Colony Farms Park

The morning was nice and the day ideal for getting out to a park. I had nothing planned but then Ralph called and we decided to head out to try the the Alaksen Wildlife reserve VE-0001 park. It having a unique number for the program, it 1has caught our attention for some time. Alas yet again we were prevented from going, this time due to road work and the bridge being closed. In looking for an alternate site I looked over the Colony Farms site again and confirmed that if we went to the community Gardens portion we could get credit for both parks - the gardens and the surrounding  farm. A twofer sounded great and Ralph agreed so off we went at the high hour of noon.

Traffic was quite light and we made good time to the farms’ parking lot in Port Coquitlam. Once parked we went for a stroll around the area next to the parking lot and the gardens. There were several picnic tables scattered around, a few were inside the actual gardens area. We each picked a table and after collecting our gear we set about organizing our stations. Ralph was going to operate CW on the 17m band while I was going to operate in voice mode on either 12m or 15m.  When I got my radio going I noticed that the background radio noise was quite low which would be a great start, both bands had very little posted activity and since the radio was already on 15m I dialed in the one posted station.

The station came is strong and I soon had my first entry in the log. I moved up band 10KHz and started calling. I posted myself on the parks site and after a slow few minutes of no responses, I soon had a steady stream of hunters responding to my hails. They were coming in fast and often two to four at a time! It kept me busy enough that I couldn’t even get my bottled water out of the case for a drink. But that was fun and I was making contacts from Alaska to Puerto Rico, and New Hampshire to Hawaii. Coverage was amazing I even had one chap in South Carolina get through with a decent signal who was only putting out 1 watt of power!

The numbers kept climbing and I was hesitant to stop as so many were wanting to get through. Meanwhile Ralph was doing ok but his contacts had dried up at 9 so he switched bands and antennas and for some time nothing was getting through. He switched back to his first antenna and moved to the 20m band and suddenly he was hearing many stations responding to him. We figure the second antenna had a fault of some sort. He quickly filled his log with entries and ended with 21 completed contacts.  He called me on my handheld to say he was packing up. So now I had to wind down my pile-up and then pack up my station. I announced my pending termination but got a number more of last minute stations trying to reach me. Eventually there was a gap and I shutdown my radio. Seventy-one logged contacts in a bit over an hour of operating. It was a good run and my best at a park so far.

The day remained pleasant and the location I was at has a table on a small wooden platform that likely was a demonstration area. It was closed so it worked well for me during this off-season period. There was no gardening activity going on this time of year but the area was still busy with lots of people coming for hikes in groups or with their dogs. The trails are long and level so it makes for a pleasant easy walk. Though not overly scenic as the farm is really just an open cleared field, it would still be a very nice spot for a relaxing walk in the sunshine.

Ralph finally returned to my location and I finished packing my gear and then loaded it into the car for the short walk to the car. The drive home went smoothly though traffic had increased a bit and there were some delays at a couple of lights. We stopped at the Starbucks mid-route and spend a bit of time chatting about our achievements and problems over a coffee. A very pleasant day out but now to plan the next.