2020-03-20 Lunchtime SOTA

It’s been a long and stressful week.  I worked at home and it’s been raining a good part of the week..  Watching the traffic on the SOTA slack group really had my juices boiling.  The weather broke into beautiful blue skys and I had a chance to take a quick lunch time hike to a hill by my house, so I took it.  I also got my daughter to come along which was the best part.

Black Mtn, W6/SC-338 is five minutes from my house and a nice quick hike (4 mi round trip).  I took my gear and my daughter and I hustled up the hill.  Setup is super easy, 5 minutes tops.  The only downside for this mountain is that it’s packed with RF gear, from ham 2M to all the telco stuff you can think of.  I’m so glad I can now activate via CW.  I didn’t care if I got the points or not (one point possible per year), I just needed to get out of the house. 

We had a very nice hike, talked a little which is nice since she’s 17 and in her room 99% of the time.  The 40 m band was really odd.  At times stations would come booming in and then just drop out in mid QSO.  The 20 m band seemed a bit better. 

After logging 11 contacts, we jammed the 2 miles back down the mountain so I could make my 2PM meeting.  It was rushed, but still a lot of fun.

Contacts

Date:20/03/2020 | Summit:W6/SC-338 (Black Mountain) | Call Used:N1CLC | Points: 1

Time	Callsign	Band	Mode
19:44	K6KM	7MHz	CW
19:47	KE6MT	7MHz	CW
19:48	KX0R	7MHz	CW
19:51	WU7H	7MHz	CW
19:53	N6NKT	7MHz	CW
19:56	W0MNA	14MHz	CW
20:07	WW7D	14MHz	CW
20:08	W0ERI	14MHz	CW
20:08	AC1Z	14MHz	CW
20:10	N4EX	14MHz	CW
20:26	WA6JR	144MHz	FM

Loadout:

●      GoPro Hero8

●      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 (left at the car this trip)

●      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