Fraser View Park

The day was very nice for getting outdoors and though I hadn’t planned to head out, I just couldn’t resist. This was the park I had hoped to activate earlier in the week but the weather scared me off. Today it was warm and sunny, no reason to stay home. I loaded up the car and set out around 1:15. A later start but with the recent time change it really was the same time of day as before. I made good time to north Surrey and soon was approaching the park.

I had planned to park alongside the southern section of the park where there is a large dog area but the road had no parking signs even though it was a widened road just for parking. Even with the no parking signs there was one truck parked there. Rather than risk it, I continued along to a side road and parked along that side of the park and near the main pathway entrance. I loaded the cart and wandered in. The path led straight to the dog area but it was also pointed in the right direction for my preferred antenna orientation. I therefore went in a short way and selected a spot next to the path. I then stung out the antenna parallel to the path way.

Once set up, I dialed in the 10m band and noticed a pronounced high noise floor. It seemed to be consistent across the bands. Hoping to reduce it a bit, I decided to setup my noise cancellation unit. I was not sure if it helped much but some settings could sure make things worse! So perhaps it did help a bit. I moved to the 15m band and called a station that was posted, I was able to work him with reasonable signals but the noise was making it hard to hear.  I moved over to my own frequency and started calling. After a few minutes I had a Louisiana station respond with a fair signal. A minute later a flood of responders came through many with very difficult signals and some I just couldn’t make out in the noise. The callers were spread out from New York, Ontario, Kentucky, North Carolina through Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois, Georgia, Florida and even a California station. Most were on the eastern side of the continent today.

The local area was very noisy, it reminded me of another park very close-by that was also extremely bad for local noise. This area of Surrey seems to have a high RF noise level. I am glad I don’t live around there. By 2:30 I had 35 contacts in the log and after announcing my soon departure I managed a few more before closing down. When done, I had 41 contacts today, I likely could have continued and logged many more but I was getting hot in the sun and I felt it was time to head home. As I was packing up a local resident came by to talk to me about the set up. She was a retired teacher and found the whole program quite interesting. I gave her one the new POTA brochures I had updated so she could read more about the program.

As I was taking down the mast, I managed to nick my palm on a sharp bit of the fiberglass. It was bleeding quite a bit considering how small it was. I decided I needed to get to a washroom to clean it up and hopefully to get it to stop bleeding. Checking the navcom, it showed me a Starbucks only 900m to the south! I finished packing up and made for the store. It was a new one to me, the staff were friendly as always and though they were having some issues with supplies running low I eventually got my drink and my hand cleaned up. The store was north of highway 1 on 160th, when the navcom plotted a route home it had me stay on 160 over the freeway and then move to 168 for the rest of the drive home. I noticed that the main route – 176th was backed up in red congested areas whereas 168 was clear. It does seem to take congestion into its plans fairly well.

The drive home went smoothly and without any long delays. The park though RF noisy was still a nice place to set up in with lots of open grass. A number of people wandered by asking quick questions with only one seriously interested. It would be a good spot if not for the noise floor. Fortunately, I did manage a good number of contacts and with the warm sun it made for a very pleasant time out.