2. Ham Radio

Peavine Peak, NV (W7/WC-011) SOTA Activation - 12/18/2011

Dec 18, 2011 activation of Peavine Peak for ham radio's Summits On The Air activity.
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My equipment pile in between QSOs (conversations). The Icom 706MkIIG radio's main body is inside the small black pack (partially visible at bottom) with it's battery, and the control head is sitting on the ground. The control head connects to the radio body with a long cable, and that makes it easier to plop it on your lap, or on the ground in this case. <br /> <br /> My BullDog mini keyer paddles (what I send Morse code with) are sitting with a pen and pencil on top of the log book. The black box in the upper-left is my Whatt meter from West Mountain Radio (unfortunately upside down in this shot) for measuring accumulated power consumption from my 9 AHr SLA battery. My mini-headphones are plugged in but didn't make it into the shot. I started out running about 5-10W, then kicked it up to 40-50W later so that (hopefully) more people would be able to hear and work me. The radio can do as much as 100W, but it is rarely necessary, especially on CW.
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My equipment pile in between QSOs (conversations). The Icom 706MkIIG radio's main body is inside the small black pack (partially visible at bottom) with it's battery, and the control head is sitting on the ground. The control head connects to the radio body with a long cable, and that makes it easier to plop it on your lap, or on the ground in this case.

My BullDog mini keyer paddles (what I send Morse code with) are sitting with a pen and pencil on top of the log book. The black box in the upper-left is my Whatt meter from West Mountain Radio (unfortunately upside down in this shot) for measuring accumulated power consumption from my 9 AHr SLA battery. My mini-headphones are plugged in but didn't make it into the shot. I started out running about 5-10W, then kicked it up to 40-50W later so that (hopefully) more people would be able to hear and work me. The radio can do as much as 100W, but it is rarely necessary, especially on CW.

EquipmentRadioPaddlesAndLog

  • Peavine Peak as seen from the east down on the paved North Virginia Street in Reno. The dirt and gravel (and unmarked) Peavine Road takes off from near here and climbs all the way to the top. I'll drive most of the way to the top, but do the final climb on foot as per SOTA rules.
  • Pack on and ready to make the climb up to the peak (in the background). The "NCCC" on the hat stands for Northern California Contest Club and the black thing sticking up from my pack is a Buddipole collapsible mast (the long 16' version). Its support tripod and the rest of my gear are in the pack.
  • Almost to the top. The peak is packed with repeater antennas, equipment buildings, etc. I ended up on the east edge of the peak, behind the buildings and antennas in this shot, only 10-ish vertical feet from the tippy-top.
  • I've just arrived at the top. I took off my jacket and vest, dumped my backpack's contents on the ground and am ready to setup the antenna and radio. The building behind me will hopefully block a lot of the wind that is expected to come from the west. At this point, it is dead calm and actually kind of warm. This is a good thing, because I really look goofy wearing my fur-lined Elmer Fudd hat in the foreground.
  • Uh-oh, I've got competition. If I were to put a potato at the top of my antenna mast... would it bake by the time I'm ready for lunch? ;-)
  • Gear on ground, ready to setup. The other Peavine Peak (not the SOTA one) is in the background. We have a hang glider launch over at the other peak. Supposedly the peak I'm on is just a few feet higher, but it's really hard to tell that without a topo map.
  • View to the southeast from my operating position. That's Reno way down below.
  • View to the south-southeast from my operating position. The Mt. Rose Wilderness is the area on the distant skyline. I-80 runs through the valley in between.
  • View to the northeast from my operating position. Reno has haze floating over it.
  • The antenna is up, I'm checking it out before connecting it to the radio. I went with a 20m inverted-V (wire antenna) with its apex held by the Buddipole mast. You can barely see the wires, that's the RG-58 coax (feedline) in my hand. The thin wire will have less wind loading so it should require less guying than a Buddipole antenna sitting at the top. And, it is the very same antenna (sans the mast) that I took on my IOTA DXpedition to SV8 Santorini (EU-067) back in 2000, so I'm feeling lucky. ;-)<br /> <br /> The mast isn't fully extended so the apex is only up about 12-14 feet. That's normally too low for a horizontal or inverted-V antenna when you want to work stations far away, but since the terrain falls off sharply just a few feet from the antenna, that helps a lot. It worked well and I ended up working stations on the U.S. and Canadian east coasts without a problem.
  • My equipment pile in between QSOs (conversations). The Icom 706MkIIG radio's main body is inside the small black pack (partially visible at bottom) with it's battery, and the control head is sitting on the ground. The control head connects to the radio body with a long cable, and that makes it easier to plop it on your lap, or on the ground in this case. <br /> <br /> My BullDog mini keyer paddles (what I send Morse code with) are sitting with a pen and pencil on top of the log book. The black box in the upper-left is my Whatt meter from West Mountain Radio (unfortunately upside down in this shot) for measuring accumulated power consumption from my 9 AHr SLA battery. My mini-headphones are plugged in but didn't make it into the shot. I started out running about 5-10W, then kicked it up to 40-50W later so that (hopefully) more people would be able to hear and work me. The radio can do as much as 100W, but it is rarely necessary, especially on CW.
  • Another shot of my equipment. The radio body and battery are in the black pack. My wire antennas are all cut long for the bottom of the CW (Morse code) bands where I usually operate, so I brought along the little MFJ antenna tuner so I could operate SSB (voice) up at the top of the band as well. In the end I didn't need it: after about 5-10 minutes of CQ-ing on SSB up on 14.342 with the power cranked up to 50W... not a single reply!
  • People are hearing and working me! Here are the spots entered by other operators on the SOTAWatch.org page. My callsign is KU6J. Spots like these help other hams know that a summit activation is underway. I didn't know about these spots until after I got home.
  • My antenna with Reno in the background.
  • My antenna and operating position, looking northeast.
  • My antenna and operating position on the east edge of the peak, looking north. Gotta love that down-sloping terrain!
  • My antenna and operating position looking south toward the Mt Rose Wilderness Area, way over across the valley near the skyline.
  • It started out calm, then the wind suddenly picked up from behind me. I quickly put my jacket back on and held the coax in my teeth while operating so as to help keep the antenna from being blown off the edge! Sorry for my QLF moments (QLF means sending with your left foot). ;-)
  • At the operating position, the camera is looking east.
  • QRX (stand by) everyone - Got another wind gust. Come on antenna, don't blow over and tumble down the hill!
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