While on Hot Spring Mountain last weekend I talked to another ham buddy, John (K6MXA), who was on Mount Tule. I wasn’t familiar with that one so I took a look at a map and thought that might be a good one to do this weekend. I asked John about it and he mentioned it was a pretty easy hike, described the road conditions, and sent me his gpx track which I uploaded into Gaia GPS. It doesn’t get any better than that. I didn’t commit to doing it till Friday night however so it was sort of last minute. For some reason, it had been a crazy week and I really needed to get outside and play radio for the day, but was having a hard time deciding if I would do it Saturday morning or Sunday.

The trailhead was about 1.5 hours from the house by Campo, CA. The dirt road section was a bit sketch but no huge problem for my Highlander. The AWD kicked in a couple of times as I worked through areas slowly, not wanting to rack anything but a two wheel drive can do it.

The hike up had a road, then trail all the way up, and it’s only about a mile hike depending on where you park. At the top, there are two bumps that are both in the activation zone, making multi-operator activations possible. I setup quickly and started chasing a few stations.

I had been talking to Adam, K6ARK, from my car on the way up. He was on a summit just a few miles east of where I would be so when I got to the summit I wanted to make sure I got a S2S with him. Just to be funny, I got my HT out and then called him, but using morse with my voice (dah-dee-dah dah dit dit dit dit... etc). I thought it was pretty funny. It worked, but Adam came back and said he was trying to work a New Zealand station on HF. He later told me that it cracked him up, making it harder to bang out some CW of his own to John ZL1BYZ in New Zealand. I did eventually have a quick QSO with Adam to get the summit-to-summit (S2S) points though.

I chased a few more stations and then spotted myself on 20m. I had quite a pileup of CW stations wanting a contact so it took me a while to work the queue down. Once I worked the pile down on 20m, I did some more chasing of my own, then tried 17m, 40m, and 30m. I had all day to do this summit and decided to just relax up there and have some fun. I also worked some stations SSB (voice) including a S2S or two and I worked John, ZL1BYZ in New Zealand twice.

Adam mentioned that he would head over to the summit I was on once he finished. He was on a summit that had never been activated. When I see an unactivated summit around here now, I know why, because it’s HARD. Adam knew it was going to be a tough bushwhack and it turned out to be just that. John, K6MXA had tried and aborted and I probably would have as well. Adam said it was probably the second hardest bushwhack he’s ever done. Even though he was wearing jeans, his legs were pretty beat up. Adam arrived at my summit sometime after 1PM hauling three pushup poles, two antennas, a switch box and other gear to do some A/B testing of a couple of antennas that he built. The first antenna is a half-suare antenna that should give him a little gain on the outbound since there is some phasing that goes on. It’s also a bit directional, but something that is hard to move because once setup since it’s staked into the ground it’s not like you can just rotate it with a button. The other antenna was a simple dipole and both were setup for 20m. Adam was hoping to contact some stations via SSB and ask for signal reports as he switched back and forth between them.

After Adam arrived, I did a little more chasing and then packed up and joined him at his station. He had just finished setting up what looked like a very impressive station and got to work finding an open frequency to do some testing. This turned out to be a challenge since there was a SSB contest going on somewhere east of us. Once he found a frequency quiet enough to setup he spotted and got to work.

It was interesting to listen in during the testing. Some stations didn’t hear a difference and others heard quite a bit of difference but not always the half-square. There are multiple reasons why one would work better than the other but I’ll let Adam explain that. He was working on a Youtube video during this test, so keep an eye out for it. The video should be out shortly on his YouTube Channel.

Once Adam finished the activation and testing, we walked down together and Adam gave me a ride back to my car since he was parked a lot closer than I was.

Temps today were mild, and with the slight breeze and high overcast, I needed a fleece to keep from getting chilled. I managed to burn the side of my face while I sat and worked stations from the east coast to New Zealand. I had a LOT of fun today. It was a mixture of relaxing with nice views, playing radio, getting exercise outside and seeing a good friend. I’ll definitely do this one again but not in the summer, it would be a scorcher out there.

