Tag: Amateur Radio

Nutt Benchmark (W7A/SM-046)

I wanted to take advantage of being in the area, so after scouring over sotl.as, finding a peak that met some of my requirements, studying the (digital) topo map and finding very little info for the approach, I went with a peak that seemed well within my wheelhouse. Plus, it has a cute name to boot, “Nutt Benchmark”. It was also a First Activation peak, so those are always fun (and typically involve the most planning and do tend to give me a little anxiety.

Preflight:

At the Sitgreaves Pass View point is a wonderful (and big) with some flat spots pull out that we ended up using as a post up. That was the one useful tip the couple of trip reports I found contained. So with some daylight left, and me wanting to do a little exploring I managed to climb my way to the top of the nearby ridge line. It turns out that there was a well cairn’d use trail that wandered off in the direction I wanted to head the next day. After walking out about a mile and confirming this approach trail would work, I opted to shift from the route I was going to use to staying up along the ridge line to a specific saddle. From the saddle to the summit is about a mile.

Lets do this:

So with that I was off from the pass at around 8:30 in the AM. I would say the ascent from the parking lot to the ridge line, and then a few segments along the final push are kind of the cruxes along the hike. Well, that and the various cactus (some of which were in bloom on this walk). If you have ever been to Oatman down the hill you have probably encountered the very docile and tame donkeys. However out here in the uplands those donkeys are a bit more feral. As soon as I crossed into the hills and they were aware of my presence, they were gone. The walk is in a N by NE direction until a saddle is reached with great views over towards the Hualapai Mountains. From here turn towards Northwest and knock out the last 800 feet of elevation gain in about a mile.

Because the elevation gain is pretty minimal I made pretty good time scooching along the approach ridge. You actually pass right under another SOTA summit (4975, W7A/SM-055) that would make for a fun two-fer. For what I could tell the approach up 4975 would be pretty easy, but it does look steep. I was considering the two-fer and would allow the build up of clouds determine yes or no. Once the saddle is reached the trail (for the most part) is over, there are plenty of braided paths to the summit, however one thing I would advise is to not push for the final ridge until after that last rock wall you encounter. After that though it’s smooth sailing.

Summit and Activation:

The summit area is a large flat area so plenty of room to spread out and enjoy yourself. Since this is not that popular of a peak (for some reason), it’s not like you have to keep your station setup small. When I say this peak is not that popular, the last person to sign the log that was on the summit was in May of 2023, ten months ago. The log based upon the the business card inside the PB Jar (yah do not use PB jars, those plastic lids deteriorate quick) was placed by the Las Vegas Mountaineering club. No idea if they plan outings or what.

I spent about two hours on the summit on a day following a pretty large solar storm, so the fact that I managed 40 contacts across five bands was pretty impressive. No DX to be had, and as much as that probably had to do with my late start, i am guessing the dead bands also were a part of it. SFI of 195, and K of 4 are not optimal conditions, but as I noted, I made it work.

Time to wrap up:

Part way through the activation I was noticing the same afternoon build up of clouds and virga that we kept getting during the softball tournament, so I opted to stick around a bit longer and keep activating, but would skip the second peak. The walk down was pretty uneventful except that I did step on a chunk of cactus, and it went through the bottom of my shoe (ouch), so that took a few minutes to dig out.. That and for whatever reason I kept losing the trail on the return even after I was on the main path. So pay attention. Overall I would put this as a medium effort peak, I covered a total of 10.25 miles and just shy of 2200 feet of total ascent.

Some final parting shots:

73 de N6JFD/P

Not the best of conditions, but still made it all across the US

New Zealand North Island High Point

Taking a break from a long road trip to highlight one specific activation. For those not in the know we have been on the road in Au/Nz for 6 weeks now and the trip is winding down with a couple of weeks on the South Island starting later this week. However today I rolled the dice with the weather and decided to head up the North Island High Point. Mt Ruapehu is the proper name for the entire volcano, but the summit block that claims the HP is named Tahurangi. ZL1/MW-001.

nothing to worry about eh? just a pile o rock 😉

This peak has only been activated once, and given some of the other issues I have been having getting contacts (that will be explained in a full write up ar a later date), I was a bit worried about getting this successfully activated on a Monday. Geoff/ZL3GA helped hook me up though with getting the word out to some of the other local cw chasers!

It was also hard finding good approach data for this peak, so well lets just roll the dice and see how we fare!

Most write ups did talk about walking up under the ski lifts and that works well, but is not the highlight of the hike. Once at the top of the High Noon chair head to the right/Easterly. There is a creek/ice field that does need to be crossed. Today there was a decent crossing however in my mind tbis was the crux and a bit unnerving. The runout would not have been good, I did find a place further downstream to cross without ice. The next goal is to make the shoulder that runs SW to NE. Take the time to notice the amazing slab that goes from about 2500M to a cliff band around 2650M. The slab is very sticky, and I found it easy for going both up and down in a straight line. Most of the tracks I found avoid the slab, but if you are comfortable on rock its safe and fun. The next bit oh fun is a lot of switchbacks, or some mild class IV climbing, but this is the steepest part of the approach.

