June 27-28, 2020
Jane VE7WWJ and Mike VE7KPZ once again went roving for another radio event. The QTH is a place of QRM - there's no better place to play radio than in the woods.
The event was ARRL Field Day 2020. The plan was to run in the 1BB class, battery/solar powered QRP to get some bonus points and a really big power multiplier. This would be the team's first time operating QRP, but more on that later.
Terrace Mountain had always intrigued us, staring at us from across the lake from our QTH in Vernon so we decided to explore the area. Lorne VE7LWK had once recounted a great story of taking his quad to the top of the mountain. If he could get there on a quad, so could we in a 7 metric ton Unimog, right?
The adventure started Thursday afternoon, South on Westside Road to just past La Casa and then into the Bear Creek OHV area from the Northeast.
The trails were fun and just passable for the big truck. Several good radio spots were marked with waypoints in the GPS but we continued on to the Bear Creek OHV recreation site to spend the night there all alone but for the mosquitos.
Friday was another day of exploring. A potential site to operate from was Dua Lipa Lake just to the West of (behind) Terrace Mountain. But we really wanted to bag the Terrace Mountain peak.
On our way to find a trail to the peak Jane spotted an Omega Communications truck. With a quick call on the radio we requested the assistance of the two remaining Jesses from Omega to gain the summit. The Jesses quickly found the trail and went to work at their sites atop the mountain while we attempted to take a shortcut on a way-too-small-and-off-camber-for-our-truck trail. After cutting a turnaround in the bush, we quickly retraced our steps and then found the right way up to the peak.
Atop the mountain we found epic views of the surrounding area.
The Jesses gave us a quick overview of their planned maintenance activities and a mini shack tour. With COVID risk still about we could only peer in from well beyond the shack door. It was nice to see a lot of Daniels gear in service at their solar-powered mountain-top shack - exactly what Daniels gear is designed for.
After a quick lunch in the camper we bid the Jesses farewell and headed back down the mountain to find a site for Field Day. A spot by the Big Horn Lake reservoir caught our eye and nobody was in it. We snagged it. It was perfect. A bit of wind to keep the bugs away, a bit of sun to keep the solar charging and a tall tree 40 meters from the truck to hang the antenna.
Camp was established and dinner BBQed, followed by a good night's sleep.
The next morning's task was to setup the HyEndFed Field Day (fitting name) 80m thru 10m EFHW wire antenna. Mike utilized his crossbow for line setting duties and it worked perfectly first shot. Soon the antenna was up and it was time to operate.
5 watts is hard. Well, it's hard for phone. We quickly switched over to FT8 as 5 watts got us a lot more action there, not to mention the double QSO points for digital contacts vs phone contacts. We worked the event quite hard with Jane taking on most of the digital work and Mike taking on the phone action. Whomever wasn't working the radio made food and drink.
Two operators for our one-radio battery and solar powered station got us easy results. We put 19 phone and 60 digital QSOs in the log and with applicable bonuses scored a total of 945!
What we missed, however, was the rest of the NORAC gang. This year NORAC members decided to have a distributed Field Day, given Bonnie Henry's suggested physical distancing guidelines in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. This meant there would not be a party a Ralph VA7NU's back field with 75+ club members and guests attending like other years. Fortunately, when submitting our Field Day entry to the ARRL all of us can put North Okanagan Radio Amateur Club as our club designator so that our personal scores can all be added together. Perhaps we'll win top club in Canada? We'll see when the results are published in QST later this year.
On Sunday after the event was officially done, we packed up and headed home to resupply for our next roving radio adventure: the RAC Canada Day contest at Island Lake.
It was fun,
Mike VE7KPZ
NORAC Vice President 2017-2020, Tech Committee Member and Roving Radio Contester