W5RJD Summit on the Air (SOTA) Activations

Peter and I have been doing semi-regular summits, and I picked this one and did the research.  The route via Summit Rd was supposedly closed, making the hike longer.  So I drove us to Aptos and came in via Buzzard Lagoon Rd.  I took a look at it via Google Street View, and couldn't confirm we would be able to make it all the way, but some other bloggers posted that you could park within a couple of miles of the summit so we decided to go this way. One big mistake was starting out too late the in day.  I had something I had to do that morning so we didn't get going until after lunch.  The drive was over an hour, maybe an hour and 20 from San Jose. Eventually the paved road becomes dirt but you can drive all the way up to a gate on the main trail, and there is a pull out for one or two cars to park.  It's about 2 miles from there to the summit.   To get to the actual summit there is a little deer trail off the main trail.  There are really no v...

I went out again with WB6POT and felt like today we'd tackle an easy summit.  He had never been to Mount Umunhum before.  I had activated it last year, but I was game to do it again.  This summit has a small parking lot near the top. There are probably 50 spaces, but most people tend to park and spend 30 minutes or so walking around the interpretive trail at the top, so the spaces tend to turn over quickly.  I thought we might have to wait 5 or 10 minutes for a space, but when we got there, plenty were available.  We parked and started up the two sets of stairs to the actual summit. A couple of years ago I had purchased a "camping antenna" setup and I had never had an opportunity to try it out.  It was made from a combination of an MFJ big stick whip and a Wolf River Silver Bullet TIA tripod and coil.  The whole thing is fairly portable for car camping and a short hike, but was not the kind of thing I'd take to most summits, so this was a great opportu...

Myself and Peter, WB6POT, visited El Soreno again because the last time it was super wet and we were only there long enough to make a few 2m FM contacts.  This time, we used the KX2 and loaded up the end fed and got on CW.  It was the first time I'd used CW in a few decades, so I was really rusty but I was able to make four contacts including a JA5 station. I worked 2m FM a bit while Peter worked 20 and 40 and made several other contacts. While we were operating, a couple hiked by and mentioned they were licensed but not active.  We chatted a bit about modern radios and they asked what they should buy to get back into the hobby.  A little bit later, James, NV6W, the Santa Clara Valley section coordinator for ARRL strolled by and took some photos of Peter and I.  He was excited to find out it was a SOTA activation.

WB6POT and I ventured to El Soreno today thinking that we had hit a clearing in the down pour, but unfortunately it started a heavy sprinkle up just as we arrived.  We put on our rain jackets and ventured up the trail hoping it would stop by the time we got there.  Unfortunately, it didn't.  We decided not to throw up the HF antenna and risk damaging the KX2. We made four contacts each on 2m FM while standing under a tree to try to keep as much rain as possible off the radio and then started back to the car. The radio made it back still working.  Not sure about the operators.  We were soaked.

Since the last summit was so fun, I broke down and bought an Elecraft KX2 and a lightweight end fed antenna so I had my own gear ready to go this time. It arrived a day before I took it on a trip to Colorado and was not able to make any contacts from the house we were staying at, so I was a bit nervous as to how it might perform. I caught up with a more experienced activator, Peter, WB6POT on 2m and he decided to come along.  He'd bring his own radio and antenna, so if something was wrong with mine we'd have backup. We started at the Pueblo Day Use parking lot in Santa Teresa County park.  Normally there is a fee to park, around $6, but because of Covid the fee was being waived.  The Hidden Springs Trail head is by the sign board and is a little over a mile up to the peak, with about 600' of elevation gain on the trail. We went through a cattle gate about half way up. I'm mainly doing SOTA as a fun way to exercise.  It was pretty clear on the way up that I needed it....

I haven't bought any portable radio gear yet, and I've never activated a summit before, so I figured for my first attempt I would pick something easy and borrow some gear.  I look out my back yard and can see Mount Umanhum, a peak nearly 4000 feet up overlooking Almaden Valley.  I have been up there only once in my life during a VIP tour before they cleaned up and developed the peak.  Since then, it's been turned into a public viewing area and you can almost drive all the way.  There's just about 150 stairs from the parking lot to the summit. For radio gear, I turned to my friend Ray, N6DZK, who had an Elecraft KX3 and an AX1 antenna.  I've been looking at the KX2 as the best option for this - and I was very skeptical that the small AX1 would do any kind of a decent job.  Ray had never used the antenna before and was anxious to try it out, so we set the date. I started learning about how alerts and spots work, what the rules were, and downloaded things like...

Covid-19.  It's awful being cooped up and not being able to hang out with friends.  But one nice outcome of the pandemic is I've had lots of time to resurrect an old hobby, Ham Radio.  I've owned my house since 1995 and never really took the time to put HF antennas on the roof until now.  Wow things have changed. So I stumbled across a new part of the hobby recently, called SOTA or Summit on the Air.  This is where a ham operator goes to the top of a summit of a mountain (in some states they might be called "hills") and "activates" the peak by making contacts with a portable radio setup.  Other radio operators, called "chasers", sit in the comfort of their home and try to make contact with you.  Then, activators of other peaks throughout the world try to communicate with you in a "Summit to Summit" conversation. I used to love to hike (I say "used to" because I haven't done any for quite some time), and I love ham radio,...