Camping and POTAhttps://postimg.cc/z3yDJ1kJ

[Adam_VE3FP]

Great week at Oastler Lake PP near Parry Sound; camping, fishing and some ham radio activity, mainly POTA. XYL wasn't happy since no TV reception but ham radio always works!  After getting all settled in, I got the 40m and 20m Ham Sticks with 36ft radials adjusted for best SWR using NanoVNA but couldn't make any contacts. 

Since that campsite was big enough to put up my home brew T2FD antenna. With some fiddling around to get it strung up between the branches, managed to get it up abt 30ft. Did a SWR sweep with the NanoVNA and Wallah, we're on the air . I was quite pleased with the performance of the T2FD again. 





Most of the contacts made were on 40 and 20m. CW. I tried few times on 80 and 15 but didn't make any on those.
It was a fun week even during the rainy days. Look forward to the next trip.

[VA3KOT John]

We just got back from a short 3 night stay at Mikisew Provincial Park near South River. It's quite busy and noisy in July but has great beaches on Eagle Lake.

I took my portable HF rig and a shorty end-fed half-wave for 80m. I got my line up 42 feet over a tree branch (I measured the height using a known length of paracord) and pulled my wire up to about 35 feet, configured as an inverted-V.

The SFI was down at 71 and the bands were very noisy but I managed 13 CW QSOs for a valid POTA activation on Tuesday 13th July, and another 15 QSOs for a second activation of the same park (VE-0300) the next day. I also checked into the Dufferin CW net on 80m for a great half hour rag chew with my friends in Shelburne on Wednesday.

I was struggling on 40m; contacts in Ontario (just one) were probably too close and many POTA hunters in the US were too far away considering the poor daytime band conditions on 40m. So, I switched to 20m and had much better luck there.

One observation about my inverted-V; the angle between the arms of the antenna was barely 90 degrees the first day. Before operating on the second day I relocated the tie-off point of one end to a different tree to increase the angle and improved my SWR noticeably.

Footnote: Doug VE3DGY, also stayed at Mikisew on the Tuesday night but we didn't get a chance to meet up.

[Adam_VE3FP]

FB John on camping at Mikisew PP, we were there last year in September. I didn't do any POTA but I did the CWops contest on Wednesday. I didn't find the conditions too bad once the T2FD was up. Great antenna if you have room to put it up. Most of the operating I've done was early in the morning and after 8:00pm. except the day we had the rain. 
One thing I found, some ops must have been using CW decoders because if I asked to repeat QTH or Exchange I would get different results. Anyway, it was fun and kudos to ones trying cw.
We may do couple local trips before we head out to another North park in August.