2. Ham Radio

Quartz Hill (W6/NS-246) SOTA Activation 7/3/2014

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The SOTA Northern Sierra region logo. This logo is available on Northern Sierra T-shirts, sweatshirts, beer steins, mouse pads, etc. for SOTA participants who qualify for the Northern Sierra Award (offered by yours truly KU6J). The award rules are linked to from my page on QRZ.com.
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The SOTA Northern Sierra region logo. This logo is available on Northern Sierra T-shirts, sweatshirts, beer steins, mouse pads, etc. for SOTA participants who qualify for the Northern Sierra Award (offered by yours truly KU6J). The award rules are linked to from my page on QRZ.com.

SOTANorthernSierra

  • The SOTA Northern Sierra region logo. This logo is available on Northern Sierra T-shirts, sweatshirts, beer steins, mouse pads, etc. for SOTA participants who qualify for the Northern Sierra Award (offered by yours truly KU6J). The award rules are linked to from my page on QRZ.com.
  • To get to Quartz Hill you can either take Bowman Lake Road from Highway 20, or take Tahoe National Forest road 07 that runs to Jackson Meadows Reservoir from highway 89 (black lines are paved roads, other colors are dirt roads). The Bowman Lake Road route is EXTREMELY rough from the point the pavement ends. It is so rough that my friends and I try to avoid it even on our ATVs. The route from Jackson Meadows Reservoir has rough spots, but the distance you travel on rough road is much less. I recommend going that way and leaving Bowman Lake Road to the deer and bears!
  • Whichever route you choose, make your way to Tahoe National Forest road 76 at my C843F76 point (39.4692N, 120.57245W). Drive up it for about 1.5 miles, and turn left onto the minor road shown in blue at F76FIRHILL. This road has a dozen or so water bars, a few are abrupt, but a 2WD vehicle with reasonable ground clearance (such as a pick-up) should have no problem with them. Drive about 1 mile and park at the hairpin turn where the power line crosses the road (QUARTZ_638 = 39.47742N, 120.60396W). From there it is a cross-country hike (no trail) of approximately 2 miles, with an elevation gain of about 640 feet.
  • Topo map showing my hikes, red is going up and green is coming back down. Spiny brush (ouch!) is an issue for the first part of the hike as you make your way down to the small stream bed. Once you climb up out of the stream bed, the brush is mostly stunted manzanita which you can easily tromp through or wind your way through it. From the stream bed you will climb about 750 vertical feet to the summit.
  • Google Earth view of my hike, looking south.
  • Google Earth view of my hike, looking west.
  • Nearing the top, the rocky summit finally comes into view.
  • Getting to the actual summit requires some rock climbing skills. I don't have those skills and was alone, so I decided to setup on a little perch that was about 20 vertical feet inside the activation zone.
  • My perch, it even had some shade. I had a great shot to the south, a decent one to the west, but my shot east was basically paralleling a long wall of granite boulders (see next photo). I called CQ on 20m, quickly got two calls from stations down south, but an additional 10 minutes of CQ-ing turned up nothing. I tried 30m, but had no callers at all. I thought that minerals in the rocks might be compromising my signal to the east, so I packed up and climbed up a steep boulder gulley to try and find a better operating spot up above. <br /> <br /> I later learned that the SOTA spotting system was malfunctioning, and that was why I was having so much trouble making contacts. RBN skimmers to the east heard me, so minerals in the rocks weren't interfering with my signal as I thought.
  • From my first operating position, my shot to the east ran along these boulders and towards the hill that you see on the skyline behind the pine limb.
  • Part of the boulder gully I climbed up on my way to find a new operating position, with the my hiking pole in the foreground for scale.
  • About 30 vertical feet above where I was before, I found this broad shelf that seemed ideal. I couldn't even see it from down where I was below. There was a sheer cliff to the southeast and I decided to setup the Alexloop just a few feet back from the edge, so as to stay as far away as possible from the pile of granite boulders continuing up to the summit. The shots east and west were unobstructed, but the summit was blocking me to the north. Apologies to chasers up in OR, WA and VE7, but this was the best I could do. This shot is looking SE with English Mountain W6/NS-151 on the skyline behind the Alexloop (<a href="http://www.grizzlyguy.com/HamRadio/SOTA-EnglishMtn-W6NS151-2013">I activated it last year</a>).
  • The summit of Quartz Hill is about another 30 vertical feet above my new operating position. The manzanita is hiding deep gaps between the rocks, and I didn't want to try climbing up and through that and having a rock roll down on me, getting my foot stuck, or falling. It is steeper than it looks.
  • Standing at my new operating location with <a href="http://www.grizzlyguy.com/HamRadio/SOTA-EnglishMtn-W6NS151-2013">English Mountain W6/NS-151</a> in the background to the southeast.
  • Looking a bit more to the left of the last shot, with English Mountain on the left.
  • Same as the last shot but zoomed in. There is a small lake visible in the distance, center of the shot. Is that Lake Sterling?
  • Looking south with Red Hill behind the right edge of the loop and just below the skyline. Bowman Mountain W6/NS-218 is the one that appears to be cutting through my neck (<a href="http://www.grizzlyguy.com/HamRadio/SOTA-BowmanMtn-W6NS218">I activated it a few days earlier</a>), and the peak on the skyline between them and further back is Fall Creek Mountain W6/NS-209. Grouse Ridge W6/NS-195 is on the skyline behind Red Hill. <a href="http://www.grizzlyguy.com/HamRadio/SOTA-Activation-10172012">I activated Grouse Ridge two years ago</a>.
  • Looking southeast with Black Buttes W6/NS-170 on the distant skyline about a third of the way from the left edge of the photo. <a href="http://www.grizzlyguy.com/HamRadio/SOTA-BlackButtes-W6NS270-2013">I activated Black Buttes last year</a> and it was a tough one. The lake that you see directly in line with Black Buttes is Sawmill Lake.
  • Looking east-northeast, with the Alexloop pointing east. The only thing "blocking" my shot to the east is the top of that pine tree, and the cliff edge is just a few feet in front of the Alexloop. It doesn't get much better than this. :-)
  • To the west-southwest is the other peak of Quartz Hill. Per the USGS topo maps, it is 8 feet lower than the SOTA peak that I am on. This shot and the one that follows it were taken from near my first operating position.
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