2020-01-05 Eagle Peak

I met up with Jacob, W6RWS, and headed out to Eagle Peak this morning. I’ve done this one a few times and given the beautiful day I was looking forward to it.  It was in the low 70s and we had a lot of fun.  Neither one of us were in a hurry so it was nice to kick back on the summit and play radio. 

Jacob was on the peak and I was offset a bit to keep the interference down.  Jacob started on VHF and I think he was activated before he switched over to HF.  I picked up a familiar call sign, K6MXA, John was not far from us activating W6/SC-260, a no-name peak just south of El Capitan Reservoir.  We were probably 20km apart.  That was fun to finally get a summit-to-summit with John.

I setup and spotted myself on 20 meter CW.  When I did, I asked people to give me big spacing.  It was awesome to get the call-signs on the first pass for once.  I probably netted 4 or 5 CW contacts before I started chasing other summits.

As we were leaving, we heard a father and son team on Sunset Peak up north of LA.  We had him loud and clear.  He was evidently using a homemade Yagi antenna, a beam antenna.   They were about 102 miles away.  Not bad for a little handheld VHF radio.

It was an awesome day to be out and about today.  I netted 20 contacts, 10 of them CW and had a lot of fun.  It was enjoyable having a hiking buddy along as well.  Thanks Jacob.

Contacts

Date	Time	Band	Mode	OtherCallsign
5/1/2020	18:21	144MHz	FM	K6MXA
5/1/2020	18:25	144MHz	FM	KR6RG
5/1/2020	18:36	14MHz	CW	W0MNA
5/1/2020	18:40	14MHz	CW	N4EX
5/1/2020	18:42	14MHz	CW	W0ERI
5/1/2020	18:42	14MHz	CW	W5ODS
5/1/2020	18:44	14MHz	CW	W4KRN
5/1/2020	18:46	14MHz	CW	KI6KU
5/1/2020	18:48	14MHz	CW	AB4PP
5/1/2020	18:52	14MHz	CW	NS7P
5/1/2020	18:57	14MHz	SSB	K7EEX
5/1/2020	19:07	14MHz	CW	K1JD
5/1/2020	19:36	14MHz	SSB	N6AN
5/1/2020	19:37	14MHz	SSB	N6MKW
5/1/2020	19:42	14MHz	CW	WW7D
5/1/2020	19:50	7MHz	CW	N0MTN
5/1/2020	20:08	7MHz	CW	KI4SVM
5/1/2020	20:20	7MHz	CW	N0MTN
5/1/2020	20:21	7MHz	CW	KI4SVM
5/1/2020	20:53	144MHz	FM	KN6EZE
5/1/2020	20:54	144MHz	FM	KN6GOG

(update: Looks like a counted a couple of these twice. )

Loadout:

●      Gregory Zulu 40 backpack

●      First aid kit.  Make sure it’s a good one... like ability to patch up an impalement wound. 

●      Elecraft KX2 10 watt HF Radio

●      The K6ARK Spider Thread Antenna

●   30’ of coax feed line (not needed

●      Slim Jim dual band antenna for my HT.

●      3 L of water (8 lb)

●      iPhone with All Trails, MotionX GPS and sota goat

●      Trekking poles (not today)

●     LNR End Fed multi-band antenna

●   SOTAbeams Tactical 7000hds Compact Heavy-Duty Telescopic Mast TAC7000HDS

●   AnyTone AT-868UV DMR radio for testing.

●   Custom wine bottle cork paddles for CW (crafted by K6ARK)

●   American Morse Porta Paddle for CW

●   Delorme Inreach satellite tracker and communicator.

●      Jetboil MicroMo cooking system

●      Yaesu FT-2DR HT (backup left in the car)

●     Packtenna. (did not take)

●      CHA MPAS with spike and additional MIL mast (and version 2 of the top section) (left in car)

●      Yaesu FT-891D HF Radio at 100 watts  (left this in the car :) )

●     Extra LiFePO Battery (not needed)

73,

N1CLC

Christian Claborne

(aka chris claborne