2. Ham Radio

Smith Peak (W6/NS-198) SOTA Activation 10/30/2012

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The Sierra Valley is in the distance to the southeast.
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The Sierra Valley is in the distance to the southeast.

  • There are two routes from Highway 70 to Smith Peak and either one can be driven with a 2WD vehicle IF there is no snow on the roads. On this day there was snow, so I rode my ATV up the western route (Plumas NF road 23N12 which is dirt but well maintained) since it approached the summit from the south. South facing slopes will almost always have less snow than north facing slopes, and this proved to be the case today. It was approximately 9 miles from Highway 70 to the top. The eastern route is probably quicker in the summer since much of it is along the paved Lake Davis Road from Portola.
  • Smith Peak as seen from the west-southwest, about two-thirds up the 9-ish mile dirt forest service road from Highway 70 near Portola.
  • Smith Peak from behind it on the northwest side.
  • The lookout tower doesn't have much room around it on this side.
  • It was windy and not particularly warm, but at least the sun had baked almost all of the snow from the summit itself. I took this right after getting my 88' doublet raised and secured. There wasn't enough room around the lookout tower to use it as a center support so I went with my 28' Jackite pole.
  • The doublet and mast The antenna is running northwest to southeast and there was a really steep slope just past it to the east-northeast. Fred KT5X gave me a report of 599 + 10 dB (I was only running 5W from the KX3) so this antenna with its gain of around 2-3 dBd (on 20m) plus the steep downslope was clearly an effective combination.
  • I found a nice spot in the rocks for the bottom of the pole. After adding a few more rocks, it was secure and didn't need any guying.
  • I secured the southeast end to a small piece of tower that was holding up some UHF antennas.
  • Mason line from my doublet running over the clamp the secures one of the UHF antennas to the tower.
  • The end of the mason line was secured by placing a couple of rocks on my cardboard line winder.
  • My operating position. I ran the twinlead down to my hiking pole and through its wrist strap so as to keep the twinlead off the ground. The twinlead runs into a Balun Designs 4:1 QRP balun (under the rock) and a 1-foot long RG-58 coax jumper connects it to the KX3. With this setup, one quick tap on the KX3's ATU button gets me on any band from 6m to 80m.
  • The antenna as seen from the southeast end. Over on the other end of the antenna I ran the mason line out to the rocky peak and held the line winder down with a rock. The antenna was already quite high electrically, so there was no need to elevate that end by using a hiking pole (what I usually do).
  • Part of the steep slope that is just behind the antenna to the northeast.
  • Ready to operate.
  • My view while operating. The conical hill is Pt. 6826 (W6/NS-259). It was my backup summit in case Smith Peak had too much snow. It turned out that although it was lower, it appeared to have more snow than Smith Peak, at least along the route that I would have used.
  • Lake Davis to the northeast.
  • The Sierra Valley is in the distance to the southeast.
  • Turning the camera a bit further south is the town of Portola along Highway 70. It sits below Beckwourth Peak (W6/NS-228) which is the one with snow on it, just past the fires. In the foreground about halfway to Portola is Pt. 6460 (W6/NS-276).
  • The Sierra Buttes (W6/NS-139) to the south-southwest. I'm glad I was able to activate it before the snow came (see <a href="http://www.grizzlyguy.com/HamRadio/SOTA-Activation-9202012-Sierra">my other album</a>).
  • To the east-northeast across Lake Davis is <a href="http://www.grizzlyguy.com/HamRadio/SOTA-Activations-W6CN005-NS207">Crocker Mountain (W6/NS-207)</a>. The road up to it climbs up a canyon on the north-facing side, so it probably has a lot of snow on it and may be impassable.
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