March 20, 2022 - Oyama, BC

Bob VE7EZI and Mike VE7KPZ got out of the shack for a little bit of Parks On The Air action this Sunday afternoon. The plan was to activate Kaloya Regional Park VE-5330. For Bob's first POTA activation he would borrow Mike's fancy new radio and related kit and work phone while Mike logged.

It was cold, around 2 C (35 F) and the activation was anything but quick. It seemed like every time a clear spot in the band was found, there was someone else already using it that we could not hear (even with our S2 noise floor). When we finally QSYed up to 14.342 MHz, we must have truly found a clear spot as the calls started to flood in. But, we had to cap it at 18 QSOs as the sun was well behind the clouds and it was getting just a little too cold to continue.

The antenna was Mike's HyEndFed Portable Mini 10/20/40m EFHW between a tree branch (far end) at around 6m/20' and a SOTABEAMS Tactical Mini pole (match end) at around 5m/17' for a slight sloper. The far end pointed due South. A 2.1m (7') length of counterpoise coax, 1:1 un:un common mode choke and then another 4.2m (14') of coax tied in to the radio.

DC power was supplied by Mike's 10 Ah LiFePO4 battery pack, charged via solar - a Powerfilm R14 and a Genasun GV-5 MPPT solar controller.

Mike's IC-705 was utilized and the DIY599 PA500 HF amplifier from Oliver DL4KA was also added to the RF chain. 1.5 watts RF drive power with ~13 V DC powering produced an estimated 35-40 watts of RF output for the antenna. The amp was run in full auto mode using RF VOX where it auto selected the correct band and auto keyed, but we were careful to not overdrive it. Reports about the quality and strength of our signal came in very favourably.

Big kudos to Mike AL7KC who was first in our log.

Here is our contact map from HAMRS:

It was cold but it was fun,
73s,
Bob VE7EZI and Mike VE7KPZ