Today’s activation of Los Pinos Mountain (W6/SC-048 - Los
Pinos Mountain) was supposed to be easy. So easy in fact, I was planning on driving
over to Iron Mountain to activate that one and get a good hike in. Actually it was easy but it was cold and
windy with snow. I got a late start this
morning which turned out to be fortunate luck.
I knew there was a forecast for rain in the AM so I wasn’t in a
hurry. Turns out there was rain, hail,
and snow. Yes snow. It was also windy, and it was cold as
hell. With a temp of 35 (possibly
lower), and wind at 20 mph, the wind-chill factor brings it to 24F. Although really not that cold, when you are
from San Diego, it’s cold. Given the
wind, it made for a difficult time holding onto the logbook and talking. I’ve really got to get my headphones with VOX
working.
On the way up, I actually pulled off the
freeway into a small exit in light snow
getting ready to scrub the mission, but it actually started to clear out. I decided to go to the ingress point and wait
if needed. The start was a good 20
minutes off the freeway with a steep climb up the mountain. There was still a little bit of snow coming
down but it looked like it was going to blow out. I asked Sulu what we should do and she said
we should wait it out. After a few
minutes, we were enshrouded in clouds, then the snow stopped just a few minutes
later (I should listen to the SOTA dog more often). I made a quick contact to the house with both
the car radio and the HT that I was carrying (a Yaesu FT-2DR HT). Mari Lu could hear me loud and clear and she
sounded perfect. The direct distance
from the house to the mountain is 35 miles.
Not bad. I put some more layers
on, gloves, and saddled up.
Contacts:
Loadout today:
REFERENCE
The hike from the parking spot to the radio
position was short and easy. Setup of
the MPAS antenna was pretty easy too.
The guy lines weren’t tangled this time and I decided to use the screw
on the spike to put the counterpoise in (something you do when you forgot to
put it on at the beginning). This is
actually a better place to put it. My
only problem was doing stuff with gloves on in the wind. This trip was a good test of my cold winter
gear. I had 4 layers, a beanie, a hat,
and I pulled the hood from the shell over my head. I was warm while walking, but standing around
I chilled a tad. Had the hike been
longer, it might have been a challenge to find the right balance after sweating
on the way up the mountain.
I quickly made a contact with a guy in La Mesa
(part of San Diego) who was in a contest.
He asked if I’d mind jumping up to 21.4 (14 meter). I’m guessing multiple bands was part of the
contest. I I had been using the
dipole, I wouldn’t have been able to do
this but the Chameleon antenna was no problem, even without a tuner
attached. We talked for a minute and I
went on my way.
There was a big contest going on this weekend
but I found an open frequency and then did a self-spot with APRS from my
walki-talki (hams call it a handi-talki (HT)).
About a minute after that I was off and running with a small
pileup. When traffic died down, I didn’t
hang around long as I was cold. My
operating position was comfortable but I was directly in the wind. I could have put my back to the wind behind
that log, but then it would have been blowing into the mic. I had no cell service at my operating
position but if I moved a few yards to the east it worked fine. Must have been all the antennas up
there. My longest contact was VA2MO in
Quebec, 2,500 miles away. But I wasn’t
done...
As I was just leaving, I heard a guy on my HT
calling CQ on the nation-wide calling frequency for 2m. KM6OIN, Garret, was on W6/CT-012 - Waterman
Mountain, north of Los Angeles.
It’s approximately 140 miles from
me! He was doing the VHF contest using a
walki-talki like mine at 5 watts. One
small difference was that he was using a directional antenna for satellite and
long distance communications from Arrow.
It was probably this model.
He came in super clear. This is
my first VHF/FM summit to summit contact.
Pretty cool. I’m going to have
to play around with a directional antenna like that some time and try using
satellite comms.
By the time I started my exfiltration, it was
going to be too late for another SOTA summit over at Iron mountain so I stopped
at my favorite place in Descanso, Veronica’s kitchen. Mmmmm.
This was another good test of the CHA MPAS
antenna and it was nice to be in the winter weather even though it was a tad
difficult. Tomorrow is El Cajon Mtn.,
and I’m told it’s a difficult hike. I’m
looking forward to it.
Contacts:
Time
|
Callsign
|
Band
|
Mode
|
Notes
|
20:00
|
KM60IN
|
144MHz
|
FM
|
Summit to Summit to Water Mtn.
|
20:00
|
AA7DN
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
Washington with a 5X9
|
20:00
|
K7HLN
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
Montanna
|
20:00
|
K0LAF
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
|
20:00
|
KF7JQV
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
Washington
|
20:00
|
VA2MO
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
TTERBURN PARK, QC
|
20:00
|
K7ORG
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
Nevada
|
20:00
|
W7DK
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
Washington
|
20:00
|
K7ASQ
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
Washington
|
20:00
|
N7MSI
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
Montanna
|
20:00
|
W0MNA
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
Kansas
|
20:00
|
NW7E
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
Oragon
|
20:00
|
NS7P
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
Oragon
|
20:00
|
N5ZC
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
Texas
|
20:00
|
AE7AP
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
Montanna
|
20:00
|
KI6RRN
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
La Mesa CA, just down the road
|
|
Loadout today:
●
3 L of water
●
SOTA Dog
●
iPhone with and MotionX GPS and sota goat
●
Hiking pole...
REFERENCE
73s,
-- Chris Claborne, N1CLC
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