Top out on the false summit and the last 100M is pretty mellow, do note though there is about 20-25M of a spine before the shoulder gets really mild. The drop off on both sides is a bot precipitous 🙂

The view from up here is amazing, there is a huge lake down in the crater, a cone on the other side of the lake, and a few more summits as well. The mountain did burp a couple of times while I was up there and that was a touch unnerving, but I did not see anything spewing.

This was my best activation so far of the trip, I managed to get 9 contacts total across VHF 20/30/40M (not used to getting so few, but as noted above another story for a much bigger post).

W4G/W4T/W4C, 2 days 4 peaks, no sleep :D. Spring my ass!

(From April) Time for my spring trip to TN to visit the homestead, and I wanted to pick up some W4G action since I just finished mapping the SOTA peaks on the AT.  I will post that as a separate blog, as that was a very interesting planning effort, and maybe in a couple of years I’ll take the 4 months it will take to do the AT+SOTA as a single thru hike mission.

Anyway back to this trip, landed in Knoxville and picked up a 4wd since I’d heard that there was going to maybe be some snow in the area..  Wait, did I hear that right?  Snow?  it’s April, it’s the Southeast, again, SNOW?  Like they always said when I was growing up, do not like the weather, wait 10 minutes.   Dropped the son off at my dad’s, picked up a sleeping bag, pad and wool blanket then rolled down to the Blood Mountain trailhead for some sleep.  Finally drifted off to sleep around 6am, but woke up at 730 to start the hike up.. snagged some breakfast, downed a liter of water and hit the trail around 800am.   The crazy thing about the AT is that you do a LOT of UP climbing, and the folks that built the AT did not believe in doing switchbacks, I bet adding switchbacks to most of the major climbs would add another 500 miles to the AT ;-).  Anyway, so UP I climbed, to hit the summit of Blood mountain. It had rained the day before, then got cold overnight and a freezing fog moved in which made from some really cool rime ice on the trees and spider webs.  <insert frozen web here> While on the hike up the temps warmed up enough that the rime ice started falling off the trees, and dropping a fresh layer of frost on the ground.  The view was not that great today because of the heavy fog in the area, but I found a nice rock platform to sit on only to realize I was sitting on the Blood Mountain marker <insert marker here>

Contacts from this activation: 20m: K6MW, W7RV, N5ZC.  40m: KG3W, W0MNA, W9MRH, KD9JJE, K3TCU.

I was a bit early for the west coast on this peak, and ended up getting more 40 then 20 today.  Now that the contacts were slowing down, decided I wanted to snag a second summit, and realized I was very close to Brasstown Bald (NG-001) so opted to book it down the hill and hit that on the drive up to Carvers Gap.  FYI, this is a fee area with a good lookout platform up top kind of like Clingmans Dome, but it also has some towers on top that can inject some RFI..   You have the option to take the shuttle up, but this is SOTA, and the hike from the parking lot is ~6/10 of a mile and a couple hundred feet.  NOTE:  the parking lot is NOT in the AZ, so do not try and activate from there..(not that you should be activating from a motorized vehicle anyway 😉 ).

The bands either dropped out in the 2 hours since I left the summit of Blood, or there really was a good amount of RFI on the peak.  Quite a few folks though showed interest in what I was doing though, so I was helping “spread the gospel of Amateur Radio and SOTA”. while playing with various antenna angles and setups.  I started on the platform itself since no one was up there, but it did start to get crowded, so I moved across the road to the top of the walking route and setup there on a nice park bench.  Not that it helped much.  I managed to eek out 4 contacts with 1 being an S2S on 18m while on the peak today but even 2m was a challenge as I was trying to S2S with a guy who was on a peak 20 miles crowfly away.  I could barely make this guy on Clingman’s dome as well, (he was not doing SOTA, but was trying to act as a relay).  I’ve hit S2S on VHF for Clingman’s from Black Mountain in Kentucky, but yes I know conditions change, and other factors apply..still I was not that far from either the activator I was trying to hit, nor Clingmans dome in the grand scheme of things.

If you happen to be driving by Brasstown Ga, and have your gear by all means go bag this summit.

contacts for Brasstown Bald: S2S: KJ6HOT on 18m we had to work it hard, but ended up getting 2×2 to each other so digging each other out of the QSB.  20m W0MNA, K6HPX, and 40m W9MRH.

So this adds W4G to the association list, and I am finally silver on the Mountain Hunter.  (SOTA is not a competition, SOTA is not a competition).

