Barnet Marine Park

This week Ralph and I set out for the Barnet Marine Park. This park is nestled along the shore of Burrard inlet and the north slope of Burnaby Mountain. The park is split in the middle by a triple set of rail tracks which run east-west. The southern section is higher up the slope of Burnaby Mountain and is where the parking lots are. Visitors then walk a concrete foot bridge that conveys one over the tracks to the northern half where all the picnic action is. We made good time arriving at the parking lot and found it about a quarter full though more cars were driving in as we headed for the walkway.

Upon arrival we took our time to scout the area. After crossing the tracks, we set out for the beach area where there were some historical concrete remains. The main one was the foundation of the old waste wood burner. The area was a major wood mill back in the early 1900’s. Today very little remains to be seen. After gathering a few views of the inlet and enjoying the fresh air. We continued east along the beach and found a few nicely shaded picnic tables. Ralph also had spotted a good location on the west side where we first reached the beach. The park is actually quite long and it provided us good separation for our two stations.

Having selected two locations, we returned to the car to load up the wagon and head for our chosen operating sites. I had found a nice table in the shade near a narrow bushy area. It was an ideal location, isolated from the crowds but open enough for my antenna. I quickly set up the mast and my radio and then called Ralph. He was ready and we made our ten contacts across ten bands. Now it was off to the wilds to see who else we could reach. The major challenge with this location is the big hill to the south of us. It is large enough to block all low angle radiation paths and so our contacts would likely be limited to closer locations.

I started calling on 20m as the higher bands were not open and I didn’t feel like calling out to dead air. The limited angles would make it even harder to be heard. It took 15 minutes of calling before I had my first response, a chap in Oregon. A couple minutes later I had a response from a station in Colorado and then another Oregon. Then it was silence for another 15 minutes.  Finally, I then had another Oregon station followed by one in New Mexico. By the time I had been calling for an hour I had 11 contacts beyond those with Ralph. Most were western as I expected though I did manage one very weak North Carolina station.  I also had a single Canadian in Ontario come in; his path likely just skimmed the lower eastern edge of Burnaby Mountain.

I talked with Ralph who indicated he had reached 10 contacts and was packing up. I decided to make one pass through the band to see if I could find another activator who I could work. I found one in Wisconsin who was calling out and not getting responses. I called him and he heard me but not well. He asked if I had more power. As I was operating at 85watts, I did have some room so I upped the power to 110w and called again. This time he was able to pull me out of the noise and we completed our park-to-park contact. It was my only P2P excluding Ralph. I then shutdown the radio and packed up my station. It had been a slow day on the air but is seemed a bit better than two weeks ago. And even with the large mound to our south I managed to reach out to distant places. Radio is really quite remarkable.

Once packed up I walked back to the base of the walkway where Ralph agreed to meet me. We soon were walking along the raised structure crossing the tracks. The drive home went quite quickly as we were further east along the highway and missed the worst congestion. We were also a bit early for the worst of it arriving home at 3pm. It had been a good adventure and we saw some new things in a park neither of us had visited before. Visiting these parks has been a great deal of fun as we see all sorts of new stuff we would never venture out to see otherwise. The POTA program has been a great tool for getting oneself out and about.