Tag Archives: Vince (VE6LK)

Field Reports, Guest Posts, Morse Code, POTA, Travel

Busted Antenna in Jasper Alberta

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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)

Ahhhh, the midwinter get-a-way. Everyone does it a bit differently, but for most of us, when you have only a few days and a couple of nights you don’t venture too far from home. And that’s how I landed in Jasper, Alberta, to stay for a couple of nights and sample the very awesome local restaurants, and of course to do some Parks On The Air.

I was accompanied by my wife and Wrangler, our Shiba Inu, for this trip and thus my activations needed to be family-friendly (ie. short!) and in scenic locations. They had to be parks I’d never done before and, at this time of year, be done from the comfort of my truck. But most importantly they needed to fit in among the restauranting we wanted to do.

The Athabasca Glacier is the most public of all the glaciers in the Columbia Icefield
North of the Columbia Icefield looking south. Columbia Icefields Skywalk is on the left
Looking north from the same spot as the photo immediately above

Travel from home to Jasper is 4.5 hours along the Trans-Canada Highway and then Highway 93, the Icefields Parkway, so named due to the large number of glaciers that come within close range of the highway. For the adventurous among you, there are two tours, one takes you onto the glacier via a specially-designed tour bus with 60″ 3PSI tires, and the other is a glass walkway that overlooks the deep valley that is the start of the Athabasca River. My basophobia tells me that walking on glass floors overlooking a really deep canyon is a bad idea, and I’m told that it is spectacular nonetheless.

Jasper was the subject of an insane wildfire last Summer. 40% of the town’s structures and homes were destroyed overnight. This town runs on tourism and we were welcomed with open arms for our mid-week trip. Sadly, everyone has a story of loss in one way or another. I’ve been to Jasper several times before before, but the losses I saw – blocks-wide swaths of homes – caught me off guard emotionally. I took no photos out of respect to those that have lost everything; if you are really curious you can search for them via news sources. The landscape is changed, for now, as you can see through the trees and see the valleys around you due to the denuded or fallen timbers.

On Thursday morning my HamAlert went off as K4SWL was out at Pisgah National Forest, so I jumped into the truck for a quick P2P sortie and drove to the edge of town where electrical noise would be less. Upon my arrival my trusty screwdriver antenna would not move and, with my plan to contact Thomas scuttled, I headed back to the hotel.

Tools laid out and ready to go on the bed in the hotel
A completed field repair

Fortunately I had packed an iFixit brand Pro Tech toolkit with me, and, along with my Leatherman ES4 and Victorinox knife -and a Breathe-Right strip in place of electrical tape- I was able to repair the motor drive wire where a previous repair had vibrated apart over the 15 years I’ve owned the antenna. That successful repair set me up well for my activations for the rest of the day.

And, yes, I did a proper repair along with a bit of preventative maintenance shortly after I returned home.

Yellowhead Pass National Historic Site

Once the repair was complete, I headed out to the Yellowhead Pass National Historic Site about 28km west of Jasper. The site is pretty much a roadside pull-out at the Alberta/British Columbia border and is adorned with historical plaques. Truck traffic was rumbling by not too far away from me so the local QRM proved to be a challenge. This park is a 2fer, and I had planned on turning around and going back to town until I saw a sign just 100 yards ahead advertising Mount Robson Provincial Park – and this is another POTA entity. Beside that sign was one advertising a truck pull-out 250 yards up the road… so a quick plan was hatched to add Mt. Robson to my day’s activities.

I completed both of those activations without too much difficulty on 10, 15 and 20m CW and packed up to head back to town to get a bite of lunch at the De’d Dog Bar and Grill as it had been recommended to us. Suffice it to say that I could not finish the bowl of bison chili and I want to eat again there on a future trip.

Maligne Mountain reflecting off the still water of Maligne Lake

With our bellies full, we headed towards our final stop of the day, the Maligne Lake Chalet and Guest House National Historic Site. It’s a 45km trip through some stunning scenery along the valley floor, and climbs 500m in only the last few kilometres of the road.

For this activation I was on 20m CW and then 20m SSB. The noise floor was zero, save for when I needed to run the engine to stay warm in the -8C weather. My wife took Wrangler out for a walk thus I had time to accrue 30 contacts. But it was late in the day and we couldn’t stay forever as the sun sets fast in the mountains -so it seems anyways- and we headed back to town.

A member of the local welcoming committee greets us on the road at Medicine Lake while some other members are seen grazing on the flats in the distance (at left, centre)
Looking northward beside Medicine Lake. The fire damage is evident on the right-hand side of the valley and is about 10km north of the Jasper townsite.

