Sunday, April 22, 2018

2018-04-21 SOTA on Baker Butte


Today’s summit is in Arizona, Baker Butte, near Payson AZ.  We are in the village of Strawberry attending a wedding and I had a quick opportunity to do a quick SOTA summit and possibly get a summit to summit with my friend Adam who will be summiting a couple of peaks near where we were last weekend. We are staying at a cool little venue for the wedding as the party has taken over all the cabins here so it gives the family a chance to visit.  I got up early this morning in what I think was 35 degree weather and went for a quick hike, mainly drive.  The activation point was about a 15 drive + 15 minute walk up to the summit.  At the top there is a fire lookout with a small residence.

It was nice to be back up in the country that I’m more use to, thick with pine and soft dirt and pine needles.  Setup was quick and I was up and running in about 10 minutes.  There was a Michigan QSO contest going on so 20 was the band pretty busy.  I made 22 contacts, most on 20m and a few on 40m including a couple of summit-to-summit contacts.  I tried getting some VHF contacts on 520 but no joy.  Kind of amazing given the field of view I had.

I was hoping to catch KJ6HOT on one of his California summits but I submitted too early for his first summit.  I setup near the cabin I was staying at and tried to contact him when I saw his spot on sotawatch.org for the second summit, but I picked up nada on the frequencies he posted.  Next time Adam. 

I got a good set of contact today on 20 and 40 meter bands.  I also netted a couple of Summit-to-Summit calls as well.  I look forward to a vacation at my summer home in Alpine AZ for more SOTA work over there.

A quick note on the video below.  I wanted to capture some audio on how well this radio can clean up the audio with the digital noise cancelling Turned On.  The next quick shot of another ham with it turned off gives you the feel for what it’s like without DNC.





Association: 
 USA - Arizona
Region: 
 AZ-Eastern Arizona
Lat / Long / Height: 
 34.452°N   -111.3785°W   2463m / 8077ft
Locator: 
 DM44hk Show »
Points / Activations: 
 10 points,  activated 34 times
Latest Activation: 
 2018-01-01 by KB7CWV
IAF 34.45543, -111.39658
1 Mile hike
Network: AT&T
APRS: Yes

Contacts



DateTimeCall
2018-04-2118:48NA8V
2018-04-2116:04ND0C
2018-04-2116:03AK5SD
2018-04-2116:01KC5VZP
2018-04-2116:00W9MRH
2018-04-2116:00NE4TN
2018-04-2115:58AC2KL
2018-04-2115:58W5ODS
2018-04-2115:57WW7D
2018-04-2115:55WA7JTM
2018-04-2115:54K6EL
2018-04-2115:49W7BET
2018-04-2115:48N0CSM
2018-04-2115:46K6HPX
2018-04-2115:45K6MW
2018-04-2115:44NW7E
2018-04-2115:43N6DNM
2018-04-2115:42WB7ULD
2018-04-2115:33NG6R

Loadout for today:

      Yaesu FT-891D HF Radio at 100 watts
   30’ of coax feed line
      Yaesu FT-2DR HT
      DDT Ops Anti-Venom field pack with food
      3 L of water (8 lb)
      SOTA Dog
      iPhone with All Trails, MotionX GPS and sota goat
      MFJ-939Y auto antenna tuner for 891
      Treking poles
     Sleeping bag and extra food for the extended trip.

REFERENCE

      For more info on SOTA, rules, etc, go to the homepage HERE.
      Ham Terminology
      SOTA Specific Links

73s,

-- Chris Claborne, N!CLC

1 comment:

  1. Great entry. I was looking for the activator number for this summit for a QSL card that I am making and found your blog entry. Sorry you didn't get any FM contacts, but so you know for next time, in AZ the SOTA activators and chasers use 144.410 FM for all SOTA work. The state is really busy SOTA wise and it sure is fun to do it when the weather cooperates in the valley. My QRZ profile pic is from the tower with my D74 and an Arrow Yagi pointed towards the valley. I was able to pick up several FM contacts from chasers in Scottsdale and Phoenix from the tower, and I was also able to hit the AZ SOTA director while he was on the 17 Freeway on his way home from a summit activation up in Flagstaff. All on a 5 watt HT.
    Another amazing feat that day was hitting a station in Florida while using a KX3 and a budddipole at 10 watts during a Florida contest. That was a great day!!
    Hope to see you down the log.
    73
    Dan
    N7DSX

    ReplyDelete