Chris, VA3CJW, was kind enough to drive to this park from my house, that 75 km from Oakville. We met Greg, VA3XLM, at his house in Binbrook, and drove from there. Greg was kind enough to use his membership card to gain entrance. This park was my 71st distinct POTA entity.
The park entrance, shown below, is located at 3292 Sixth Ave, in Lincoln, Ontario. The park is also part of the Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Reserve, (CA-0063), as well as World Flora and Fauna entity, VEFF-2548. The park is park of the Niagara Peninsula Conservation system, and described here: Ball's Falls.
Here's the park entrance and parking lot. There is a nice welcome centre with light refreshments etc.
We chose to take a hike around the park, and to look at the falls, allowing us to also scope-out a good place to activate. We followed the trail for about 1 km to the falls.
Along the water the trees still had some lovely fall colors.
The park has nice signage explaining the old buildings. They have posts with QR-codes that take you to pages that have a description. The first of these gives the following (excerpted from here).
To the right of the trail you will see the ruins of the Glen Elgin Woollen Mill. The structure was built in the early 1830’s by George Ball. John and George Ball established the early settlement known as Ball’s Fall or Glen Elgin after the Revolutionary War forced the loyalists to move north into Canada. The local geological resources and waterfalls made this area ideal for an early settlement.
Go to the link to get many more pictures and text describing the area.
Continuing along the embankment.
We found a nice large tree that we could both deploy an antenna into on separate branches, and we did the usual activation style where I quickly try to get my 10 QSOs, passing it then to Chris. Here's an activation picture Chris (right), and Greg (left) helping out.
I got 13 QSOs in about half an hour. All 5w CW with the KX-2 and end-fed random wire antenna, and all on 20m.
| Date | Time | Call | State | Band | Mode | Park |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025/11/01 | 17:55 | K3RTA | DE | 20m | CW | |
| 2025/11/01 | 17:59 | KQ1P | ME | 20m | CW | |
| 2025/11/01 | 18:02 | K9ID | IL | 20m | CW | |
| 2025/11/01 | 18:04 | W2GIW | NJ | 20m | CW | |
| 2025/11/01 | 18:07 | N9FGC | IN | 20m | CW | |
| 2025/11/01 | 18:11 | N1ME | ME | 20m | CW | |
| 2025/11/01 | 18:12 | N3DC | MD | 20m | CW | |
| 2025/11/01 | 18:13 | WI9Q | IN | 20m | CW | |
| 2025/11/01 | 18:15 | WA1VEI | MA | 20m | CW | |
| 2025/11/01 | 18:17 | W4SV | TN | 20m | CW | |
| 2025/11/01 | 18:18 | WA2SPL | VT | 20m | CW | |
| 2025/11/01 | 18:20 | WA4JK | AL | 20m | CW | |
| 2025/11/01 | 18:28 | WC1N | MA | 20m | CW | US-4735 |
In all, it was a lovely afternoon playing radio, and it was nice to spend some time with both Chris and Greg talking and drinking coffee!