VE6AB Mobile Ops
Mountain Parks APRS Road Trip
With fall underway, and winter looming on the horizon, I decided that it was time to take a drive through the mountain parks located west of Calgary before the landscape is buried under a blanket of snow.
Actually, the road trip was planned for some time, and my destination on this day was to be Field BC, located about 30 kilometers west of Lake Louise AB.
I had been planning on getting out this way for some time, as I had a photo-shoot in mind for a project that I am working on, and the photos required were in Field.
If you haven't been to Field before, and your visiting in Banff or Yoho National Park, its worth stopping in, as Field is a railway town with history going back to the origins of the CPR (Canadian Pacific Railway). Field is located in the Kicking Horse valley, just a short ways away from the spiral tunnels that allow trains to cross over top of themselves, as they make there way up what was once known as the "Big Hill".
Before the spiral tunnels existed, and in the time of steam locomotives, two 90 ton Shay geared locomotives were on point to pull trains up the big hill. Of course today the spiral tunnels allow trains pulled by diesel/electric locomotives to do the heavy lifting by themselves.
That wasn't the reason that I was in the Kicking Horse valley on this day, but I enjoyed my time chasing after the photos that I came for, and with the captures a done deal, I enjoyed a visit with a friend over a cup of tea before heading back to Alberta.
Another thing of interest on this day was how the CARA (Calgary Amateur Radio Association) digipeaters, the first one located on Protection mountain just north of Lake Louise, and the second digipeater located on Pigeon mountain near Canmore were on their game, hearing and uploading my position reports to aprs.fi as seen by the track I laid down on the map above over the course of the day.
Note....the track is actually two tracks, one made on highway 1 going to Field, and the second made on secondary highway 1A returning from Field.
Of course the CARA digi located in Calgary plays an important part, and between the 3 of them and in combination with the other APRS digipeaters located throughout Alberta, APRS coverage may be as good or better than anywhere else in Canada.
The only time I wasn't being heard was when I drove over the summit of the Great Divide located just west of the Alberta/BC border, as I dropped in to the Kicking Horse valley east of Field.
Of course I am making reference to APRS coverage on VHF, and not RPR APRS on 30 meters HF, my other means of keeping connected from my mobile while travelling in areas with little or no VHF APRS coverage.
While in Banff Park, I also was monitoring the Wildrose repeater network, a series of linked repeaters located throughout the mountain parks of southern Alberta and southern BC.
While travelling on a backroad in the vicinity of Castle mountain and in range of VE6BNF 146.670 - (Banff), I made contact with Tino VE6MB in Calgary, whom I was able to connect with through this system.
At one point Tino was working through VE6WRT 224.940 - (Hailstone) a Wildrose 220 MHz repeater located in southern Alberta, and linked in to this same Wildrose repeater network.
This is the only linked voice repeater network in the southern mountain parks, but gives wide range coverage throughout Banff and Yoho National Parks, as well as the north and south Kootnenay's.
So if your coming to Canada, and plan on visiting the mountain parks in southern Alberta and southern British Columbia, don't forget to pack an HT along, who knows, you may find me going down one of the backroads located in the mountain parks of southern AB or BC.
Click on the photo for a closer look.....
What the Grizzly Bear was up too.....
http://www.jerryclement.ca/Outdoor-Pursuits/WildBirds/i-w9sSxLT
