This year the club decided to hold a field event to work the RAC Winter Contest. We also wanted to combine the event with the activation of a Lighthouse. To do this we had to operate on the only day where the two contests over-lapped – December 18th.  So the date was fixed but the location was open to any of a number of local lighthouse locations. We decided to activate the closest one – the historical Semiahmoo Lighthouse. As the actual location is not available we elected to operate out of the Peace Arch Park picnic area as an approximation for the lighthouse location.

The team gathered at the park at 9am on December 18 and were greeted by a cold blowing wind with rain threatening. Upon arrival we found that all the facilities in the park were locked up – even the tops of the picnic tables! So Eric who was en-route returned home for his day tent and Jim went back for a table. Once we were all at the park we started the setup. Eric concentrated on the tent while Ralph got is dipole antenna erected. That took a couple of tries before it was up to stay. Jay brought a long wire antenna which we also put up for Stuart’s Radio.

Soon we were on the air, and huddled together beneath the tent to stay warm and dry. Jim was the first on the radio and he soon had some contacts from the Maritime Provinces. We continued to operate for a couple of hours on Ralph’s IC-706 while Stuart did some CW on his portable radio. By noon the wind had increased and the rain was more frequent – we were all getting very cold and felt it was time to pack up and get warm. So we closed down the operation and went to a Tim Horton’s for a quick lunch. In the end we made some fun contacts in the RAC contest but didn’t do any calling in the lighthouse event so we decided to not consider it an activation this time-round.