Expedition Summary

SOTA summits:W6/SD-079 (Mount Tule)
Points:4
Activation Date: 2020-11-21 (UTC)
Unique: Yes
Activation No: 219
Call sign used: N1CLC
Radios: KX2
Antennas: K6ARK random wire
Band/Modes used: 17m 20m, 30m, 40m, CW (morse) SSB (voice)
Cell Data: AT&T
Miles Hiked: 1.32 mi
Hiked Elevation Gain: 594

Contacts

Date:21/11/2020 | Summit:W6/SD-079 (Mount Tule) | Call Used:N1CLC | Points: 4 |

Time	Callsign	Band	Mode	Notes
17:58	K6ARK	144MHz	FM	Summit to Summit
18:00	NA6MG	14MHz	CW	Summit to Summit
18:04	N6AN	7MHz	CW	Summit to Summit
18:07	AA6XA	10MHz	CW	Summit to Summit
18:21	K7GT	14MHz	CW
18:22	KE5AKL	14MHz	CW
18:22	WW7D	14MHz	CW
18:24	ZL1BYZ	14MHz	CW
18:24	NE4TN	14MHz	CW
18:27	KX0R	14MHz	CW	Summit to Summit
18:28	WB7BWZ	14MHz	CW
18:29	AC7P	14MHz	CW
18:30	W6IYS	14MHz	CW
18:31	W0MNA	14MHz	CW
18:32	KC4WZB	14MHz	CW
18:32	W0ERI	14MHz	CW
18:33	K0LAF	14MHz	CW
18:34	N0DNF	14MHz	CW
18:35	WB6POT	14MHz	CW
18:35	VE7HI	14MHz	CW
18:37	WB7ULD	14MHz	CW
18:38	N4CD	14MHz	CW
18:38	WD7Y	14MHz	CW
18:39	NW7E	14MHz	CW
18:40	N1AIA	14MHz	CW
18:41	AD0YM	14MHz	CW
18:42	AC7P	14MHz	CW
18:42	N4CD	14MHz	CW
18:44	N7CNH	14MHz	CW
19:00	WJ7WJ/P	14MHz	SSB	Summit to Summit
19:14	N0DET	18MHz	CW
19:16	W7HO	18MHz	CW
19:17	W5GDW	18MHz	CW
19:17	K4MF	18MHz	CW
19:19	ZL1BYZ	18MHz	CW	New Zealand
19:20	KU4R	18MHz	CW
19:21	KG3W	18MHz	CW
19:23	K7MTD	18MHz	CW
19:26	KG9HV	18MHz	CW
19:28	N7IMI	18MHz	CW
19:28	N6GO	18MHz	CW
19:29	NU7A	18MHz	CW
19:30	VE7HI	18MHz	CW
19:35	KB7JJG	7MHz	SSB
19:36	K6QCB	7MHz	SSB
19:37	KL7HM	7MHz	SSB
19:37	WA9STI	7MHz	SSB
19:39	WA6KYR	7MHz	SSB
19:39	K6KMH	7MHz	SSB
19:40	KR7RK	7MHz	SSB	Summit to Summit
19:40	K6ABM	7MHz	SSB
19:41	K6LDQ	7MHz	SSB
19:42	KJ7NDY	7MHz	SSB
19:58	N0WAE	14MHz	SSB
19:59	KR7Q	14MHz	SSB
19:59	N0EMU	14MHz	SSB
20:03	KC0PBR	14MHz	SSB
20:04	WD8KDB	14MHz	SSB
20:06	KJ7GRQ	14MHz	SSB
20:08	KO4VBV	14MHz	SSB
20:11	WY7N	7MHz	CW	Summit to Summit
20:14	AC7MA	10MHz	CW
20:15	N6NKT	10MHz	CW
20:16	KB7HH	10MHz	CW
20:17	K0WRY	10MHz	CW
20:18	W7JKC	10MHz	CW
20:19	W7RV	10MHz	CW
20:20	K7SO	10MHz	CW
20:22	K0LAF	10MHz	CW
20:24	KXOR	10MHz	CW	Summit to Summit
20:25	NJ7V	10MHz	CW
20:26	N0DET	10MHz	CW
20:27	W0JAZ	10MHz	CW
20:29	KI5WA	10MHz	CW
20:36	N3BZ	7MHz	SSB	Summit to Summit
20:47	WY7N	14MHz	CW	Summit to Summit
20:50	K4KPK	18MHz	SSB	Summit to Summit
20:59	AJ6KZ	14MHz	CW	Summit to Summit
21:02	N0RZ	14MHz	CW
21:03	W0MRH	14MHz	CW
21:04	W5ODS	14MHz	CW
21:13	N7LP	10MHz	CW	Summit to Summit