We were reminded of the power of nature with the burned out forests that suddenly greeted us as we moved closer to town. It also reminds me that wildfires don’t discriminate and sometimes level one area and leave another, immediately adjacent, untouched. As we all do, I hope I never face that adversity.

What I’ve learned along the way

I was reminded of not only the awesome power of nature, but of the need to maintain our equipment. In this climate, a screwdriver antenna should be torn down and inspected at least annually, and I had not done this for a few years. I mean, after all, it has been working so why bother, right? Wrong – like all bits of our kit, maintenance is essential to trouble-free operations when you need it. I’m thankful I had a small toolkit along on this trip or there would have been activations on only 10m – the band the antenna was locked upon pre-repair.

List of gear used for these activations:

73 and dit dit,
…Vince

First introduced to the magic of radio by a family member in 1969, Vince has been active in the hobby since 2002. He is an Accredited examiner in Canada and the USA, operates on almost all of the modes, and is continually working on making his CW proficiency suck less. He participates in public service events around Western Canada and is active on the air while glamping, mobile, at home or doing a POTA activation. You can hear him on the Ham Radio Workbench podcast, follow him on Twitter @VE6LK, check out his YouTube channel, and view the projects and articles on his website.

Accessories, Morse Code, New Products, News

Pre-Built VK3IL Pressure Paddles via VE6LK

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If you’ve been listening to the Ham Radio Workbench podcast, you might have heard Vince (VE6LK) mention that he and VE6TD planned to order parts to produce a batch of pre-built VK3IL pressure paddles.

Well, I just heard from Vince that they have completed a limited run. Here are the details from the ordering page:

For a limited time, VE6LK and VE6TD are selling pre-built 4″ (100mm) long VK3IL v2 pressure paddles. They ship with a high-quality attached 4′ silicone cable with your choice of a straight-through or right-angle TRS plug on the end.

We are the only place you can buy one of these pre-built in North America. If you would rather order a kit, check out VK3IL’s blog [linked here] where he lists other places that sell kits. We are not selling kits, these are pre-built.

You’ll receive exactly the following:

    • Pre-built paddle with integrated 4′ silicone super flexible cable
    • Your choice of straight or right-angle plug on the end of the cable
    • Wrapped in black heat shrink tubing, padded on one side for comfort
    • Paddle is approximately 105mm (4″) long x 25mm (1″) wide x 9mm (5/16″) thick and weighs 28g (1 oz.)

We pre-test each and every paddle before it leaves our hands.

The price for each pre-built paddle, shipped to Canada or within the continental United States (CONUS), is $85 CAD or approximately $59 USD. I believe this is a fair price for those who prefer not to source the parts themselves to build a VK3IL paddle.

I must say that the pressure paddle design functions beautifully. It provides very accurate keying in the field and, so far, it has worked with every radio I’ve connected it to.

Click here for more information and to place an order.

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 →

News, Pedestrian Mobile, Portable, QRP

Parking Lot QRP DX: The Magic of the Elecraft KH1

24 Comments

Here’s what I love about the Elecraft KH1:

  1. It’s always with me, tucked away in my EDC pack.
  2. It’s super quick to deploy.
  3. It lets me hop on the air–anytime, anywhere–and work my friends when they’re activating a park or summit.

Yesterday afternoon, I activated Lake James State Park (US-2739) for about an hour. The pileups were deep, and I was so focused on working stations that I missed a text from my buddy Vince (VE6LK), who was activating a park in Alberta, Canada.

By the time I saw Vince’s message after packing up and turning off my camera, it was too late for a P2P contact—he’d already packed up as well. However, he mentioned that he planned to hit another park and promised to let me know when he arrived.

True to his word, Vince pinged me while I was checking out at a Lowe’s hardware store in Marion, North Carolina. He had reached Castle Wildland Provincial Park (CA-2972) at Butcher Lake, roughly 1,900 miles (3,058 km) away.

My KH1 in it’s Tufteln-modified Pelican Micro M40 case.

I quickly hopped in my car, drove to the middle of the parking lot to escape RFI, and deployed the KH1 in about 30 seconds.

Vince’s signal was about a 529, and I was surprised when he answered my call. He later mentioned it was one of those near-ESP-level contacts!

We completed the QSO, and I did a little happy dance in the parking lot. I absolutely love how accessible and capable the KH1 is.

