11-9-24 W6/NC-401 (1140)


On a family trip to Fort Bragg I found a quick one point summit about 20 minutes away from our AirBNB, so I took the opportunity to do the activation.  I only had the van with me so I had to worry about low clearance and thin tires, but I figured if I had to hike it all the way from Hwy 20 I'd still be okay, as it looked to be less than a mile from the main road. This summit had only been activated 4 times previously, so I was a little worried about access.

This summit is inside the Jackson Demonstration State Forest so I expected fire roads.  Heading south on 20 there were two fire roads on the map that could lead to the summit.  I took the one to the north.  It was paved and in great shape even for its age, and there wasn't a gate.  About a half mile or so up, you take a right jog on a dirt road, but even that was in good shape.


The van made it quite easily even though I had to pull over in a tight spot to let a logging truck by.  I had loaded the AZ into Gaia GPS and I already knew that it covered parts of the road, so as soon as I entered it I found a turnout to park the van, about 500 ft or so from the summit according to SOTAGoat.  I got the pack out and decided to hike the rest, not knowing if this was the last turnout or not.

I got a little closer and then passed the summit, and looking at the terrain and slope I decided I wasn't going to hike all the way to it and risk poison oak.  So I found a really nice space off the road that would have been a great place to park the van.  If I ever come back I'll do just that. It might even make a good RV parking spot for camping, but I found some really fresh .40 brass on the ground and a lot of beer bottle glass and trash, so maybe staying the night wouldn't be a good idea.


There was a decent tree to throw the end fed up and land the end about where the rocks were.  I also had a new thing with me I wanted  to try - a lightweight projector stand that I thought might allow me to operate while standing.  I tried to tune up the antenna with the BNC adapter directly connected to the KX2, but I couldn't get the SWR down to a reasonable level.  When I sat on the rocks, it worked better but it was uncomfortable, so I got a short piece of RG-178 from my pack to leave the BNC on the ground, and tried the projector stand again.  It worked a lot better this time, and I was able to tune the end fed as normal.


I was able to operate on 17m and 40m and made a couple of summit to summit contacts, and got fairly decent signal reports from most people.  I was able to get out spots with the 1 bar of ATT service I had.

This is an easy drive up, with pretty redwoods around you, but otherwise it's not that interesting. That might explain the low activation count.  But if you are in the Fort Bragg area it's worth an hour.



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