A visit to Mount Newton

I was back in the Victoria area for a few days of R&R. This time I planned to do some radio activations and enjoy some outdoor activities. For the radio portion I planned to visit Mount Newton in John Dean Park. The location counts as both a Summits-on-the-air and Parks-on-the-air site as it is listed in both programs. This would be ideal as the amount of hiking is quite minimal and would allow me to enjoy the stay rather than fight the climb. 

I set out from the hotel at 11am and made decent time up the Saanich peninsula to the park. The drive as without incident and allowed me to enjoy the passing scenery as I moved out of the city into the more open rural areas of Saanich. Soon I was driving the park road and pulling into a parking stall. The site only has around 8 spots but there were two open. I parked, donned my backpack and set out along the short trail to the viewpoint which is just below the summit. I was alone the entire time, it being a week-day the number of visitors was lower than a week-end.  Arriving at the viewing stand, I thought again at how little view was left at the spot as trees had grown and hidden the view.

I began to assemble my radio equipment for the activation. I was getting messages from my friend Ralph back at home saying he and a few others were waiting for me to get on the air, so I needed to get moving. While I was assembling my yagi I got three of the 4 elements attached and the went to attach the main driven element only to discover that the bolt that screws the two halves together through the boom was missing. After a brief search I determined it was not to be found. The antenna was useless without a driven element so I needed to figure a solution if I was to make any radio contacts.

I needed a rod to hold the two sections, I was outside in a Gary oak forest and so I looked over the nearby trees and found a small twig which may work. It fit into the holes where the bolt should be but it wasn’t tight enough to secure the pieces. I scoured my backpack for spare parts and used a plastic clip to hold the driven half to the boom. I then took one of my silicon reuseable twist ties to secure the top half to the boom. The two halves lined up well and looked close to normal. I then put out a call to Ralph. He responded immediately with a report of good signal strength. Other club members followed, and I had my first contacts in the log. The patched together antenna was working well.

Done with my fellow club members I proceeded to make more contacts with stations from Victoria to Friday Harbour and Vancouver. After around 25 minutes I had 12 in the log and shutdown the station. As I was doing so a couple of hikers came by, the first people I saw at the park. We chatted for a few minutes they lamented the loss of view but they did encourage me to go to the bluff viewpoint. Once my gear was packed up I decided to hike to Pickle Bluff and see what they meant. 

In all my prior visits I had skipped going as it was down slope from where I was, and I didn’t want the extra elevation change. Today I had lots of time and decided to check it out. The trail was only about 500m and the elevation drop about 30m so it really wasn’t too hard. The view from the bluff top was quite lovely and very much worth the effort. I do think I will return on my next visit. After gathering a number of photos, I returned to the car and drove back to the hotel feeling that the day was a great success and the challenge of getting the yagi operational a fun problem-solving challenge. As one ham told me while we were chatting, finding ways to jury-rig a station onto the air is a major feature of the hobby! And so, it was. Once back home I will need to find a new bolt for the element and glue it to one side.