Here’s what Vince’s view looked like:

And here’s mine:

Let’s just say Vince’s view was orders of magnitude more bucolic!

72,

Thomas (K4SWL)

Spoiler alert: Vince plans to post a full field report from his three-park rove yesterday. He worked some amazing DX, and conditions were clearly fantastic! I’m really looking forward to reading it! Stay tuned!

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, Guest Posts, Morse Code, News, POTA, QRP

Sailboats at a lakeside activation

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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)

In August and September 2024 I was travelling around Southern Ontario for some family matters and naturally I brought my radio kit with me to squeeze in some radio therapy stops along the way. This is the report of my stop at CA-5362 Fifty Point Conservation Area.

It’s my second to last day here in Ontario and, as I wasn’t needed for other things, it was time to do a POTA rove and make the best of my last full day. I’m always on the lookout for a park that is within striking distance of wherever I am that I have not activated before and/or has not been activated before in either SSB or CW. So I planned a route to get to 9 parks and managed to get to 7 and activate 5 before other matters called for my attention. All were planned to be drive-up activations given the area and time constraints I was working within.

In my day job, I’m a Project Manager in IT, thus my style is that I plan before I arrive. You’ve already seen evidence of this with my POTA and Checklist tools that I’ve spoken about before. I usually do an in-depth study of a site before I depart, including reviewing linked webpages from the pota.app site, a satellite view and street view of the entrance on maps.google.com, and if it’s available, a 3D view of the area from maps.google.com. Let me know in the comments about the other ways you review a park before your arrival.

However I was pleasantly surprised when I found picnic tables with a view of the water at more than one of them! Balancing the good with the not-so-good, there were also some frustrations… I could not locate one of my planned stops despite driving up and down the road with two different GPSs blaring at me. My experience has shown that the smaller the park, the harder it is to find mapping, and this one from the Conservation Authority was no exception, and thus I abandoned it and drove onwards. Another site was right beside the roadway and high-voltage lines, and I didn’t have time to do a walk-in and get away from the noise floor. I always have a back-up site in my list for situations like this.

The Hamilton/Burlington/Niagara area is very pretty and, with a late summer happening around the time of a harvest moon, I didn’t mind the extra driving. For those of you who have been to Hamvention at Xenia it will be somewhat familiar as the area is full of gently rolling hills and lush green pastures. The humidity is also familiar, ugh, and one of the main reasons I moved away from this area in 1997. But nothing beats the view of sailboats out on the water; I have always found serenity in this -even knowing I get boatsick if I get on board!

The view from my “shack” at Fifty Point Conservation Area looking northwards onto Lake Ontario. On a clear day Toronto can  be seen in the distance. Today wasn’t a clear day, but still quite serene.

Fifty Point is a sprawling 80 Hectare (198 acre) area located on the southern shore of Lake Ontario at Winona. It has a top-tier restaurant, multiple beaches, pavilions and 330 slips for boaters, along with a camping area. It truly is a multi-use area! You can read all about it here (.pdf warning).

After locating the day use/beach area, I found a table overlooking the lake. As it was a mid-week day, there were plenty to choose from. The view was quiet with a few boaters enjoying the beach in the small bay directly in front of me.

A slip loop style bungee holds the feedpoint in place on the picnic table. My new-to-me Tiger-Cats hat proudly on display.

I set up my 40-30-20m trapped EFHW given the solar conditions. I’m so very pleased with the performance of this antenna and it has become the one I reach for the most when activating on this trip. It is about half the length of a conventional 40m wire and is resonant on 3 bands. It has me musing about adding 17m and 15m to it… perhaps N7KOM will offer such a kit?

When I built this antenna, I tuned it so that best resonance was in the middle of the CW portion of each band, and with the feedpoint located just a few feet off the ground and then sloped upwards at the endpoint. That’s how I deployed it this time around. As you see in the prior photo, my newly acquired Fishing Butler bungee strap held the entire thing firmly in place without any movement once I set up the mast. You can get them at Fishing World in Hamilton as they ship around North America. They stock multiple sizes so a phone call may be needed as their online store shows only one size. Ask for the assorted pack.

Trapped 20-30-40m EFHW to my Goture mast and spiral rod holder

Because I never was a Boy Scout and able to know where north is based on the position of the sun and time of day or how many chirps the cricket is giving <grin>, I consulted the compass on my smartphone. I unfurled my antenna and clipped it to the stop of the mast, walked the mast out to the length of the antenna and anchored it into the ground beside some Sumac bushes. With enough repetition, I’ve gotten pretty good at estimating where the far end of my antenna will be. It comes in helpful for parking lot activation and operating out of the trunk or your vehicle with a mast supporting the far end.

