Buckingham Park

Today I was out doing a solo park activation. It has been almost four months since my last solo park though I did a couple of solo summits in Victoria back in July. I am finding that going with someone adds to the fun of the adventure but today Ralph was teaching at BCIT. Since he had already activated this park, I felt it was a good choice for my adventure.  I checked the band conditions in the morning and saw that the higher bands looked good, so I set out a bit after 10am and made for the park.

Buckingham Park is in the South-east area of Burnaby and is quite close to Deer Lake. It is on the north slope of a hill but near the summit area. I made good time along the highways and even through New Westminster. I arrived at the park and parked along side the road near a small grassy patch inside the upper portion of the park. This park is surrounded by houses and follows a creek that drops through a small gorge which is now surrounded by the park area.

After parking I went for a walk around the park. There is a walkway on the lower north end of the park that connects my side of the park to the far lower area which I took. The lowest part of the park has another small grass area that would be OK to operate in, but it is lower and has more tree coverage. I then followed a second trail that follows along the creek back up to the high side near the upper grass area. There was a group of women on the path studying various items of interest as they made their way up the trail. I passed by them while gathering a few photos of the creek.

Back to my car I reviewed the open grass area and determined the direction to set up my antenna. I then raised the mast and set up the small table that club member Jim had given me. I was able to keep my chair on the sidewalk for stability and soon I was scanning the band for contacts. There were a few stations posted on the upper bands but in the end, I could only hear one on 15m who was calling from South Dakota. Having finished with him I selected an open frequency above his and spotted myself on the list. The noise level at the park wasn’t too bad on 15m despite the local houses so that was encouraging. Soon I had a weak station come by. It was from a chap in Spain. Right after him, a Minnesota station responded to my hail and then another from Spain and one from France! I was reaching Europe with great signals this morning.

After a contact with a station in Michigan I was contacted by a station in Italy. I had two more stations from Spain come through making it 4. I was surprised to have six European responses at one activation. The day was proving to be a very good one for radio and by the time I packed up, after 50 minutes, I had 21 contacts with four being park-to-park. But my legs and back were getting sore sitting there and since I had more than needed, I decided to stop.

While sitting there a few people came by wondering what I was up to. One older lady was quite surprised that ham radio was still going on but she was glad that someone was out there at the park doing it. Once packed up I set out for the nearest Starbucks. It happened to be only 2km away and on Kingsway. A short drive though the side streets and I was at the mall though it took a circle around to find a way into the covered parking lot. I soon had the drink in hand and was back at the car. The drive home went smoothy. I was actually surprised at how close I was to the main road I needed to get back to the highway. The last segment through New Westminster was quite slow with traffic but once on the highway I made great time back home.

The solo event had proven to be quite positive. With good band conditions it didn’t take much time and effort to get the required number of contacts into the log. I guess I will need to get out and do more solos again. Likely I will work on getting the next level of repeats at Campbell Valley. Only 17 more to reach the 60 mark!