Today’s SOTA mission was to a mountain in the
Lagunas, W6/SD-026 - 5764. This trip had a bit of a surprise. Not like a couple of days ago when I scored a
QSO with a guy in New Zealand. Today’s
surprise is just seeing unexpected vistas. There is a shocking view from a
lookout going up the Sunrise Highway that looks out onto the desert, down
several thousand feet. I enjoy the
Lagunas because it’s nice getting up in the pines, cool air, and not seeing a
sole on the hike. It’s not all pine but
it’s a hell of a lot nicer than the pure rock piles around my house.
Summits On The Air (SOTA) is similar to
geocaching. It pulls you out to places
you wouldn’t normally go on a typical weekend making each SOTA activation fun
due to the exploration aspect. SOTA also
poses a small challenge to figure out the rout, do some recon on-line, and I
get a nice hike... and yes, get to play with my ham radio toys. I’ve enjoyed the several trips I’ve taken
out to the Lagunas. Another small
surprise was making a contact in Hawaii.
The last bonus was that I finally got a confirmed SOTA to SOTA contact
on HF. Kent, N6WT, was activating
W6/CC-028. It’s a mountain just north of
LA. He came in very week but we were
able to communicate. I think he was
running low power, he gave me a good signal report.
The trip up the mountain was easy. There is a very heavily used trail that I
took for the first half mile then turned to head up the mountain ridge to the
summit. Adam, KJ6HOT, gave me the info I
needed to get started and mentioned that it was marked with cairns and the path
a bit overgrown. It was clear where the
turn was but I never saw the cairns. The
chaparral isn’t as thick here so it was easy to pick a path and rejoin what
looked like the trail. (You can see the
route HERE.)
As I got closer to the top, the wind was
blowing pretty hard. I think the temp
was about 60 but the wind definitely chilled me down. After putting on another layer, I went to work. The summit had a metal fencepost sticking
out, allowing me to easily secure the mast section of my MPAS antenna to
it. I thought I could avoid using guys,
but after putting up all the sections, the wind was really bending the antenna
over. I put one guy on the windward side
to take some of the pressure off. As
you can see from the picture, the antenna is bent over pretty good in the
wind. I setup my operating position off
the peak. That position, and being on
the ground got me out of most of the wind, and therefore a bit warmer. I used my voice-activated headset, and I had
a bit of an issue with the wind kicking on the transmit at times. A small adjustment seemed to fix it.
Just as I got setup, my brother called me and
let me know he was almost at my house. I
had forgotten he was dropping by on his way to Tucson. He was going to drop something off for me and
take a quick pit stop. I told him how to
get in and asked if he would turn my radio base for a quick VHF test from my
position. Using just the whip on my
radio I was able to get into the house but it was pretty scratchy. He got out on a quick test no problem. Range was 37 miles and I don’t think I had
perfect line of site so I was getting some bounce action. I had the jpole with me but I didn’t get it
out for a test.
Today was “winter field day” for Hams so the
band was packed with other operators.
Field day is a day that encourages hams to go outside, anywhere and
operate completely portable, without commercial power etc. For me and the rest of the SOTA operators,
every outing is “field day”. Some guys
have huge mast systems on trailers, others are like me and go for light and
portable. Some are 100 watts, some
operate “QRP”, low power at about 5 or 10 watts. QRP is a challenge to see how far they can
go. Getting contacts today would be easy
for me today. Finding an open channel to
call “QC” proved a bit more difficult. I
picked what I thought would be good. I
had stations just above and below me and my first contact suggested I move up 5
so I change frequencies and went back to work.
I had planned to do a second summit but
decided to sit in the sun and relax instead.
After I filled a couple of pages in my log, I decided to try 40
meter. After hooking up the antenna
tuner I found 40 meter to be pretty quiet.
I did a self-spot using sotagoat app on my phone and made a few
contacts. Most were in the western
US. Band conditions are at the absolute
worst right now but it did work. I had a
nice chat with John, K3JH, about about what we both like to use for SOTA
activations and his plans to get back into it after knee surgery. I also talked to one ham twice. Chris, W7AMD,
saw my spot on both 20 and 40 so he decided to just try and see if it
worked. He was actually waiting for a
friend of his doing SOTA at the same time.
Hopefully they connected.
The express down the mountain was easy. I let Sulu take the lead and she did a better
job than me finding the trail. It’s
amazing, as soon as we hit the intersection with the other trail, she turned
left with confidence.
Contacts
Date
|
Call Sign
|
Date
|
Call Sign
|
|
2018-01-27
|
AE9F
|
2018-01-27
|
N4EX
|
|
2018-01-27
|
K6EL
|
2018-01-27
|
NS7P
|
|
2018-01-27
|
AB6SO
|
2018-01-27
|
KI4NS
|
|
2018-01-27
|
K7JFD
|
2018-01-27
|
W7AMD
|
|
2018-01-27
|
W7RV
|
2018-01-27
|
W8DC
|
|
2018-01-27
|
W5ODS
|
2018-01-27
|
N7MSI
|
|
2018-01-27
|
KX0R
|
2018-01-27
|
NE4TN
|
|
2018-01-27
|
W7AMD
|
2018-01-27
|
KG3W
|
|
2018-01-27
|
N0EMU
|
2018-01-27
|
WA9STI
|
|
2018-01-27
|
N6WT
|
2018-01-27
|
W2SE
|
|
2018-01-27
|
KE6RS
|
2018-01-27
|
K6BOS
|
|
2018-01-27
|
K3JH
|
2018-01-27
|
KI7AAY
|
|
2018-01-27
|
ND9E
|
2018-01-27
|
KI6EAB
|
|
2018-01-27
|
K0WPM
|
2018-01-27
|
KD0YOB
|
|
2018-01-27
|
KA4KSV
|
2018-01-27
|
K0VRF
|
|
2018-01-27
|
VE2JCW
|
2018-01-27
|
N7FJC
|
|
2018-01-27
|
VA2MO
|
2018-01-27
|
W6ERM
|
|
2018-01-27
|
AH6U
|
2018-01-27
|
N5HIC
|
|
2018-01-27
|
W5RRR
|
2018-01-27
|
K0LAF
|
|
2018-01-27
|
KT5TX
|
2018-01-27
|
K0EAP
|
|
2018-01-27
|
AE7AP
|
2018-01-27
|
K7RP
|
|
2018-01-27
|
N1GB
|
2018-01-27
|
WB0KIU
|
|
2018-01-27
|
W7VI
|
2018-01-27
|
W6TDX
|
Loadout today:
●
3 L of water
●
SOTA Dog
●
iPhone with and MotionX GPS and sota goat
●
Hiking pole...
REFERENCE
73s,
-- Chris Claborne, N!CLC
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