Little Cates Park

After Ralph and my trip to Rolley Lake we looked for another park to visit together. Ralph wanted to start on the North Shore group and so I selected Little Cates Park. One bonus aspect of Little Cates is that it is on our list and is really a piece of the larger Cates Park. In POTA, since both are on the list by operating in Little Cates one can get credit for doing both or as in POTA parlance a two-fer!

Ralph arrived at my place a bit before 11 and we were quickly on the road to the coffee shop and then the park. Though distance to this park was similar to the one to Rolley it was much quicker as we were on the highway almost the entire trip. Even with the coffee stop, we arrived at the park before noon. We first drove through the main area of Cates Park noting all the amenities there were. Then we returned to Dollarton Road and drove to Little Cates. There we found a spot to park on the side of the road. This area has pickle ball courts a kids play area, a few picnic tables and lots of grass to enjoy. Of course, the whole park is nestled in the corner of where Indian Arm joins with Burrard Inlet, so there is a lot of shoreline here.

Once parked, Ralph and I wandered across the grass for the shoreline trail and we walked it south and then west along the inlet. I gathered a few scenic photos of the water and beach. It is really a very pretty sport. I will need to return to just enjoy the scenery. Done with touring the area we decided on our operating locations and returned to the car. Ralph had picked a spot up the slope from the car near the courts. I decided to use a table to the east and near the shoreline. It would give us a good amount of separation.

Once the cart was loaded, I made my way to the table and started to set up my mast. As I lifted the sections I realized that it was too close to a tree so I moved further out and there I finished raising the antenna. This table was right next to the walkway people were following and it was moderately busy. During my time there I had lots of people stop to ask about the set up. Soon I had the gear in place and I called Ralph on my 2m handheld. He responded that he was almost ready. I waited a bit and decided to eat my lunch. Soon Ralph called back and I had my first contact in the log. With us both in two parks each of our joint contacts counted for four.

One of the challenges in POTA is to make contacts across 10 different radio bands. Today Ralph and I were prepared to try for that. We started on 2m, then tried our handhelds on 70cm but we couldn’t complete that so we moved on to 10m and soon completed the 10,12,15,17,20,40,60 and 80m bands. That gave us 9 of the needed 10. We decided to get busy talking to others and revisit the 70cm problem when done. I returned to 10m and listened for other activators. I finally found a chap I could hear and I contacted him. It turned out he was across the inlet in a small park next to Stanley Park! Such a long-distance start to my calls! Finishing with him, I picked my own frequency and began my calling I soon had a decent stream of stations responded to my hails. The locations included one from Argentina and another from Venezuela. It’s always nice to have a couple of exotics for the day’s effort. After Ralph’s calls I had 23 more in the log from stations across the Americas. Ralph meanwhile had made a number of contacts as well.

We had enough in the log and so we decided to pack up and see if we could fix the 70cm issue so that we wouldn’t have to leave with only 9 of the 10 bands. Once the gear was stowed, we kept out our handhelds and started to analyze the issue. I could hear Ralph calling on my radio but he could not hear me though he saw an increase in RF level when I pushed the talk button. So, it seemed that my microphone was not working.  I had normally used this radio with an external mike but I didn’t have that with me. I grabbed my other radio’s mike and pushed its jack into my radio to see if it would work but it didn’t, I removed it. But now my built-in microphone started working and Ralph could hear me. We completed the 70cm contact! It seems that the jack connector in my handheld had not closed properly when I removed the external mike and so the internal mic was left disconnected. Shoving the jack in and out got it to close properly. It was a relief getting that radio fixed. We had our 10 bands of contacts and felt the adventure was a complete success. Now to face the traffic and head home, but not before trying out a new Starbucks. We passed one just as we turned on to Dollarton on our way in so it wasn’t far to go. The drive home took longer than coming as there was now a fair amount of traffic and the highway was very slow in a number of places.

It was a very pleasant outing and we enjoyed some fresh sea air and a chance to sit and enjoy the outdoors. Little Cates is a very pleasant location and worth a return visit. Perhaps next week we will return to the area and work Myrtle Park just a bit further along Dollarton.

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