2. Ham Radio

Mt. Pluto (W6/NS-138) SOTA Activation with N6XI 2/14/2013

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Looking west-southwest towards the backside of Mt. Pluto. The top of the Backside Express lift is just to the right of this shot.
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Looking west-southwest towards the backside of Mt. Pluto. The top of the Backside Express lift is just to the right of this shot.

  • Mt. Pluto (the mountain on the left) as seen from my house in the springtime. The mountain on the right is Lookout Mountain. Both are within the Northstar ski resort that is along Highway 267 between Truckee and Kings Beach.
  • The summit of Mt. Pluto is the highest point in the Northstar ski resort. If you ride either of the two gondolas followed by two ski lifts (Arrow Express and Comstock Express), you arrive at the summit.
  • After getting off the Comstock Express lift at the summit, we skied down (red line) to a point that was about 150 vertical feet below the summit. We then took off our skis and hiked (blue line) back up to the top to operate. The turquoise and white dashed line is my estimation of where the activation zone is.
  • Rick N6XI cranking out the QSOs using his KX3. He was using his internal batteries and a transmit power setting of around 3W. I brought a 4S1P external battery pack in case his batteries ran out or we wanted to run higher power, but it wasn't needed.
  • Rick at the operating position with the ski lodge building in the background. We're on the actual summit which is wide and flat. When I activated this summit back in December, I was basically straight ahead and on the other side of the lodge near the Euro Snacks booth. They had moved those picnic tables for some reason so we ended up here.
  • My AlexLoop towering over our operating position on my Buddipole Shockcord Mast... and pointing in exactly the wrong direction. I had ASSumed that the loop had a radiation pattern similar to a dipole: points equi-distant from the loop would be in phase and thus the max lobes would be orthogonal (perpendicular) to the plane of the loop. Barry N1EU just pointed out that it doesn't work that way, and the maximum lobes are actually rotated 90 degrees (they are along the plane of the loop). Instead of beaming E-W, we were actually beaming N-S. Dohhh!!
  • Another shot of Rick at the operating position with the plane of the loop oriented N-S. The mast is bungeed to the plastic chair and one of my skis is sitting on the snow to keep the bottom of the mast from slipping. It was breezy, not bad, maybe 10-12 gusting to 15 mph.
  • This shot is looking almost due south.
  • Looking west-southwest towards the backside of Mt. Pluto. The top of the Backside Express lift is just to the right of this shot.
  • Looking almost due north toward the ski patrol shack and the radio towers on the other side of the flat.
  • Looking almost due north, a bit more east than the last shot. Note the plane of the AlexLoop. We're mainly trying to work people in the EAST.
  • Rick made 24 QSOs including 3 summit-to-summit QSOs with Dan WO6M, fellow NCCC member Elliott K6ILM and Fred WS0TA (a.k.a. KT5X).
  • The SOTAWatch spots.
  • I borrowed Rick's KX3 to make the same three summit-to-summit QSOs, plus two more QSOs with Larry K4PIC and Mike KD9KC. Thanks to all the chasers for calling in! Next time we'll make it easier on you by pointing the AlexLoop correctly!
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