backpacked-in POTA activation.

After studying my GPS and Google Maps/Satellite view of the area, my goal this time is to trek about twice as far and twice as high as last year’s outing.  There are no documented trails here.  Access is a mixture of old overgrown and abandoned forestry road (or fire break, not sure which) and some crisscrossing animal game trails.  The actual mileage/Km’s isn’t really that far, but it’s all uphill and a mixture of bushwhacking and scaling slippery grassy slopes.

The reserve borders along the busy highway 97, between the cities of Vernon and Kelowna, BC.  The area overlooks the beautiful Kalamalka Lake, as you will see in some of the photos.  There’s no actual parking lot, just a small gravel pull-over spot just off the highway.  There is no formal pathway into the reserve either, so we had to scale the gated fence to start our journey.

I’m a little bit familiar with the route we took last year, but I heavily rely on my Garmin 66sr GPS and Google Maps/Satellite view on my Pixel phone.

My wife Alexis (VE7LXE), accompanies me on all my POTA outings.  She packs the food and water while I pack the ham gear and other outdoor essentials.  We both carry IC-V80 VHF handhelds for comms in the event we ever get separated.  And of course we always carry bear spray when doing backcountry treks.

We do have some relatively flat areas in sections, but there are also a lot of deadfall trees to either step over, climb over, or go around.

This grassy meadow is where I activated last year.  Actually at the top end of the meadow.  But today’s goal is to find another open grassy meadow higher up the mountain.  Higher usually means better radio propagation, not to mention spectacular views.

Beyond the grassy meadow, we followed some semblance of a trail.  But it wasn’t long before I realized that it wasn’t taking me where I really needed to go. So, according to my GPS and Google Satellite, we needed to head straight up-hill.

This was actually a real slog uphill (especially for us 73 and 72 year olds). 🙂

We decided that we have gone high enough.  Time to off-load our packs. Continue reading Jeff’s Backcountry POTA Adventure: Campbell-Brown Ecological Reserve Activation

Jeff activates two POTA ATNOs in one day trip!

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


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. Continue reading Jeff activates two POTA ATNOs in one day trip!