2. Ham Radio

Babbitt Peak (W6/NS-132) SOTA Activation 8/5/2012

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Here is a zoomed in view of White Lake and Silver Springs down in Nevada.
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Here is a zoomed in view of White Lake and Silver Springs down in Nevada.

  • Babbitt Peak has an active fire lookout and the dirt road to the summit is well maintained and doable for a 2WD vehicle. For maps and directions to Babbitt Peak, see <a href="http://www.grizzlyguy.com/HamRadio/SOTA-BabbittPeak-W6NS132-2013">this album</a>. I rode my ATV as always and this is where I did my hike from. The summit and lookout are not yet visible. Notice how much better the visibility is as compared to my Signal Peak activation gallery from the day before. We had some overnight thunderstorms and the rain cleaned the air up quite nicely.
  • As you continue up the road the summit and lookout tower come into view.
  • The lady manning the lookout seemed nervous about my radio interfering with hers. I gave us some space by hiking down the east slope a bit to a spot that was actually an ideal operating location. It was about 60 vertical feet below the summit, so it was well within the SOTA activation zone of 80 vertical feet. I hung my 20/40m dipole from a limb of the tree in the center of the shot. Just beyond the tree the terrain drops off abruptly to the northeast. The solar panels aren't mine, they were already there (and I didn't tap into them for power).
  • It's difficult to see, but my dipole is hanging in inverted-V configuration from the large limb near the top of the tree, about 30 feet up. The antenna runs roughly north-south, putting it's maximum lobes to the east and west. <br /> <br /> By the way, to get my antenna up into trees I bring along a small ditty bag and a hank of 1.75mm Zing-It throw line. I put a rock in the ditty bag, tie the line to the bag, and baseball-throw it up and over the branch. The Zing-It line looks like large twine, but has a special coating that reduces friction and keeps it from snagging on the tree branch. It has a breaking strength of 400 pounds so it is more than enough to pull up a dipole without first having to pull up a thicker line. Zing-It is pricier than the mason line you can get at the hardware store (which I happily use on the ends of my dipole) but well worth the price in terms of durability and ease of getting an antenna up.
  • A zoomed in shot of the center of the antenna hanging from the limb with my RG-58 coax hanging down from the center insulator.
  • On the north end of the antenna, I tied the end off to a small tree.
  • There was no convenient tree available for the south end so I again used my hiking pole as a support.
  • Looking back up to the lookout and summit from near my antenna tree.
  • My view while operating was out into Nevada. The dry lake is White Lake along Highway 395, about 5 miles north of downtown Reno and near Bordertown. The neighborhood (town?) behind and to the left of the dry lake is Silver Springs and the valley it sits in is Cold Spring Valley.
  • Here is a zoomed in view of White Lake and Silver Springs down in Nevada.
  • Cranking off the QSOs while kicked back in my Crazy Creek chair in the shade.
  • Me, a tree and the HB-1B. See? {yup, I stole that line from one of my prior activations' album}.
  • The lookout lady is either using her binoculars to scan for fires or to check out what I'm up to.
  • A view of my operating location without me cluttering up the shot.
  • I took this shot while hiking back down the road. The camera is pointing south-southeast. Jones Valley is the smaller grassy area closest to the camera and Sardine Valley is the larger one. The largest and closest body of water is Stampede Reservoir and Boca Reservoir is also visible behind it.
  • Looking to the southwest, in the center of this shot on the skyline is Mt. Lola (W6/NS-111) with snow still on it. The forested double peak to the left is Sardine Peak (W6/NS-160) that I activated a few days before. The peak farthest from the camera is the actual summit with its lookout. The single forested peak to the right is Land Peak (W6/NS-169). Trossi Canyon is between them. When I got back to my ATV and loaded up, I rode up Trossi Canyon Road to look for a route up to Land Peak (for a future activation).
  • To the west, Sierra Buttes (W6/NS-139) juts up onto the skyline.
  • Land Peak (W6/NS-169) as viewed from a meadow on the north side of Trossi Canyon. There are no roads or trails leading up to the peak so this is the most likely spot to begin a bushwhacking ascent to its summit, approximately 750 vertical feet above this spot. The coordinates of this spot are 39.54976N, 120.19954W. It is reached by hiking out Tahoe National Forest's "road" 860-33-30 which joins Trossi Canyon Road at 39.54754N, 120.19957W.
  • This Western Juniper tree is along Trossi Canyon road and just a few hundred yards from where the previous photo of Land Peak was taken. The coordinates are 39.54771N, 120.1966W.
  • The sign at the tree.
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