For these activations, and when I can, I’ve been orienting my antenna east and west so that it radiates broadside north and south so that I can capture the most number of hunters in North America. This is a contrast to how I normally operate from Alberta when my antenna is oriented to be broadside from southeast to northwest.

The activation itself was pleasant and I was surprised with visits from QRPer.com comment regulars KQ4CW and K5KHK – and I appreciate hearing from them often! 45 minutes after arriving I was packed up and on the road to my next stop.

List of gear used for these activations:

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

Summary

We do POTA (and other programs) for various reasons. On this trip, it’s a break from life’s stresses. As I reflect upon my visits with various people, I realize that I’m quite blessed to know so many friendly hams no matter where I am travelling.

72 and dit dit,
…Vince

First introduced to the magic of radio by a family member in 1969, Vince has been active in the hobby since 2002. He is an Accredited examiner in Canada and the USA, operates on almost all of the modes, and is continually working on making his CW proficiency suck less. He participates in public service events around Western Canada and is active on the air while glamping, mobile, at home or doing a POTA activation. You can hear him on the Ham Radio Workbench podcast, follow him on Twitter @VE6LK, check out his YouTube channel, and view the projects and articles on his website.

Field Reports, Guest Posts, Morse Code, News, Portable Power, POTA, QRP

Big ships and 78GHz by chance!

4 Comments

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

by Vince (VE6LK)

In August and September 2024, I was travelling around Southern Ontario for some family matters and naturally I brought my radio kit with me to squeeze in some radio therapy stops along the way. This is the report of my stop at CA-6341 Welland Canal System National Historic Site along with CA-6096 Battle of Beaverdams National Historic Site.

This activation took a bit of research to figure out the intersection of the two given that the landscape had been dramatically altered from the time of the Battle of Beaver Dams in 1813. For example, at that time, the Welland Canal did not exist! So the town of Thorold has a park located at the west end of the battle site, and I was able to locate a monument at the east end, thus I was able to extrapolate and see that Lock 7 was in a direct path between the two. Thus I settled at Lock 7 for the activation.

A borrowed grocery cart serves as a mast support given the hard soil. Antenna runs off to the vehicle on the right.

This activation was done later in the day after my “Cross-Border Activation between Friends” and I was pleased to note the conditions had improved a fair bit.

I started off on CW, hunting other friends that were activating (shout-out to Ed W4EMB!) and then switched to SSB QRP where Steve KO4AFL found me and we had a brief chat before we both moved on. I stayed on 20m for this activation.

A quick drive-up activation means operating from the trunk

The Welland Canal is an engineering marvel that allows lake freighters to traverse the 100m/326′ height difference between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.

Opened in 1833, it sees an average of 3,275 freighters during the shipping season which runs about 9 months of the year. With that sort of traffic, you can be reasonably assured that you’ll see one of these huge freighters on the day and time that you visit the area.

List of gear used for these activations:

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

Summary

After my earlier activation with N2MAK, we drove down the Niagara Parkway past Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake before arriving at the Welland Canal. It was a pleasant day and not terribly humid.

VA3ELE, Peter, with an attempt to set a new distance record on 78GHz

One last ham radio related story to the day was running into Peter (VA3ELE) about 1km from our home-away-from-home as he was attempting to set a new distance record with a friend who was well over 100km away.

Peter explained to me that his radio was 3W and the dish yielded 47dB of gain thus his ERP was around 14,000W see below. Needless to say that I did not stand in front of the dish.

[EDIT Sept 26] with gracious thanks to the math wizardry of David VE7EZM, the result of 47dB of gain with 3W of input is approximately 150,356W ERP.

All in all, labour day 2024 was full of beautiful scenery and lots of Ham Radio – exactly how a vacation day should be in my books.

72 and dit dit,
…Vince

First introduced to the magic of radio by a family member in 1969, Vince has been active in the hobby since 2002. He is an Accredited examiner in Canada and the USA, operates on almost all of the modes, and is continually working on making his CW proficiency suck less. He participates in public service events around Western Canada and is active on the air while glamping, mobile, at home or doing a POTA activation. You can hear him on the Ham Radio Workbench podcast, follow him on Twitter @VE6LK, check out his YouTube channel, and view the projects and articles on his website.

