Albert's Nature Reserve
Spring is here. Time to get radio active.
My WWFF activation for season 2025 start with this nature reserve (OHFF-1837). I asked my friend Jani, OH8DPM — a newly licensed ham — to join me and get the feeling of what this radio amateurs’ and nature stuff is all about.
Our target nature reserve is just 11 km north from city center of Oulu, Finland near lake called Uikulanjärvi. The lake and surrounding areas are Natura 2000 nature protection area. We approached the area from east via small and beaten track and enjoyed the bumpy ride with Subaru. I’m clad I didn’t wash my car nor change the studded tires to summer tires before this trip. The track consisted of huge pot holes, mud, ice and deep pools of water on top of whatever madness was under it.
Before turning to this beaten track from bigger road (Alakyläntie) it’s easy to spot a peculiar tower on east side of the road. It’s a ice climbing wall. A venue to host UIAA Ice Climbing European Cup on many years.
We took our time and drove carefully to our destination. It might have been possible to get the car just inside the required area but since we came prepared we took our backpacks and headed inside the forest to find good spot for a temporary activation camp.
Before heading out the weather forecast promised us partly cloudy day with +6°C so I had my tarp with me to protect us from a possible cold breeze. But this time the forecast was pessimistic and we could set up our tarp to give us shade from the baking hot sun and sky without any clouds.
The setup was easy: we found a good spot for my 80m EFHW antenna and I had all the gear we needed with me. Antenna was in good enough tune so I sent a spot to cluster and started to get contacts. During the first half hour I got 30 contacts on my log on 40m band including one park-to-park contact with Jari, OH3KRH as he was activating OHFF-1925 in southern Finland.
After 40m contacts had dried out it was time to switch band to 20m where we could expect contacts from all around Europe. And I got contacts to Poland, Italy, Spain, Germany and Ukraine.
HF propagation was not good and it was apprent from received reports. And after nobody else was on 20m we had 41 contacts on log. Three more to go for activation point…
Back to 40m. New spot on cluster and OH3LS answered my call. We rag chewed a bit to show traffic on people’s waterfalls and then contacts started flowing in again. 13 new contacts to log in 10 minutes. Great!
It was time to brew our victory coffee and eat our cinnamon buns. But we kept radio running and I had my eyes on the cluster. Juha, OH8CW was doing an activation in OHFF-1100. I could barely hear him talking with only 5W of transmit power but we completed the contact. It’s always amazing how I could talk to Spain and Italy, but 9 km contact between me and OH8CW was almost impossible. Maybe both of us had our antenna minimums towards each other since he was west from us.
Then I could take my time to relax and enjoy my hot brew and bun. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. Sun was shining. It was warm and no bugs in sight except some ants and spiders.
“Once more?” I asked Jani and sent one more self spot to cluster on 40m. And we got seven more contacts including one more park-to-park with OH2DJY to OHFF-0522.
To conclude this trip I can only say it was really enjoyable success. Over 60 contacts from northern Finland with 10W and end-fed antenna is great achievement for me.
Operation details
* Date: 2025–04–18
* Time on air: 09:15—12:00 UTC (local time 12:15—15:00, UTC+0300)
* Callsign on air: OH8HUB/P (op. Ossi)
* Maidenhead grid: KP25SC65UL
* WWFF ref: OHFF-1837, "Albertin luonnonsuojelualue"