N1CLC: 2019-07-27 Greens Peak & Whiting Knoll

I arrive late last night so it was hard getting up at 0530 this morning. My friend Adam would be on a summit at about 7AM local on a small peak near San Diego and I wanted to make a summit-to-summit with him. I chose a peak that was easy to estimate my arrival so I went to Greens peak. According to the lookout tower employee, it’s the highest peak in Arizona that you can drive to the top. I guess I could have done Noble mountain which is much closer but I wasn’t sure if the roads were open.

I activate Greens peak last year and was looking forward to do activating that one and Whiting Knoll, a new one for me. Whiting Knoll is, which is just a couple miles to the north-west. Funny thing happened, I have no spare clothes. I left my suitcase in San Diego. I have shoes and my hiking boots but not socks... I wouldn’t need anything special for Greens but I wore my walking shoes since they are less likely to give me blisters without socks.

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I was out the door at 0600 and at the summit around 0700. Adam had his DMR radio with him so I wanted to try coordinating with him via DMR (we both had to use DMR repeaters). We were already communicating via Slack and we made a quick contact via DMR but Adam was already working stations via CW. I caught him on one of the bands and then I chased a few other guys on summits. There was some major RF on a few of the bands due to all the equipment on the mountain so some were a no go. I then spotted myself on sotwatch.org and worked about 20 stations. Cell coverage on AT&T was very odd up there. It kinda comes and goes for no apparent reason.

After a small tour of the fire lookout (see short video) and then headed over to Whiting knoll. The 117 is a beautiful drive and the dirt road is in excellent condition. I think the trip was about 15 or 20 minutes. I found a Jeep tail that headed right up where I was going, so I took that for about a mile and hiked the rest of the way. I wasn’t expecting to run into the road again but it looks like I might have been able to drive to the top (it was pretty rough). No worries, I wanted the exercise. Because this is my first day going from sea level to 10,000 feet, I was winded even though it was an easy hike. (see my track here)

Once I was on the air I decided to try to chase some other guys on summits. There were a few on 14.061, 14.063, and 14.064, each had multiple stations using the same frequency. I couldn’t figure out who was who so I figured I would come back to it.

Once I spotted myself I had a pileup working. Band conditions were unusually good. I was working stations in California on 20 meter who were giving me 5/9. I normally skip right over CA and have to use 40 m. I had 5/9 in Oaklahoma, and Texas too. The summit was a perfect operating position as there was ZERO stray RF. It took me 20 minutes to work through the pileup. Some stations were so strong I had to crank my gain all the way down to hear them. The solar flux was very low, 67, given the spotless sun. We are in solar minimum still and I’m looking forward to better conditions in the future. The minimum could last a year or a lot more. Scientists haven’t been tracking long enough to really predict it will. Whatever the reason for the good band conditions, I’ll take it.

Once I worked the pileup down and made sure all the chasers got their points, I decided to go back to chasing guys on other summits and practice a little CW. Unfortunately my cell phone went from 4 bars to zero/nada/zilch, no service at all. Maybe a tower got hit by lightning but I would have heard that and the thunderstorms weren’t on my AO yet. Rather than goof around trying to do a dance for the cell phone god I packed up and headed back. I had a massive headache (a usual for day one in the mountains) and was really hungry,jonesing for a plate of chili rellenos. I had some shopping to do in town for food and looking for some clothes that would hold me over until our friends arrive from San Diego with my bag. Thunderstorms would be pounding the area in the next couple of hours if not sooner so I bugged out.

All in all, it was a great day to do a double summit and I was done by noon. I made over 40 contacts today which were coast to coast. It would have been nice to get a little Europe action given my early arrival time this morning, but that would have been too much to ask. :). This time of year the monsoonal flow bring in some booming thunderstorms up and over the rim at around 12 or 1300 so it’s good to be off the mountain with the lightning rod before then.

The rellenos at Booga Red’s were awesome and the thunderstorm was a big one today. As I was heading back to the SOC (SOTA Operations Center, AKA my cabin), I drove through one of the biggest downpours I’ve experienced in quite a while.

Contacts

Greens Peak

Date:27/Jul/2019 Summit:W7A/AE-009 (Greens Peak) Call Used:N1CLC Points: 10 Bonus: 0 Delete

Time	Call	Band	Mode	Notes
14:47z	W0MNA	14MHz	SSB
15:06z	WD4CFN	14MHz	SSB
15:07z	W0ERI	14MHz	SSB
15:07z	K6MW	14MHz	SSB
15:08z	N0MTN	14MHz	SSB
15:08z	N7KRN	14MHz	SSB
15:08z	K6ARK	28MHz	CW
15:09z	WA2USA	14MHz	SSB
15:09z	NG6R	14MHz	SSB
15:10z	AD0KE	14MHz	SSB
15:10z	AC1Z	14MHz	SSB
15:10z	N5ZC	14MHz	SSB
15:11z	K0UOG	14MHz	SSB
15:13z	K3TCU	14MHz	SSB
15:13z	KI4TN	14MHz	SSB
15:14z	N6DNM	14MHz	SSB
15:14z	WB5USB	14MHz	SSB
15:15z	W1AW/5	14MHz	SSB
15:15z	K0CHK	14MHz	SSB
15:23z	NA6MG	28MHz	CW
15:30z	N7KRN	14MHz	SSB

Whiting Knoll

Date:27/Jul/2019 Summit:W7A/AP-014 (Whiting Knoll) Call Used:N1CLC Points: 10 Bonus: 0 Delete

Time	Call	Band	Mode	Notes
17:34z	W0MNA	14MHz	SSB
17:35z	WA2USA	14MHz	SSB
17:35z	W0ERI	14MHz	SSB
17:35z	K6MW	14MHz	SSB
17:36z	NG6R	14MHz	SSB
17:36z	N6GO	14MHz	SSB
17:37z	AC1Z	14MHz	SSB
17:37z	NS7P	14MHz	SSB
17:38z	KK6CUG	14MHz	SSB
17:38z	K6QCB	14MHz	SSB
17:39z	K3TCU	14MHz	SSB
17:39z	KI5WA	14MHz	SSB
17:40z	KI4TN	14MHz	SSB
17:41z	KE0LXT	14MHz	SSB
17:41z	K5K	14MHz	SSB
17:46z	KG3W	14MHz	SSB
17:46z	N6DNM	14MHz	SSB
17:47z	W7CNL	14MHz	SSB
17:48z	KI6EAB	14MHz	SSB
17:48z	KI6DS	14MHz	SSB
17:49z	W5BOS	14MHz	SSB
17:50z	N7DMO	14MHz	SSB
17:51z	W1DMH	14MHz	SSB