Topham Park

Topham Park in located in the Walnut Grove area of North Langley. It is a park with lots of wide-open grass spaces. To the south is Topham school which uses the fields in the park, on the north end is a community garden where local residents grow vegetables. There is a wide border of trees separating the two areas and a few pathways for people to walk exercising their dogs.

I set out for Topham around 12:20 and made for north Surrey. The navcom found another new interesting route to take. It seems that it is offering me many new views of Surrey and Langley enroute to my destinations. The varying routes definitely add to the adventure. I arrived at the community garden parking area and noticed some city workers parked there. There was a lawn cutting tractor on a trailer and since the grass could use a cutting, I was worried they would be cutting the lawn on me. I talked with one of the workers but he wasn’t sure about the lawn cutting, the driver of the truck with the mower also wasn’t sure, go figure. I guess they just drive around with it for show.

The area next to the garden was a broad grassy field with trees along the south side. I was able to select a nice spot mid-field but still shaded by the trees. Other than the line of trees it seemed an ideal location for an antenna. I set up the wire and hooked up the radio. I did a quick pass over the 20m band and heard a number of busy stations so I decided to move directly to 15m. On 15m I saw a couple of parks on the list and I dialed in one. After a couple tries, he heard my park-to-park comment and called me in. He was located in Texas and we both had descent signals. Well, that was the first contact. I selected a frequency up band from him and began my calling It took a few minutes to get a response but then I was making more on a regular basis.

After a half hour of calling, I had reached the needed 10 contacts, but as I was having some success I kept calling and soon had 16 in the log. I decided to try the 10m band and so switched to it to continue. I had 3 more contacts in quick order, two from Ontario and the third from Michigan. As I had enough and still felt ambitious, I decided to give the 12m band a go. I selected a frequency and started calling. It took a few minutes but then I had another Michigan station in the log. After calling for awhile more without success, I decided to give up on 12m and try pouncing on an activation on 20m. It didn’t take long to have a second park to park contact, this time with a station in Minnesota.

I now had 21 contacts in the log across four different bands. Since the time was getting on, I decided to pack up and go get a coffee. I had been operating for an hour 15 so it was a decent speed of contacts. The change of bands added to the challenge and fun of the activation. I have worked four bands now at a single activation and perhaps next time I can add a fifth. Once packed up I took a short drive to the Starbucks I seem to be becoming a regular at in Walnut Grove. Then the navcom presented me with another new route to follow for the way home. Lots of adventure for the short outing.