Tag Archives: Sainte-Foy Radar

Field Reports, News, Portable, POTA, QRP

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

August 26, 2022 Thomas Witherspoon 7 Comments

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 →

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

An Urban POTA ATNO at Boisé de Marly Provincial Park

August 22, 2022 Thomas Witherspoon 10 Comments

I’m very grateful to Canada for taking me a little outside my comfort zone in terms of park activations.

You see, by and large, I activate large national and state parks in rural areas of the US. I’m used to having lots of space and loads of activation site options. Even on a busy day, if I choose, I can pretty much disappear in some far-flung corner of a park. No one would ever know I’m there.

Urban parks are still rather novel to me.

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

The third park I scheduled for the day was Boisé de Marly Provincial Park. I could find very little information about this park online and even Google Maps satellite view didn’t give me an idea of what to expect once I arrived.

I could tell, though, that it was an urban park nestled between neighborhoods, roads, and commercial buildings. I could also tell that it had trees, so I planned to use the same transceiver-antenna pairing I used at the previous park: the Elecraft KX2 and Tufteln 9:1 random wire antenna.

Boisé de Marly was basically across the road from Parc Cartier-Roberval, but I needed to find a pedestrian access point and a parking spot, so I drove around the southern perimeter of the park until I found a side road with an access point and what appeared to be free parking on the road.

In truth, I wasn’t entirely sure if I needed a permit to park on the street, but I felt it was likely okay based on lack of signage. In any case, the street was quiet and I parked with a couple of other cars. I hoped that if I was mistaken, the person planning to write me a parking ticket would see my North Carolina plates and the RAC sticker and decide to give me a break. 🙂

Besides, at this point I was on a tight schedule if I wished to hit all four scheduled parks that afternoon, so I didn’t plan to hang around long enough for a ticket anyway.

Boisé de Marly (VE-0956)

At the neighborhood street entrance, I found the sign above that gave me a quick overview of the park. From what I could tell, this park primarily consisted of a trail network meant for walking and running.

I didn’t see any signs of picnic tables or even benches, at least at this end of the park.

I walked into the park maybe 100 meters or so and looked for a spot to operate.

Continue reading An Urban POTA ATNO at Boisé de Marly Provincial Park →

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

QRP DX! Pairing the Elecraft KX2 & Tufteln Random Wire at Parc Cartier-Roberval.

August 19, 2022 Thomas Witherspoon 4 Comments

On July 4, 2022, I plotted a little multiple park POTA run that included four 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. I managed to complete that activation in record time, during poor band conditions with the Elecraft AX1 antenna. In short? It was a blast!

I knew, however, that band conditions would likely only deteriorate that day and each subsequent activation could become more difficult to complete (spoiler alert: it did).

I scheduled Parc Cartier-Roberval (VE-0964) to be the second park of the day and was prepared to slog it out, but fortunately, the bands had not collapsed yet and this activation had a few surprises in store!

Parc Cartier-Roberval (VE-0964)

This park practically adjoins the previous park I activated. Indeed, if I had the time in my schedule (I did not) I would have walked the St. Lawrence river trail to Parc Cartier-Roberval.

My family actually visited Parc Cartier-Roberval the previous week while in the Sainte-Foy area.

The park is chock-full of history as it is also associated with an archaeological site exploring the first French colonists to arrive in America by Jacques Cartier and Jean-François de La Rocque de Roberval from 1541 to 1543.

There are some beautiful and informative displays on the west side of the park, near the railroad tracks.

There’s also a beautiful, immersive display that ends with a stunning overlook.

I could have spent all day soaking in the history.

The suspended glass encasement containing figurines of the first colonists is not to be missed.

And, again, the views from the overlook are most impressive!

Since I was on a schedule, I left the overlook and walked to the eastern part of the park.

When I visited the park the previous week, I had no time to perform an activation–in fact, we were in the Sainte-Foy area to visit a CLSC (regional medical center) and didn’t want to miss our appointment time.

Side note: Why were we visiting a CLSC the previous week? My wife cut her finger a few days prior; it was severe enough to require a visit to the hospital and six stitches. Our CLSC visit was to have a nurse check out her finger and change the bandage. The medical care we got was first class–within a week (two days after this activation) the stitches were removed and we were given the green light to do some camping up the north coast of the St. Lawrence. She had to change her bandages frequently for a full month, but looking at her finger now, you’d never know she’d cut it. Turns out, Québec is a great place to have a medical emergency!

But back to the activation…

Continue reading QRP DX! Pairing the Elecraft KX2 & Tufteln Random Wire at Parc Cartier-Roberval. →

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

Poor Propagation: Can the Elecraft AX1 handle band conditions during this urban POTA activation?

August 16, 2022 Thomas Witherspoon 19 Comments

Typically, when I do field activations while on vacation, I squeeze them in and around our family activities and travels. This is quite easy to do because our family enjoys a good hike and we love our parks.

On July 4, 2022 (Independence Day in the US!) my wife and daughters had their own activities planned for the day which opened up nearly a full day–at least a good 5-6 hour window–for me to do park activations solo.

I had numerous park choices in/around Québec City–an area rich with POTA sites.

I thought that I could either spend the day hitting one park further afield or hit multiple parks clustered together.

I chose the latter, so I started researching the POTA Map for Québec City.

In truth, pretty much any of the parks in Québec City could have been pieced together for a multiple park run. In fact, there are a number cluster in the city center and in Old Québec, but I was keen to explore a little cluster of parks I noted in the Saint-Foy area west of Québec City:

The map below shows just how close these four parks are to each other. Very doable!

These parks were so close to each other, I considered parking in the middle and simply walking to each site, but after reviewing the distance between the potential activation sites at each parks more carefully, I realized I wouldn’t have the time to activate all four parks if I walked it.

It was this activation that reminded me how brilliant it would be to own a folding bike like by buddy Jim (N4JAW) uses on each of his nearly daily POTA activations. With a bicycle, I think I could have actually activated these more quickly than I could with a car because there’d be no need to find a parking spaces at each site.

The Plan

I decided I’d try to hit my four parks in this order:

The only park I’d visited in advance was Parc Cartier-Roberval so I knew I’d need a little time to find activation sites, etc. at the other three. If the activations took longer than expected to validate with 10 stations logged, I might have to skip the final park.

Interestingly, three of these four parks were ATNOs (All-Time New Ones) thus had never been activated for POTA. Continue reading Poor Propagation: Can the Elecraft AX1 handle band conditions during this urban POTA activation? →