Two Activations in One Day

With the itch to get out and do an activation growing, and a Friday with no commitments scheduled, I started eyeing the POTA map looking for promising opportunities that might require only a modest drive.

Having had a great deal of fun activating two parks on Camano Island, my attention fell on two parks not far from there - Bayview State Park (US-3157) and Blanchard State Forest (US-5566), both of which had the interesting feature that it was possible to activate each of those parks as a two-fer with Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail (US-4563).

There were further inducements: Bayview SP features a beach parking area with panoramic views Padilla Bay to Anacortes and to the San Juan Islands, and you can pick up the two-fer in Blanchard State Forest at a spot called the Samish Overlook, which features breathtaking views over Bellingham Bay and Samish Bay to the San Juans, and also south across the Skagit valley to Burlington. To add some extra spice, you get the saltwater advantage at Bayview SP, and some 1300 feet of altitude at Samish Overlook.

The two parks are a little under a two hour drive from my home, so I headed out at about 9am PST with a plan to activate at Bayview SPfor a couple of hours, then drive over to Blanchard SF and activate there, and then drive home, arriving just in time to make myself a late dinner.

Bayview SP (US-3157)

I arrived at Bayview SP a little bit before 11am PST, and set about choosing a spot to activate. There was a lovely shelter right next to parking which would have been an ideal spot to work from, alas, there was a truck and trailer running a very loud generator nonstop, and the audio QRM made that infeasible.

So I trundled the length of the beach to get away from the noise, and set up operations in the back seat (to avoid the remaining noise) with the 17’ whip on top of the car and the IC-7300 in the car running 50W SSB.

Spinning the dial to listen to various bands and do a little hunting, I came across KK7PZE activating Tonto National Forest (US-4432), so I started the day with an SSB Park to Park contact in the log. That was followed by 10 minutes of fussing with the antenna and the IC-7300 tuner, which sadly is not as capable as the tuner in the G90.

That was followed up by 9 contacts on 20m SSB in about 15 minutes, before I started getting QRM’ed by another station. Moving to 17m to my surprise I had a little trouble finding a clear frequency. Once set up, though, in 10 minutes I reeled in five contacts, including Australia, Ontario, and Sweden.

When 17m started to go dry, I adjusted the whip and moved up to 15m. To my surprise, I had little action on 15m, getting only two contacts before I decided to move on to 12m. On 12m, in about 10 minutes I scored 9 contacts, including my POTA friend Mike AL7KC in AK, Sweden again (same caller, Peder SM2SUM), and New Zealand (Grant ZL1KVA).

When 12m felt exhausted, I moved on to 10m, where things were hopping and I got 4 contacts in four minutes. At that point, having activated 5 bands on SSB and with the clock ticking, I wanted to do a little CW. I rapidly set up the KX2 and MC-750 at a picnic table with a wonderful view and got busy on 12m, where in 10 minutes I got 4 contacts, including CW contacts from SM2SUM and AL7KC.

Recognizing that I needed to get a move on if I wanted to have adequate time at Blanchard SF, I packed it all back into the car and headed out.

Blanchard SF (US-5566)

It’s about a half hour drive from Bayview SP to the Samish Overlook, said drive including a fairly slow section on a somewhat rough gravel road up to the overlook.

I arrived about 2pm PST, and took a few minutes to use the vault toilet and enjoy the view. With those important tasks complete, and being sick of working from the car, I set up the IC-7300 on a picnic table a short distance from the parking and with an incredible view.

My plan on arrival was to run through the bands 20m through 10m just as I’d done SSB at Bayview SP, and then move on to CW at the end. I didn’t have much time, and although it was only about 55F the stiff breeze meant I was getting cold rapidly.

On 20m, 5 minutes netted me 8 contacts. On 17m, I had a steady stream of callers and some brief pileups and netted 14 contacts in about 12 minutes. On 15m, I got 18 contacts in about 15 minutes, including Alejandro XE1UYS in Mexico and Mike AL7KC up in AK. With an eye on the clock, and with my hands getting quite cold, I moved on to 12m, I got 6 contacts in 6 minutes, including Shin JL8PZO. Getting very cold, but still having a wildly good time, I moved on to 10m, where I got 10 contacts in 10 minutes, including Mike VK4MWL in New Zealand.

At this point I was just about out of time and very cold, and with my hands quite stiff from the cold I decided to pass on doing CW. Instead I packed everything back into the car, climbed inside, turned on the seat and steering wheel heaters, cranked the climate control up to 75F, and headed home.

Box Score

Total QSOs: 105
Park to Park: 8
Total CW QSOs: 4
Time spent operating: 3.5 hours
Solo CW bonus points: 4
Pleasant weather bonus: 0
Favorite Picnic Table points: 2

Driving time: ~4:10   Things lost: 0
Things broken: 0
Equipment frustration time: 15 minutes
Vital gear not included in loadout: 0

Final Fun-O-Meter^(tm) reading: 10.5