11-9-23 W6/NC-178 (Ben Lomond Mountain)

 


On may way home from a client call in Santa Cruz I took a last minute unplanned detour up to Ben Lomond Mountain.  The area was extremely fire damaged a few years ago, and while a lot of that damage still remains it no longer looks like a total war zone, and is open for normal traffic.  I've gotten into the habit of throwing my SOTA go bag in the car whenever I leave San Jose, just in case.

The AZ is a very long path along the road, maybe even a mile, so you can setup on the side of the road just about anywhere.  The actual summit is inside a government training facility that is right next to a county incarceration center of some sort. I've seen past posts that indicate it is a CalFire station but I didn't see any indication that was so. Due to the barb wire fence and keep out signs, I decided not to set up in the parking lot like previous posts mentioned.  I drove down the road just a bit and found a large turn out right next to some antennas, checked SOTAGoat to make sure I was in the AZ, and pulled over to set up.

Although climbing over the gate would have been easy, I decided not to.  I used one of the posts of the fence to strap my mast, and pulled out a chair from the car and sat just off the tailgate.  So I wasn't able to see the view from there.


Cell service was a bit low but ATT worked good to spot out.  I didn't notice any noise from the small transmitter site at all. However, anytime someone drove past, it was hard to hear AF and I forgot my headphones.

Back in the summer I did a "drive thru activation" in Tennessee where you just pulled in, activated, and pulled out.  This was exactly the same.  I got many contacts including some Japan stations, and then decided to head over to China Grade Benchmark before it got dark.




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