Growing up the section of AT from Carvers Gap to 19E was always one of my favorites, I’d managed a lot of volunteer trail hours and numerous hikes “across the balds”.  Hump mountain was always fun because it really is a hump up it when you are schlepping a pack.  I guess i’ve always enjoyed hiking UP mountains :D.   Anyway I decided early on I wanted to go ahead and snag Roan High Knob and Grassy Ridge as well on this trip to the East coast.  Leading up to this trip I’d been talking to KI4SVM hoping to meet up either OTA, or at some TH, and as an awesome turn of fate he joined me for the RHK and GR activations.   I love getting out with other folks as it allows me to see how others setup, and maybe how to change my own setup to improve my QSO count per activation.   Carvers Gap has always had some of the strangest weather in contrast to the region around it.   It can be 70 or 80 down in Knoxville and cold, blowing and snowing up there.   This trip was no different.  Woke up on Monday morning with an inch of fresh snow.  Needless to say, I broke a few of my own rules on preparedness today, but even if I had gotten in a pickle I was not that far from the trailhead, and I knew the area well enough that I am able to navigate it in the clouds pretty well.  Lets face it the AT is more of a trough in the ground, definitely well past the “well worn in path” stage at this rate of it’s life, so it’s kind of hard to get lost in the context of being on the AT.   So KI4SVM and I headed up to Roan High Knob with the intention that I would take the first hour for my own activation, and then I would book it over to Grassy Ride while Pat worked his own activation and then we would S2S and I would also get the SOTA complete for RHK.  The hike up to RHK is about less then an hour or approximately 2 miles (and is not as steep as Blood Mountain) from the trailhead at Carvers Gap, in the summer you can access from the upper parking lot and it’s shorter.  KI4SVM setup his antenna setup and it is based upon a setup I’d learned back in EC-001 so this may be one thing I am looking to add to my own kit depending on the weight it adds.   He also showed me how to properly work with the HAM log APP to make it efficient for SOTA, so I am looking to use that method in the future when my hands are not too frozen to use the iphone for logging.    Had a lot of local contacts directly beneath us on 20, gotta love that LOS etc.  I managed more QSO on RHK then the other three summits, I’m beginning to think it’s operator error.  

Contacts here where: 80m: N4EX, KW4R, 40m: K4MF, KG3W, KE8CYC, W2SE, W0MNA, W0ERI, K3TCU, and K9ER, and on 20m: K1LIZ, KI4TN, KB1RJD, KB1RJC, and KX0R.

Since we used KI4SVM rig for the setup here, all I needed to do was grab my pack and drop down and over.  On a good day, with good weather this should take you about 90 minutes, I kept bumping into thru hikers, so I would chit chat while making progress.  It took me just under 2 hours to cover the 4 miles.  Spent about 15 minutes talking to one person about SOTA, and why I always carry an HT even when I am backpacking etc.. So we may have a new operator in our midsts some time soon.   For not having my normal antenna mast, there was a decent enough area to setup between the rock on the summit and a nearby tree.  My EFHW was just long enough to make that span, although I am not sure if it improved my ability to make contacts by much b/c it seemed after an hour EVERYTHING including 2m and my iphone all stopped working right.  Maybe the cold, maybe some other atmospheric condition, but something changed for the negative overall.

I would comment about how pretty this hike is, and if you can get a hike up there in June/July when the Gray’s lily is in bloom (please do not pick it) and when you can see more then 10 feet ahead; it really is an awesome hike, but today, like so many times before when I hit this in early season I was shrouded in the clouds and winds so visibility was non-existent.  .   I’ll be coming back later this year to bag Hump Mountain for sure, so maybe I can get some good images in then, I’ll even do the Carvers gap long approach just for the sake of good views (and maybe images).

As noted above, something changed during the activation, but I did manage enough QSO for a good summit, and as noted the S2S with Pat for a SOTA complete!  anyway QSO info: 2m: KI4SVM, KJ4ZFK KI4AAU, WX4ET (i’ve been trying to contact this guy forever!).  20m: K0RS, K6MW, and K5WLT who happened to hear my CQ.  and 40m: KG3W.  The hike out was more clouds, winds, and chit chatting with the thru hikers.

Just a couple of observations from this and the last couple of East coast trips.  Once you get chased by someone that’s normally out of your reach, they tend to try and extend it when you are back in your home activating region.  Folks that I made QSO with last year when doing W4K/W4V now chase me when I’m on the W6 and other peaks out west, so that is good!  Also have noticed just as a general observation the number of W6, W7W and W7O activators does seem to be increasing, so glad to see that more and more folks in the W regions are getting on the air as well as on the air on summits!!!.  Ham Radio is NOT a dying art.

As always images below, thanks for stopping by, 73 and hope to hear you OTA, or hike with you at some point!