2. Ham Radio

Dixie Mountain (W6/CN-006) SOTA Activation - 12/31/2011

Dec 31, 2011 activation of Dixie Mountain for ham radio's Summits On The Air activity.
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Yup, I think it will work just fine.
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Yup, I think it will work just fine.

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  • Before you can activate a summit you have to get up onto it. That can be tricky, especially in winter. The road to Dixie Mountain's summit is about 7-8 miles long and climbs 2700 vertical feet. For maps and directions to the mountain, see <a href="http://www.grizzlyguy.com/HamRadio/SOTA-DixieMtn-W6CN006-2013">my album from a later activation</a>.<br><br> I decided to ride my Yamaha Grizzly 700 4x4 ATV as it is about as rugged a vehicle as you'll find, and on rough terrain I can travel a lot faster on it than in a full-sized 4x4. About 1 mile up the road, the patches of snow and ice that I'd ridden through turned into solid snow and ice with no end in sight as you can see above. The steepest sections of the road were still ahead of me. It was decision time: do I press on alone and risk getting stuck with no one around to help me get out? Or do I play it safe, abort the operation and go home?<br><br> I was feeling pretty good and had my winter survival gear onboard so I went for it. The basic technique: gas on, and DO NOT come off the gas for any reason, else you'll lose momentum and sink into the snow (or careen off the ice).<br><br> The snow got deeper as I climbed higher, and as I rounded a corner I saw that a tree has fallen across the road. It didn't look very big but it was hard to tell with snow and icicles hanging off of its branches. If I stopped to size it up better I might sink in and not be able to get going again. I stayed on the gas and did my best Dukes of Hazard impression as I crashed over and through the tree. Boy I wish I had that on video...
  • Once I climbed out of the shaded forest and into the sun further up, the snow got a lot thinner and I could finally ease off the gas. Whew! This turn in the final set of switchbacks is about 200 vertical feet below the summit so I parked and began my hike from here. The summit is actually to the right of where the camera is looking, there is another switchback up at the top of the snowy slope in the photo.
  • The road eventually ends and a foot trail leads to the lookout tower on top of the mountain. The trail is narrow, the snow is frozen solid with spots of sheet ice, and a fall could result in a l-o-n-g tumble down the steep slope to the right. I only had my lightweight low-top hiking shoes, no crampons, no ice axe, no climbing gear, no partner... so that trail wasn't for me.<br /> <br /> Instead, I turned to my left and scrambled up through the rocks and boulders to the top of the ridge, ending up just a few hundred feet south of the lookout tower.
  • This is the point I scrambled up to. It looked pretty good and I estimated it was only about 10 vertical feet below the base of the lookout tower, so it's well within the activation zone.
  • Zoomed-in topo map of the area. The blue line is the track from my ATV's GPS, the red is from my wrist-mounted GPS, and the yellow is the approximate location of the snowy and icy trail to the lookout tower.
  • This spot on the ridge looked even better when I noticed that someone had set a pipe into the top of the largest and highest rock in the area. This would make a great tie-off spot for one of my antenna's two wires.
  • Even better than the pipe set into the rock was... this abandoned piece of antenna tower. WoW! What's next? Pennies from heaven?
  • I did what any self-respecting ham radio operator would do in this situation - I raised the tower!
  • Yup, I think it will work just fine.
  • This is the 20m dipole antenna that I erected. The tower is supporting the center insulator and coax. The north end is being supported by the pipe-in-rock, and my Buddipole collapsible mast is holding up the south end. The antenna runs generally north-south, so it's biggest lobes (er, the most signal) will be in the east-west directions. Perfect! Of course I really had no other choice of orientation given where these items happened to be.<br /> <br /> Note to self: gotta buy a lottery ticket soon, before this lucky streak runs out... ;-)
  • Another shot of the proud papa and his newly born antenna.
  • A close-up of the top of the tower. My dipole's center insulator is tied to the top using an old shoelace and a piece of small rope.
  • An even closer close-up on the center insulator's attachment to the tower.
  • The Buddipole mast is holding up the south end of the dipole via a bungee cord and the nifty itty-bitty carabiner that I "discovered" on my backpack during my Virginia Peak activation a few days earlier. <br /> <br /> I radioed up to the pilot of a micro-jet and asked him to fly right through the middle of the bungee loop to test its integrity. As you can see, he obliged me and the bungee held up fine. ;-)
  • With the antenna now up, I setup my radio gear and operating position. Mr. Glock stayed home because Dixie Mountain is within a state game refuge, and state law prohibits us from carrying guns in these areas. No worries, I had a backup plan: if an insomniac bear happened to climb up to my position, I'd just yank the coax to drop the tower down right on his head! ;-)
  • My mini-crater operating position as seen from the pipe in the rock. I actually took this photo later, after I had finished operating, climbed back up and untied that end of the antenna.
  • Here I am operating CW (Morse code). Winds were light, and the bright sunshine made me feel quite cozy. Notice that I can't seem to take my eyes off of that beautiful tower-supported antenna... ;-)
  • Here are the spots of me on Sotawatch.org. I didn't have any Internet signal and barely any cell phone signal on the summit, so I didn't see these until after I got home. K3TN (John in Maryland) was the first to answer my CQs and he promptly spotted me. No one else came by, so after several more CQs with no response I decided to tune around a bit.<br /> <br /> It's a good thing that I did, because just a bit down the band from me was fellow summit activator K6TW on W6/CD-019 (Kelso Dunes) out in the Mojave Desert in Southern California. I called and worked him for my first ever summit-to-summit QSO. I then found a clear frequency, called CQ a few more times (or just once?), and ND0C answered and spotted me. Shortly after that a mini-pileup began and I quickly worked several more stations.<br /> <br /> Thanks for the spots guys!
  • Another shot of me operating. I ended up making 15 contacts on 20m CW with stations all over the U.S. and Canada. I was only on the air for about 45 minutes total as I wanted to get safely back down off the mountain before the snow softened or it got dark, whichever came first. The "gas ON" ATV rider technique of dealing with snow and ice only works well going uphill. Downhill... not so much. Crawling slowly down the road is the way to go.
  • The Dixie Mountain lookout tower as seen from my operating position inside the mini-crater.
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