N1CLC: 2020-08-11 Blk Mtn IC-705 and JA

I needed some fresh air and exercise yesterday after work. I’d been in back-to-back meetings all day and the neighbor had a jackhammer running all. A quick hike and some radio were in order, so I headed over to a small mountain 5 minutes from my house. It’s about 2 miles to the top and has 740 feet of elevation. The one downside is that it’s packed with antennas, RF gear, cooling equipment, etc, so the RFI is pretty bad. I normally go to the top of a mountain to get away from the RF but in this case, the convenience overroad the other objective. I wouldn’t get any points because I’ve already activated it this year. I’ve learned that running CW in a high noise environment really pays off due to the higher signal to noise ratio of CW (you’re listening to a smaller section of the band).

One of my hopes was to work a Japan station summit-to-summit. I see these stations pop up on Sotawatch all the time in the evening. I’ve worked Japan stations on SSB from here with 5 watts before but the station had big antennas and lots of power. I actually worked Japan on my very first SOTA on this mountain. I got lucky with a summit-to-summit from Arizona peak one time but I was running 100w. Today would be a challenge with the RF on this summit and I was only running 10w. One thing in my favor, the other summit stations are normally only running 5 to 10 watts also, so if I could hear them, they can probably hear me.

I landed a few CW contacts domestically, including a summit-to-summit (S2S). Sotawatch showed a JA station, JP3DGT, Katsu, on a summit using the 40 meter band. I’m thinking 20 would be better at this distance but you get what you get. I tuned up and could hear him in and out!!! I played with the band pass on the KX2 and improved the signal just enough to tell it was him. He was calling out with his call and CQ SOTA. I blasted my call into the either and waited. He picked up another station so I waited some more. I tried a few more times as he ended QSOs and then heard my call come back. I jumped in with my signal report and summit ID and he came back with the same. I sent a TU and 73 and never heard him after that so I was wondering if I just dreamed it. I emailed him, asking to confirm and I heard back this morning, he had me 529 (best clarity, very weak, and good CW). As a bonus, he told me he was running the brand new, just out, Icom IC-705, a 5 watt radio! That radio just started shipping and the US guys are waiting for their copy. Well guys, it works, I can tell you that.
(BTW, the picture at the top is presumably Katsu on a JA mountain. I pulled it from his QRZ page)

Even on shitty summits, you can walk away with some big fish some days. I hope Katsu was as stoked as I am.

Contacts

Time	Callsign	Band	Mode	Notes
00:28	K9VD	7MHz	CW
00:30	WW7D	7MHz	CW
00:30	KE6MT	7MHz	CW
00:31	KR7R	7MHz	CW
00:32	N7LP	7MHz	CW
00:34	W7RV	7MHz	CW
00:35	N0DET	7MHz	CW
00:39	KL0NP	14MHz	CW	Summit-to-Summit W7W/NO-019, Petunia North
00:45	WB0U	14MHz	CW
00:49	KA5K	14MHz	CW
00:53	W0MNA	14MHz	CW
00:53	W0ERI	14MHz	CW
01:04	JP3DGT	7MHz	CW	Summit-to-Summit JA/SI-004, Bunagadake
01:14	KL0NP	7MHz	CW	Summit-to-Summit W7W/NO-019, Petunia North