2020-10-23, 16:46:22
It's getting a bit late in the year and the weather in MacGregor Point Provincial Park was cool and damp earlier this week when XYL and I took our trailer for 3 nights camping. MacGregor Point is just south of Port Elgin and has some fine beaches on Lake Huron. We had to run the furnace in our trailer every night to stay warm. Trailers are not insulated and can become quite chilly in late October without a good source of heat - especially when parked along the shore of a big lake.
So why did we go? It was partly because of my new found obsession with the amateur radio Parks On The Air (POTA) program. I went to "activate" the park, which means to make at least 10 contacts in the same UTC day. It was my fourth park activation this year.
Our campsite was spacious enough for me to erect my 132ft long End Fed Half Wave (EFHW) wire for 80m that is also resonant as a full wave on 40m. I set it up as an inverted-L using two trees for supports. The vertical section was about 30ft long, fed at the bottom through my home-made 49:1 transformer. You can see the transformer, wearing it's stealth hat, in the accompanying image. EFHW antennas can be fed quite close to the ground because the feedpoint is very high impedance. That means the feedpoint current is very low and the radiation at that point is insignificant.
The far end extended out over the campground road, lying on a thin branch and held in place by a very thin cord that was tied back to a bush at the side of the road. I try to keep my antennas in stealth mode to avoid questions about how I got them up in the trees without damaging mother nature. Actually, I launch soft, sand-filled balloons tied with a special very thin but strong cord that I buy at Deals in Owen Sound. I use the thin cord to pull up the antenna (#20 AWG, stealthy dark green colour wire).
I was a little wary of wading into the bush behind my campsite because there was a bear roaming the park (yes, near Port Elgin, the heart of bear country?). We heard bear bangers going off one morning and we think we saw the creature asleep in a tree a couple hundred yards off a trail in the park.
Anyway, the activation was a success. I fired up the Yaesu FT-891 that I reserve for field operations and made 24 CW contacts on 40m in just 40 minutes. I only stopped because of a sudden change in band conditions. It always gives me a thrill to work a POTA pileup. The next day I tried again on 80m and made a further 12 CW contacts in only 14 minutes.
POTA would make a good club activity. It is very like Field Day in many respects. Camping is not really required since the time needed to make an activation means the process could be completed with just a "day use" permit. And, there a lot of POTA entities in our area. Anyone want to try it?
So why did we go? It was partly because of my new found obsession with the amateur radio Parks On The Air (POTA) program. I went to "activate" the park, which means to make at least 10 contacts in the same UTC day. It was my fourth park activation this year.
Our campsite was spacious enough for me to erect my 132ft long End Fed Half Wave (EFHW) wire for 80m that is also resonant as a full wave on 40m. I set it up as an inverted-L using two trees for supports. The vertical section was about 30ft long, fed at the bottom through my home-made 49:1 transformer. You can see the transformer, wearing it's stealth hat, in the accompanying image. EFHW antennas can be fed quite close to the ground because the feedpoint is very high impedance. That means the feedpoint current is very low and the radiation at that point is insignificant.
The far end extended out over the campground road, lying on a thin branch and held in place by a very thin cord that was tied back to a bush at the side of the road. I try to keep my antennas in stealth mode to avoid questions about how I got them up in the trees without damaging mother nature. Actually, I launch soft, sand-filled balloons tied with a special very thin but strong cord that I buy at Deals in Owen Sound. I use the thin cord to pull up the antenna (#20 AWG, stealthy dark green colour wire).
I was a little wary of wading into the bush behind my campsite because there was a bear roaming the park (yes, near Port Elgin, the heart of bear country?). We heard bear bangers going off one morning and we think we saw the creature asleep in a tree a couple hundred yards off a trail in the park.
Anyway, the activation was a success. I fired up the Yaesu FT-891 that I reserve for field operations and made 24 CW contacts on 40m in just 40 minutes. I only stopped because of a sudden change in band conditions. It always gives me a thrill to work a POTA pileup. The next day I tried again on 80m and made a further 12 CW contacts in only 14 minutes.
POTA would make a good club activity. It is very like Field Day in many respects. Camping is not really required since the time needed to make an activation means the process could be completed with just a "day use" permit. And, there a lot of POTA entities in our area. Anyone want to try it?
