2. Ham Radio

Pt. 7860 (W6/NS-177) SOTA Activation 8/8/2012

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My snag looks puny next to the large fir.
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My snag looks puny next to the large fir.

  • Pt. 7860 is located above Lake Of The Woods in Tahoe National Forest. To get to Lake Of The Woods, drive up I-80 to Truckee. Take the Highway 89 North Sierraville exit and drive about 17 miles north on Highway 89. Turn left on the paved road that goes to Jackson Meadows Reservoir (the turnoff has a clear sign). Approximately 7 miles up the road, turn right on the well maintained dirt road that goes to Lake Of The Woods (it also has a sign). The road is about 2-3 miles long and a 2WD passenger car should have no problem with it in summer or fall. In winter or spring, the paved road to Jackson Meadows Reservoir is not plowed so you will need a snowmobile or cross-country skis.
  • At the northeast corner of the lake is an intersection of two large dirt roads, and across the intersection you will see this 4x4 trail that goes up to the summit of Pt. 7860. Unless you have an ATV, dirt bike or high-clearance 4x4 rig, start your hike here. This spot is approximately 420 vertical feet below the summit.
  • I do have an ATV so I rode up the hill a bit and started my hike from a point that is around 300 vertical feet from the summit. The red line is the GPS tracklog from my hike and the turquoise and white dashed line is my estimate of the SOTA activation zone. The dashed black line is the track log from my ATV (I went to the lake via a route different than the one I described above).
  • Pack on and ready to start my hike up the rest of the 4x4 trail to the top.
  • The summit is covered with woolly mule ears (what isn't around here) and big fir trees. You can leave your mast at home.
  • The terrain drops off sharply to the northeast.
  • I chose this little snag that is next to a very tall fir tree for my antenna support. The limb at the top is about 20 feet up and unlike a live tree, there are no annoying branches to snag your line or antenna. Because of the steep slope to the left of this photo (towards the east and northeast where I expect most of my contacts to come from) my antenna doesn't need to be very high to be effective.
  • My snag looks puny next to the large fir.
  • A non-ham asked me how I get my antennas up into the trees when I'm out on a SOTA activation. I explained how, I use this part of my kit: A 100-ish foot length of Zing-It throw line and a small ditty bag. One more key component is required but I don't bring it with me (the rock).<br /> <br /> Back in my backpacking days, instead of throw line I would use kite string, fishing line, mason line, clothesline rope, paracord, or whatever I could scrounge and toss into my pack on the way out the door. The problem was that they would either snag on the rough surface of the branch, break, or have too much friction to allow my throw weight (back then it was rock-in-my-sock) to fall to the ground on the other side. I used to do a lot of hiking with only one sock because the other was stuck up in a tree. This Zing-It line is SO much superior to those old-school lines that it's almost unbelievable. It has a special slick coating that flat-out will not catch on anything. It's so slick that the entire line will happily glide across the limb to the other side (if you don't tie off your end) and it has a breaking strength of 400 lbs. I guess there is a reason why professional arborists use it and leave their kite string, fishing line, etc. back at home.
  • I begin by finding a clear spot near my desired tree (or use my foot to roughly clear a spot) then carefully uncoil my Zing It line so that one end is on the bottom, the other end is on the top, and if the top end were suddenly to start flying up into space... the line wouldn't tangle or knot up.
  • I put the rock in the ditty bag and tie the TOP end of the line to the bag using a couple of overhand knots (any knot will do). I tie the BOTTOM end of the line to anything handy, such as a rock, my shoe, whatever.
  • Now for the fun part. With rock-in-bag in my right hand and the line in my left hand so that a loop hangs down in front of me to about my knees... I let 'er rip upward toward my desired branch or limb, remembering to let go of the line in my left hand as I follow through with my throw.
  • Not to brag, but this was a perfect throw on the first try. The line ended up exactly where I wanted it to be: over the limb (obviously) and just above the "stub" sticking out of the limb. The "stub" will keep the line from sliding down off the branch. <br /> <br /> See also the line that is running behind me and tied off to the dead limb on the ground. That's all that's left on my side. Had that been kite string, paracord, whatever... the friction between it and the limb would have caused plenty of the line to be left on my side, maybe so much that rock-in-bag would now be dangling up out of my reach. Zing-It baby, Zing-It!
  • The "stub" is that moss-covered pair of old branches just to the left of the line.
  • With the line in place, I tie one end to the center insulator of my antenna. I like to then connect the coax to the insulator and temporarily raise it all up to about eye level. This makes it easier to unbundle and route the two green wires vs. doing it on the ground where it will get caught in just about everything that can catch an antenna wire... which is everything. I then pull the center insulator up to just under the branch and tie off the line to whatever is available.
  • In this case there was a handy dead limb sticking out of the fir tree. Now that the antenna will (or should) stay up in the tree, I can tension and tie off the wires on each side.
  • To do that, I use mason line wound around high-tech pieces of cardboard that originally came from a Charmin toilet paper box. The green antenna wires each end in a small ring terminal, and I use a small fishing swivel and clip connector on the mason lines. For this end of the antenna, I had barely enough mason line wound onto my high-tech cardboard to reach this tree. I shoved the cardboard in under a piece of bark and called it good enough.
  • Over on the other end... same thing. I didn't even have enough to go around the small fir tree like I'd usually do, so I poked the cardboard into the needles and called it good enough.
  • It's difficult to see in this shot, but my 20/40m link dipole is now towering (snagging?) over Pt. 7860.
  • With the antenna up, it's time to connect the little HB-1B (4-ish watt CW-only transceiver) and get rockin' and a rollin'.
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