VA3KS, Kieren Shepherd, became a silent key on 24 November 2023. Kieren was a local Ottawa ham and an avid POTA activator with 560 park activations from 263 unique parks, making over 5000 QSOs, the vast majority of which were made as an activator (I suspect most, if not all, of his hunter QSOs were from Park-to-Park contacts made while he was in a park).

As I was unable to attend Kieran’s memorial service on Friday 8 December 2023, I thought I would activate one of his favourite POTA parks in his memory. On checking the stats for VE-4882, the Rideau Canal National Historic Site, I saw that Kieren was top of the activator list with 49 activations and over 2500 QSOs from that park alone, and so I chose to activate along the Rideau River close to my home QTH in Kemptville.

The weather for the activation was hovering around zero degrees and cloudy but thankfully with only a light breeze next to the river and with snow all around, including a covering on the frozen river, it was a pretty sight. My setup for the activation was a Yaesu FT-857 inside my truck, but powered from a separate SLA battery that allowed me to run 100W without concern for draining the vehicle starting battery. I matched the radio up to an end fed half wave for the 20m band in a sloper configuration with the high end attached to the top of a 20 foot telescoping mast supported by a TV antenna tripod.

I armed myself with a smart phone for spotting, a notebook for paper logging and a few stats on Kieran’s POTA achievements to tell his story as I made contacts. I was not, however, prepared for the reactions from one particular contact that I made. AC4HI, Allan Davis, was my third QSO of the day and a park-to-park contact for me. When I explained my activation was in memory of VA3KS, he immediately responded by telling me that he had seen the sad notice of Kieren’s passing and remembered that he had many QSO with Kieran in his log, including his most recent on US Thanksgiving Day, 23 November 2023, just the day before Kieran passed. I was thankful for the connection that ham radio had brought through Allan’s memory and through Kieran’s portable operations.

My activation was successful, making 33 phone contacts as far afield as Spain. I have completed only 59 POTA activations from 34 parks and made about a thousand POTA QSOs, so I have some way to reach the achievements of VA3KS, but it was enjoyable to make the activation in his memory and to connect with another ham that knew him from his POTA activations.

Rob Haddow VE3RXH

Appears in: Rambler Vol.66 Issue 4