Chris, VA3CJW, suggested this POTA site, as it was new to both of us, and he is more familiar with that area. We left at 8:30, and it takes about an hour from the QTH to get to Cambridge, ON. The park is on the outskirts of the town, but almost immediately upon entering it feels more like a provincial park. The park has a lot of roads with red- and orange-covered canopies, that are quite beautiful.
Right at the parking area there is a lot of nice structures to get out of the sun or weather if you needed to, thought we elected to get closer to the water. The park is operated by the Grand River Conservation Authority, and the park has a very large number of picnic tables. There were quite a few people at the park, but I gather that it is quite a destination, as the park sign warned that once a certain visitor headcount was reached, they would close the park for entry.
Here's the view we settled on. The weather was another beautiful warm fall day, with the high projected to be 23°C (or 73°F).
We picked two trees in the shade with a picnic table at the perfect location for operating.
Chris started setting up his 40m end-fed antenna in the evergreen tree just to the right of him in the photo. I was lazy, and chose the tree right next to the picnic table. It has a branch that looked fairly good, though to be honest it was much lower than I had thought. I swear every weekend it's like Groundhog's day, and I keep "rediscovering" that the radiating element attached to the QRP Guys Random Wire Antenna "is longer than I remembered".
It might be hard to see, but the radiating element is practically doubling-back on itself. Some linear combination of laziness, optimism, and curiosity made me keep the antenna up, and see what would happen.
Chris took this shot of me operating while he was still setting up. I started out on 40m, which is relatively novel for me, as I usually roll into a park around noon and I hop straight to 20m, but today 40m was hopping and had a nice pile-up for a while.
I operated for about half an hour on 40m, and had a lot of fun! I ended with a quick QSO with Eric, K9VIC, whose great intermediate class at LICW has been great fun these last several months. I noticed it was already his third park that day, and he is one hour earlier timezone-wise, so he's more adept at early mornings than I am!
Chris was all set to activate, so I took a break and helped log for a little while and have a small snack. Chris did very well, and got some good QSOs to Utah. Chris operated his Yaesu FT-900 with a beefy 30 aH battery, so he was able to hunt some parks that were difficult for me to break through on.
After a half hour I went back on the air to see what 20m was like. The bands were very kind and I got some good QSOs to South Dakota and California! Propagation must have been excellent to get California on a non-resonant antenna, deployed poorly, on 5w! At the end I tried my luck on 15m, and managed to get one QSO in Florida.
Here's a map of my QSOs. Blue indicates 40m, green 20m, and yellow 15m.
| Date | Time | Call | State | Band | Mode | Park |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025/10/05 | 14:29 | W4LYH | NY | 40m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 14:30 | W9NVY | IN | 40m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 14:31 | KØGLG | WI | 40m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 14:32 | W8AJF | OH | 40m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 14:33 | VE3LDT | ON | 40m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 14:34 | W4PJW | VA | 40m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 14:35 | N8JY | MI | 40m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 14:36 | KE8PTX | MI | 40m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 14:38 | WD9DWX | IN | 40m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 14:40 | W8LUT | OH | 40m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 14:43 | WB8JAY | OH | 40m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 14:43 | W8ATE | MI | 40m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 14:44 | K8ETA | OH | 40m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 14:48 | N1XV | NJ | 40m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 14:49 | VE3UWA | ON | 40m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 14:52 | N9EDL | IN | 40m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 14:53 | K1LGM | CT | 40m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 14:54 | KD2WBX | NY | 40m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 14:56 | K3MRK | PA | 40m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 14:57 | WB2WGX | NY | 40m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 14:58 | WB2MQQ | NY | 40m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 14:59 | VA3CP | ON | 40m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 15:05 | K9VIC | IL | 20m | CW | US-4120 |
| 2025/10/05 | 15:05 | N9ANA | IL | 20m | CW | US-4120 |
| 2025/10/05 | 15:42 | AB4KN | GA | 20m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 15:44 | KD2GUT | NY | 20m | CW | US-12166 |
| 2025/10/05 | 15:45 | KØFB | SD | 20m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 15:47 | AD9A | IL | 20m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 15:49 | N6HU | CA | 20m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 15:52 | KG4ODH | GA | 20m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 15:52 | K9IS | WI | 20m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 15:53 | KM4QNA | AL | 20m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 15:55 | W6QW | CA | 20m | CW | |
| 2025/10/05 | 16:04 | NA9M | WI | 20m | CW | US-9773 |
| 2025/10/05 | 16:13 | K4NYX | FL | 15m | CW | US-3654 |
It was a wonderful day of radio in a great park; the weather was fantastic for Ontario in early October! The days are getting a lot shorter and the nights are cooler, and it's just a matter of time before winter is upon us, and so I am very grateful to get some last time in the outdoors!
