Aldergrove Regional Park

Ralph and I have been looking over the Parks-on-the-Air map for the area quite a bit lately looking for our next location. We lamented over the lack of parks in the south surrey area. I even sent an e-mail to the chap in charge of it. Well, a few new parks suddenly appeared. It was good to see some new ones which we could get first activation on. Ralph spotted one in the Tsawwassen area. He felt he could zip over for a quick activation, gain the notoriety for being first and then drive across the border to Point Roberts to buy some cheap gas (and support the American economy). The border covid requirements had recently relaxed so he could go across quite easily.

Well, that was all good for him but it left me out of the loop. If I went along, only one of us could get the first contact so I decided to head in the opposite direction – up the valley to Aldergrove and activate a newly added park there. Then we would both get the first activation of a park. So, at around 12:30 on Friday I loaded up the EV and started for the east. The traffic wasn’t bad and I made reasonable time along 16^th to east Langley and south to the park. I drove into the main area and found an almost empty parking lot – so nice.

I picked a spot closet to where I thought I would set up for the activity, there were a few park tables just past the lot which looked ideal for me. After parking I wandered around a bit taking some photos. There were a few groups enjoying the sun or walking their dogs, but mostly I had the place to myself. Returning to the car I loaded up the cart with my gear and made for the best table. Then I determined how to run my antenna and I positioned the tripod followed by stringing out the wire antenna. After lifting the middle into the air I fastened down the two ends, one on my new fence post, the other on a handy tree.