7/20/21 W5N/SI-001 Sandia Crest

 


Me and my wife Michele (KM6GPZ) went on a 3 week road trip from California to Missouri and back, and I identified some drive  up summits to activate in various places along the way.  It was the middle of July and I knew it would be very hot, so I wanted to avoid hiking.  I also wanted to find peaks that would be relatively quick to activate so they didn't cut into our road trip too much.

We spent the night in Albuquerque.  As we drove into town, we saw the massive Sandi Crest towering over the city.  I tried to take a couple of photos through the front car window but none of them really did it justice.  The crest itself is 10,678 ft, but the basic elevation of the city of Albuquerque is around 5100 feet, so compared to some of the summits back home, it wasn't really that high up.  But because the general area had very few other mountains, it was pretty stunning.

The drive up was about 21 miles full of switchbacks on the back side of the peak.  The road was good and there were several day use areas along the way up.  As we approached the summit we saw the first signs of the comm towers at the top.


At the top was a cafe and gift shop, but we had gotten up there pretty early and it didn't seem to be opened.  I wasn't sure if that was because it was closed due to the pandemic or we just were there too early.  But the bathrooms were unlocked and usable.


The communication towers towered over the area, and as other people have pointed  out, there was a sign saying they interfered with wireless car keys.  I was worried that I'd have of lot of interference on HF.  I had no plans to operate VHF unless I needed to.


I found a nice little area a short hike up from the cafe that appeared to be the summit proper.  I scurried up there, leaving Michele in the car to read because she wasn't really interested in the walk.  



There was a railing and a few benches at the top.  I took SotaGoat and tried really hard to get zeroed on the summit but the best I could do was get within a couple of feet.  I stood right on top of the summit marker and it was off even further.  I walked around a bit trying to find the zero point and gave up.

The railing was a nice height to hold the base of the push up mast, so I used bungee cords to attach the mast to the railing and ran the antenna out of the way down to the other end, and it was the perfect length for me to sit on the back bench to operate.  The antenna was up in the air and I was out of the way,  and several people came up for the view and even took a photo in the corner of the railing with the mast while I was operating, and it didn't bother them a bit.

Once I had the antenna up I tuned up quickly and then texted Peter, WB6POT.  He's been with me on most of the summits I've activated, and this was really the first one I was doing on my own.  I also felt a bit CW-rusty, so I wanted to warm up a little and make sure everything was working.  He suggested a frequency on 20 meters, and I could hear him 599 but he couldn't hear me.  After a couple of minutes searching for the VOX MD menu item on the KX2 to turn on the key break in, I was able to confirm he was able to hear me, and made my first contact at the summit.

I send out my spot and within a minute or two there was a huge pileup.  I filled up the first page of the notebook (the first time that's happened) and had to complete with half of another page, including an S2S from N1CLC.  I didn't copy his summit very well during the contact, so I made a note to check it later.  I also got K6EL who works from summits a lot, so I made another note to check him as well.

My CW rustiness made me very nervous again.  I need to spend more time practicing.

Since I had plenty of contacts, I decided that I was not going to try any other bands since Michele was back at the car waiting.  This would be a very nice summit to do one day where I had no time constraints and could do some band jumping.  I'd like to come back.




W5RJD's Log
TimeCallsignBandModeNotes
17:18WB6POT14MHzCW599
17:21W0MNA14MHzCW599
17:22W0ERI14MHzCW599
17:25WB7BWZ14MHzCW549
17:26K0LAF14MHzCW559
17:26W6TDX14MHzCW549
17:27W5ODS14MHzCW459
17:28KU4R14MHzCW539
17:28WU7H14MHzCW559
17:29KN3Y14MHzCW559
17:30N6BR14MHzCW589
17:31W6TED14MHzCW559
17:32K6EL14MHzCW529
17:33N2ESE14MHzCW449



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