Campbell Valley at 20

Reaching 20 activations at the same park takes a bit of dedication and decent equipment. Though this was my 20th successful activation at Campbell Valley, it was my twenty-first attempt! One of my recent trips saw my antenna flat line! It was acting up at Hume Park but I was able to complete there. But when I took it to Campbell, it performed even poorer and when I connected the analyzer it showed that the antenna flat lined – literally. It showed a SWR reading of 5 across all bands! I did manage to pull in 3 stations but they were strong ones and they were barely able to hear me. Considering that the day was good for radio, it was pretty obvious I had a problem.

I packed up early and back at home I checked it out some more, no difference in readings even when it was rolled up in a bag. I contacted the manufacturer and he said the most common issue is a broken wire. Hearing that, I thought I could try jiggling the wires and indeed it showed some brief life. Seeing that result, I cut the wire around where the break was and resoldered it together. I then tested it on the analyzer and it looked good so I set up the antenna in the backyard and it was indeed working well until the mast fell over and snapped off the second wire lead! I then had the opportunity to perfect my repair technique on the other side!

Back at the park the following visit showed that the antenna was back to normal function and I was able to make record numbers of contacts for the next few trips. On this twentieth visit I managed fifty-three. So, I now had my second level 1 repeat-offender award! I will continue operating at the park to get to 40 visits and the level 2 award. But before I get there, I will have achieved, I hope, my first Kilo award. This is an award for making 1000 contacts at a given park. I am currently just over 700 so it should take only a few more visits.

On my last two visits to the park, I was joined by a fellow club member, Jim. He is trying to get started in the POTA program and wanted some help getting familiar with the process. For two times now we operated as a 2-operator set up. This is different than when I go with Ralph as he sets up his own gear and operates on Morse independently of my operation. Jim uses my radio and we both talk to each contact that comes along. It gives the hunter a double activation for the park and both of us get a contact. On this trip we actually were called by a hunter who was activating a 2-fer park (two parks at once) and he also had a second operator. So when all was complete we had 8 contacts between the two of us and they each had a double for both of their parks. It was a lot of log entries.

On today’s visit I started off operating on the 10m band. It was very successful and I gathered 31 contacts in about 35 minutes. It was as I was switching to the 12m band that Jim joined me and we started calling on 12m together. That band didn’t work too well as we made only 2 contacts, though one was an exotic – a station in Cuba. We gave up on 12m and moved to the 15m band and began calling. This proved to be much better and we were making a good number of contacts in quick order including the doubles mentioned earlier. After working an Ontario park-to-park who was doing a triple park that bands dried up. Since both Jim and I had more than enough contacts we decided to pack up. I was starting to get chilled so it was a good time to head home.

It was a very good day at the park and on the air. I will continue to make a few more visits as I work up to my Kilo award. After that it will be level two of the repeat-offender. The nice thing about the POTA program is the plenitude of reasonably easy goals to aim for. There are tough ones as well but for now I have enough to work on. Of course, the main thing about operating in a park is the actual going to a park and getting outdoors and into the fresh air. Today was a very pleasant late fall day and it felt good getting some fresh air. The park this time of year is not busy and we have a lot of open space to enjoy.