2019-03-16 Sheephead Mtn.

Today’s hike took me back to Sheephead Mtn. (W6/SD-020 - Sheephead Mountain).  I went out there a couple of times last year, once in January of 2018 and again last February.  One of the reasons I went up there a second time was to test my new (at the time) CHA MPAS antenna.   You can only get points for a particular peak once per year, but it was still fun.  Today’s hike was nice and came with a few extra miles and a lot of wind.  This is the normal route,  this is the route Sulu and I took today.

Kitchen creek road was closed so I had to hike into the IAF (trail head) from the highway.  It added an extra 1.5 miles each way.  What I wasn’t counting on was a mostly uphill all the way back to the car from the trailhead :)  I didn’t think about the down hill on the way in... funny how that works.

The other thing that made this hike different is the gail force winds at the top.  It’s normally windy but I was almost blown off the rocks at the peak by some really big gusts.  Fortunately the metal fence post was still in the rocks up there so I had something to strap my vertical antenna to.  I guesstimate some of the gusts were 60 mph.  I figured that if my antenna was going to get bent, this would do it.  No damage but it was really bent over at times.

I made 26 contacts, did some DMR testing with KC2GNV, and had a summit-to-summit contact with x who was on W7A/PE-096 - Twin Hills West, which is east of Tucson AZ.  I didn’t get any long distance contacts (DX).

For this trip, I mainly shot video (below) so you’ll have to check out my past trips to Sheephead if you want to see any panoramas.  The video shows the results of our DMR comparison by  Brian and I.  Brian did a video of his end of the testing.  I took that and made it a picture in picture on my video and then switched the audio back and forth so you can hear the difference.  This was a lot of work but a rewarding outcome.  We’ll have to do more of this in the future.

W6/SD-020 - Sheephead Mountain

Association:	USA
Region:	Southern Desert
Lat / Long / Height:	32.821201°N   -116.463898°W   1797m / 5896ft
Locator:	DM12st Show »
Points / Activations:	6 points,  activated 2 times
Latest Activation:	Saturday, 2018-02-03 by N1CLC

IAF 32.83295, -116.45261

Contacts

Time	Call	Band	Mode	Notes
18:42z	KC2GNV	433MHz	DV
18:43z	W9MRH	14MHz	SSB
18:56z	NS7P	14MHz	SSB
18:57z	KD1CT	14MHz	SSB
18:57z	N0RZ	14MHz	SSB
18:58z	NE7E	14MHz	SSB
18:58z	NG6R	14MHz	SSB
18:59z	K9IR	14MHz	SSB
18:59z	KI4TN	14MHz	SSB
19:00z	W0MNA	14MHz	SSB
19:01z	WQ0N	14MHz	SSB
19:01z	W0ERI	14MHz	SSB
19:02z	K1LIZ	14MHz	SSB
19:02z	W7RPE	14MHz	SSB
19:04z	VE6KDX	14MHz	SSB
19:04z	K7POS	14MHz	SSB
19:05z	K6MXA	14MHz	SSB
19:05z	AA1VX	14MHz	SSB
19:08z	WA0VLC	14MHz	SSB
19:08z	AG5IL	14MHz	SSB
19:09z	AB6SO	7MHz	SSB
19:14z	K5DEZ	7MHz	SSB
19:14z	KR7RK	7MHz	SSB	Summit to Summit to W7A/PE-096 - Twin Hills West, which is east of Tucson AZ
19:16z	K6EL	7MHz	SSB
19:16z	K6ABM	7MHz	SSB
19:17z	KE6MT	7MHz	SSB

Loadout for today:

●      Gregory Zulu 40 backpack

●      CHA MPAS with spike and additional MIL mast

●      Yaesu FT-891D HF Radio at 100 watts

●   30’ of coax feed line

●      Yaesu FT-2DR HT

●      Slim Jim dual band antenna for my HT.

●      3 L of water (8 lb)

●      iPhone with All Trails, MotionX GPS and sota goat

●      MFJ-939Y auto antenna tuner for 891

●      Trekking poles

●      Jetboil MicroMo cooking system

●     Packtenna.

●   Extra LiFePO Battery

●   AnyTone AT-868UV DMR radio for testing.

●   Delorme Inreach satellite tracker and communicator.

●   JetBoil for the hot tea :)

73,

N1CLC

Christian Claborne

(aka Chris Claborne)