Club members took the opportunity of a beautifully warm Saturday to activate the Kwomais Point Park. Our intent was to do a practice round of setting up a portable station in the field and work a few stations in the W7 region QSO Party. We also felt that the park setting would give us some opportunities to chat with folks about amateur radio.

Club members participating in today’s event were, Ralph (VE7OM), Deme (VE7CRT), Jay (VE7OFH), Ken (VE7KBN) an Eric (VA7NX). We arrived on site at 9am and carted our equipment to a lovely grassy area just past the two buildings. The area we chose had the main park path run alongside of our location and we set up our tables and radio just off the path which gave us many opportunities to talk to people about radio. We initially setup Ralph’s wire loop antenna and tried a number of contacts, we could hear well but breaking into the pile-ups proved difficult.

Later in the morning we tried Jay’s capacitance loop antenna and then Eric’s off-centre fed dipole which he uses in the back-country for his NVIS work. For radio’s we operated an IC-7000 and KX3 along with Ralph’s huge battery for power. It was a good configuration, easy to set up and tear down and simple to operate. It will make a good starting point for our ARRL Field Day event.

Once done with the operating and the disassembly, three of set out for Boston Pizza to enjoy the final part of our outing. Though low in contacts we were high in public exposure and all enjoyed the time out in the park with its amazing view of the bay and the many eagles flying overhead.