The club members decided to participate in the annual Spring Lites QSO Party again this year by activating Point Atkinson in Lighthouse Park. This year Eric (VE7EGK), Deme (VE7CRT), Jim (VE7UVL) and Jay (VE7OFH) signed on to operate at the park. We arrived around 10am April 18, 2009 to good weather and a busy park. After loading up the cart to carry our equipment the 1km trip along the service road we were finally at the clearing next to the lighthouse and ready to setup the equipment.

We surveyed the area around the lighthouse and selected a spot that had a few tables and a pleasant grassy area which was just below the main viewpoint overlooking the lighthouse. Jim then dragged his cart up the rock face to provide a better ground plane for the small vertical antenna we would be using. Soon we were on the air with Jays IC-706 and hearing a number of stations working the Michigan QSO party. We soon learned that we were able to hear much better than transmit and by the end of the day we had only 2 phone and 2 CW hf contacts. Jim also worked a Whitehorse station on IRLP!

Though our QSO count was  low we did enjoy our time at the park and had numerous opportunities to share what we were doing with passersby. It was a great PR event if not great for contacts. After a few hours in the sun and pollen we packed up the equipment and hauled it back to the car. We then headed to Stanley Park where we scouted out Brockton Point for a possible site to participate in the August Lighthouse event.