Field Reports, Guest Posts, Morse Code, News, Portable Power, POTA, QRP

When three contacts equals a successful activation

11 Comments

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

by Vince (VE6LK)

In August and September 2024 I was travelling around Southern Ontario for some family matters and naturally I brought my radio kit with me to squeeze in some radio therapy stops along the way. This is the report of my stop at CA-5367, McQuesten House / Whitehern National Historic Site.

View from the rear of Whitehern showing nearby office tower

This site is located in downtown Hamilton and among the tall building and features a walled rear garden. It is open to all visitors and there is no fee to visit the facility. This two-storey neoclassical house was the home of a prominent family, the McQuestens, and retains many of its original Victorian and Edwardian fittings and furnishings. It is now a museum open to the public.

This activation was strictly by chance and I had less than an hour before I was due to be someplace else. I did not check the solar conditions in advance nor anything about the site. Sometimes just showing up is fun in and of itself, am I right? So I found my way around to the rear garden and found a bench in an out-of-the-way corner and set up for a low impact activation.

I deployed my AX1 on it’s small tripod and placed it on the ground and ran out a 20m counterpoise wire beside the walking path. I set myself and the radio gear on a park bench along the path. It truly felt like a small enclave!

After calling for 10 minutes with zero replies I checked the solar conditions and see that a small flare had just hit. That might explain the soft conditions, and combined with the compromised antenna and its close proximity to me. I moved the antenna away from me as far as the feedline would allow. Only then was I able to log just a few contacts and those were hard-fought. Then I ran out of time.

The author in his temporary enclave
A partial log. Contacts were not obtained by calling out, but by hunting others.

List of gear used for these activations:

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

Summary

I’ve spoken before about “getting to 10” with a POTA activation. For me, that’s always one of my goals. But it isn’t the only goal. I also enjoy the new scenery, the journey, the research and the challenge. This visit was high on the scenery and the challenge end of the scale for sure.

72 and dit dit,
…Vince

First introduced to the magic of radio by a family member in 1969, Vince has been active in the hobby since 2002. He is an Accredited examiner in Canada and the USA, operates on almost all of the modes, and is continually working on making his CW proficiency suck less. He participates in public service events around Western Canada and is active on the air while glamping, mobile, at home or doing a POTA activation. You can hear him on the Ham Radio Workbench podcast, follow him on Twitter @VE6LK, check out his YouTube channel, and view the projects and articles on his website.

Field Reports, Guest Posts, Morse Code, News, Portable Power, POTA, QRP

CW Three Band Activation Among the Giant Timbers

2 Comments

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

by Vince (VE6LK)

In August and September 2024 I was travelling around Southern Ontario for some family matters and naturally I brought my radio kit with me to squeeze in some radio therapy stops along the way. This is the report of my stop at Hamilton Waterworks National Historic Site (CA-5365).

It was a rainy Friday morning as I departed at 0730h to get in some radio therapy before getting to the fishing store and getting some more of the Fishing Butler bungee straps I’d picked up a week prior. And, as it happens, Fishing World in Hamilton was pretty much around the corner from CA-5365. I’d chosen this site as it had never been activated in CW.

The Hamilton Waterworks National Historic Site is “…a gracious complex of mid 19th-century brick industrial buildings…” located in the North-East end of Hamilton near Lake Ontario. It is part of Hamilton’s original water works complex which sprawls along Woodward Avenue.

And it is delightfully radio quiet, however the noise from the local street was the real challenge for me. Next time I’ll use earbuds.

The original wood shed serves as a covered picnic and teaching area for students that visit the Hamilton Museum of Steam and Technology, part of this NHS.

This is one site I drove to without much research and I was prepared with a backup site were I not able to activate it for whatever reason. Thus I was pleasantly surprised when I saw a large covered area with picnic tables and a small grass area outside to stake down my Carbon Fibre mast. Hoisting/throwing the wire turned out to be a challenge given the shape of the giant support timbers (rounded) as the wire would fall into the narrow end of the crevice, so with some creative use of the CF mast, I was able to essentially fish it into place. Later removal was the reverse process for the same reason.

All set up and ready to go with my 20-30-40m EFHW trapped antenna

I checked the solar conditions and it showed low K and moderate A indicies, and then I verified with a spin of the VFO to see what I could hear. I set my power at 5W and began the activation on 20m. Being located in Ontario, I hear a different set of regular callers than I may otherwise when at home in Alberta. Still a fair number of callsigns are immediately recognizable and they put a smile on my face.

I had planned this to be a CW only activation to exercise my brain. I worked my way from 20m to 40m then to 30m. I was surprised with the short distances on 30m working a couple of stations in Ontario that were less than 75 miles away.

