2. Ham Radio

Sierra Buttes (W6/NS-139) SOTA Activation 9/20/2012

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Looking down into the Yuba River canyon, the jeep trail that climbs up from Sierra City is visible.
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Looking down into the Yuba River canyon, the jeep trail that climbs up from Sierra City is visible.

  • One might be able to climb up onto the rocks and anchor an antenna out there, but again, it is a LONG way down if you slip and fall.
  • Without many other practical and safe choices, I ended up hanging a 20m dipole down from the southeast corner of the lookout tower in sloper configuration.
  • There was just enough room to anchor the other end using a crack in one of the last rocks that you can walk down to (vs. climbing). With all the loose scree on the rocks, you had to really pay attention even in that relatively safe area.
  • My antenna and I. As you can see, it wasn't very high above the summit itself. However, there is a 400-500' high sheer cliff about 5 feet behind me... so the antenna was electrically very-very high.
  • I'm standing on the southeast corner of the lookout deck and you can see the antenna wire sloping steeply downward. A shallower slope for the wire would have been nice, but there wasn't room. There also wasn't enough room for my 20/40m link dipole (twice as long) so no 40m for me today.
  • I ran my coax around to the west side of the tower and operated from a rock slab that was in the shade. This was my KX3's 2nd activation trip and 4th summit activated (I did 3 summits on the overnight trip before).
  • The camera is looking west. Elliott K6ILM in San Francisco was really loud today on 20m which is unusual. Most of the time we can't hear each other at all on that band, and end up working on 40m instead. There must have been a nearly line-of-sight patch for our signals out behind me.
  • I heard Bill W4RK/5 down on 14.061 and called him several times, hoping for a summit-to-summit QSO. He was weak with QSB, Q2 and peaking to Q3. He never responded even after I increased my transmit power by 3 dB to 10 watts. Oh well, maybe next time!
  • Another view of the precipice that began about 5 feet behind where I was standing in the photo of me under the antenna.
  • Looking towards the west-northwest.
  • The Yuba River canyon to the southwest. Highway 49 runs along the canyon.
  • Looking down into the Yuba River canyon, the jeep trail that climbs up from Sierra City is visible.
  • The view to the northwest. The top of the main set of stairs is in the lower center of the shot.
  • Another shot from the top, this time the camera is pointing a bit left of where it was pointing in the previous photo (towards the west-northwest). Some hikers are visible down on the road before it reaches the stairs.
  • Logbook page 1.
  • Logbook page 2. I made a total of 12 QSOs on 20m CW. Thanks to everyone who worked me!
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