West Langley Park

The day was expected to be a hot one and both Ralph and I felt like we wanted to activate a park but it needed to be in the shade. We therefore decided that going to Spanish Banks mostly a sun exposed sandy beach was not the best choice. Looking over the map for a closer park that I hadn’t been to found us the West Langley Park in Walnut Grove. It had a line of trees along the southern border and would provide good shade. So, we decided on that park for our adventure.

Ralph arrived at my place at 12:30 and we set out on the 30-minute drive to the park. Traffic was light and we made quick time to the park. Arriving in the parking lot we saw only a few cars and we picked a space alongside the fields. We then wandered out to see where we could operate. First, we went north to where some trees were shading the corner of the park. A chap was laying in a hammock stretched between two trees. He was friendly so we thought it should be a good spot for one of us. We then wandered to the far end and the south border, Ralph spotted some wider shaded spaces and felt it would be good for his location being in the shade and far from my site. Having staked out our locations we returned to the car for our gear.

As my location was closest, we pulled the cart to that spot and I unloaded my stuff. Then Ralph continued on to the far side of the park. I stretched out my antenna in the open ball field area and set up my table and radio near the chap in the hammock in the shade of the tree he was also using for support. He had a slack line stretched between to other trees which he was practicing on every now and then. Finished setting up, I dialed in the 20m band and searched for a park activator. The background noise for the area was actually quite high, around S5/6. I guess the trees just to the north of my field were hiding houses not very distant.

I heard one station in Wyoming that I was able to contact, so I now had my first contact. Hearing no others, I picked a frequency and started calling. I almost immediately had a response from another activator, this chap was on Orcas Island not all that distant, he claimed my signal was 59 so I was getting out well. I hadn’t gotten to posting myself on the spot list yet so getting contacted that quickly was a surprise. It took five minutes for the third station to come along, this chap in Arkansas. Ten more minutes and another park activator from Oregon responded. Then came a chap in California and Utah. Followed by Kansas. It had been a half hour of calling and I only had 7 contacts. I called Ralph and he had only 3 by that point. It was a tough go.

I decided to move to the lower end of the band and start calling there. That gave me a couple more in quick order including another park. But then the band went crazy with very severe local RF noise. It was making it impossible to operate. I decided it was time to get out my noise canceling unit that I pack along for this type of thing. I set it up and tweaked the filter settings and was able to quiet the band to a usable level. I was able to get a few more contacts now twelve in total. Ralph meanwhile was still a couple shy of ten so we opted to keep going to 2:30 which would be an hour of operating. I decided to try the 17m band as I had enough already. After calling for a while I managed to work an Arizona Station and got my final contact on that band.

Once done with operating I began packing up the gear. That was when I noticed the noise of a sander and saw going off in the community building not far from my location. It was likely the source of the extra interference. Fortunately, the noise canceling unit was effective and I managed to make my final calls with the saw operating. Ralph also completed 12 contacts so we both felt it had been a decent outing though tough. Packed up in the car,  we set out for the local Starbucks for a cool drink for the drive home. The Walnut Grove store was less than 2km from our location so we soon had the drink in hand and were on our way home. The park was pleasant enough for radio but really caters to ball games of various sorts. It was fortunate that none were going on when we were there.