2. Ham Radio

Haskell Peak (W6/NS-162) SOTA Activation 10/19/2012

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To support the southeast end of the antenna, I crammed my cardboard line winder in between two rocks in the summit marker cairn. Three geese flew by as I was taking this shot (they are a bit left of center).
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To support the southeast end of the antenna, I crammed my cardboard line winder in between two rocks in the summit marker cairn. Three geese flew by as I was taking this shot (they are a bit left of center).

  • Haskell Peak as seen from Sierra Buttes (W6/NS-139) during <a href="http://www.grizzlyguy.com/HamRadio/SOTA-Activation-9202012-Sierra">my 9/20/2012 activation of that summit</a>. Sorry about the nasty spot on the lens. For maps and directions to Haskell Peak, see <a href="http://www.grizzlyguy.com/HamRadio/SOTA-HaskellPeak-W6NS162-2013">this album</a>.
  • The official trail to the Haskell Peak summit starts on Tahoe National Forest road 09 and climbs gradually to the top from the south with an elevation gain of around 1200 feet. I was interested in a more direct route to the top, so I rode my ATV to a point about a half mile west of the summit and made my way cross-country toward the peak. This route only had about 500 feet of elevation gain. The first half of the hike was an easy walk through the forest following deer trails. This shot was taken where the forest ends. That's not the summit, there is wide flat area beyond those rocks and then another shorter climb to the top.
  • Climbing from the edge of the forest up to that flat was the most difficult part of the hike (but not really difficult). I made my way up this slope. Once I reached the flat above, I ended up intersecting the official trail climbing up from the south, and the rest of the hike was a piece of cake.
  • Standing on top next to the massive cairn that marks the summit.
  • The summit ridge is narrow, rather short and without any trees. I ended up placing my 28' Jackite pole midway along the ridge so that I would have room to secure the ends of my 88' doublet antenna. It was breezy, 15-20 mph gusting to 25 mph. My twinlead feedline is being bowed eastward from the prevailing west wind. The ridge was steeply sloped on each side and my antenna wire was running northwest-southeast.
  • To support the southeast end of the antenna, I crammed my cardboard line winder in between two rocks in the summit marker cairn. Three geese flew by as I was taking this shot (they are a bit left of center).
  • At the northwest end, I again pressed one of my hiking poles into service. Note how the pole strap is being extended almost straight out by the wind. Maybe it was blowing a little harder than I estimated?
  • I ran the twinlead through the wrist strap of my other hiking pole so as to take up some slack and keep it from whipping around too much in the wind. That's the Sierra Valley behind and to the left of the pole and twinlead.
  • The bottom of my Jackite pole was crammed down into a gap between two large rocks, and I used several more smaller rocks to give it additional stability in the gusty winds. While operating, one of the sections loosened (apparently from the constant buffeting) and I heard a ka-sloop as it fell down into the section below it. Nothing appeared to be damaged and the antenna was still up, so I kept rolling along.
  • I was fortunate to find a cleared area in the rocks that let me sit down low on the ground, using the rocks around me to help break the wind.
  • Sitting in my "hole", holding my Elecraft KX3 transceiver and the 4:1 low-power balun that does the "conversion" between twinlead and coax. Let's roll!
  • My view while operating (facing south).
  • If I turned my head a bit to the right, I had this view of the massive Sierra Buttes (W6/NS-139) to the southwest. See <a href="http://www.grizzlyguy.com/HamRadio/SOTA-Activation-9202012-Sierra">my Sierra Buttes activation album</a> for photos taken from there.
  • Beckwourth Peak (W6/NS-228) to the northeast. KH2TJ's QTH of Portola is to the left of that peak, down in the valley and not visible in this shot.
  • Logbook page 1. Conditions were good, and for the first time I was called by a SOTA chaser in Europe: EA4CWN in central Spain. Not bad for 5 watts and a few pieces of wire blowing in the breeze.
  • Logbook page 2. I called CQ on 80m, was automatically spotted by the RBNGate software that I wrote, but had no takers on that band.
  • Logbook page 3. Yup, my first SOTA activation logbook has finally run out of pages. Jack W7CNL had missed me on 40m when I was on that band earlier, and posted a spot asking me to return to 40m before heading down. Fortunately I had Internet on the summit, saw the spot, headed back to 40m and Jack made it into the log. A huge thanks to everyone who called and worked me today!
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