After catching 30 in the log my time was up and the rain had started -along with nearby thunder- so I hastily disconnected the coax and took down my antenna and got on with my day.

List of gear used for these activations:

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

Summary

It was wonderful to spend time among such elegant buildings that have stood there for 167 years. The park is a peaceful place in an otherwise industrial end of an industrial city and is a delight to visit. I hope to do so again soon.

72 and dit dit,
…Vince

First introduced to the magic of radio by a family member in 1969, Vince has been active in the hobby since 2002. He is an Accredited examiner in Canada and the USA, operates on almost all of the modes, and is continually working on making his CW proficiency suck less. He participates in public service events around Western Canada and is active on the air while glamping, mobile, at home or doing a POTA activation. You can hear him on the Ham Radio Workbench podcast, follow him on Twitter @VE6LK, check out his YouTube channel, and view the projects and articles on his website.

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

Summer evening activation with a buddy

3 Comments

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by Vince (VE6LK)

In August and September 2024, I was travelling around Southern Ontario for some family matters and naturally I brought my radio kit with me to squeeze in some radio therapy stops along the way. This is the report of my stop at Canal Park Conservation Area CA-5567 in Dundas.

The chimney from the former greenhouse remains standing today

Canal Park is located at a former greenhouse site that is growing back to a natural state, and is long the bank of the former Desjardins Canal that was built in the early 1800s.

The story of the Desjardins Canal

Many of the timbers that were needed for the canal can still be seen standing today despite being immersed in water for nearly 200 years.

The canal’s historic timbers as seen inside the park

It is a popular spot for birdwatching; some of the visitors told me that they routinely see Herons gracing the area. It is also only a few minutes from downtown Dundas and nearby McMaster University. I arrived at 1700h local time and so I had about 3 hours of sunlight to work with which would be plenty of time for a chat and activation.

The site has a large deck and pergola overlooking the canal along with a few park benches, so I got to work setting up my 20-30-40m trapped EFHW that I built a few months ago. It’s short at only 35′, small and works very well. Look on Alan W2AEW’s YouTube channel for build videos.

I used the toroid on the end of my RG-174 feedline as a crude throwing weight and chucked it up and over the steel structure and it dangled down low enough to grab it. I then attached it to my Spark Plug Gear transformer and antenna and used the feedline to raise it back in place. Yes, I leave the wire winder in place for convenience.

Feedpoint of antenna about 15′ above the ground

At the far end, I set up my Goture CF mast and ground stake. The antenna landed up being about 15′ in the air. I wasn’t expecting stellar performance on 20m with it but was hopeful. I was very wrong to think that, with the first station I heard from Macedonia.

CF mast staked into the ground for end support

But not only was I here to POTA, I was here to meet, in person, Wayde Nie VA3NCA/AD2GX. He and I have been delivering remote examinations on the Ham Radio Crash Course team for some time now. Our paths have crossed many times in the virtual world, and finally now would cross in the real world. Needless to say I was looking quite forward to this activation and the location and beauty in this small park were only part of the whole story.

VE6LK and VA3NCA enjoying some late-day sun and QRP SSB

After Wayde showed me his wonderful portable kit, and with mine already deployed, we got to work at 10W on SSB. It wasn’t a fast and furious pace but it was steady enough as a 2 operator activation that we were kept busy. The real surprise were the stations that called us back from Spain!

10W on SSB carries pretty far some days. One contact to Spain was 5W CW.

I rounded off the activation with a quick CW contact to Spain. Wayde is early in his CW journey and would depart for home to his LICW class later that evening but followed the contact along pretty well!

List of gear used for these activations:

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Summary

I grew up in Hamilton and Dundas was one of my favourite place to visit. I did this activation in early September on a wonderful late summer day and the evening was warm and calm. While I live in Western Canada where there isn’t much in the way of humidity, I found the weather to be quite pleasant (until the mosquitoes dropped by) and the company was excellent too!

72 and dit dit,
…Vince

First introduced to the magic of radio by a family member in 1969, Vince has been active in the hobby since 2002. He is an Accredited examiner in Canada and the USA, operates on almost all of the modes, and is continually working on making his CW proficiency suck less. He participates in public service events around Western Canada and is active on the air while glamping, mobile, at home or doing a POTA activation. You can hear him on the Ham Radio Workbench podcast, follow him on Twitter @VE6LK, check out his YouTube channel, and view the projects and articles on his website.