Summit: W6-CT-012
ATT Data Coverage: None
ATT Voice coverage: None
Hike stats: 7 miles roundtrip and 1700′ ascent, open and/or shaded trail, semi-exposed summit
This was the second in a trio of peaks I activated in the San Gabriel mountains and I undertook this after my success on Kratka earlier the same day. A couple of options exist to get to the peak and I hiked up the Jeep trail and then back on a prettier, more classic hiking trail just east of the Jeep trail. I recommend an in and out on this and avoid the Jeep trail as it was pretty exposed and hence hot and bright. It eventually leads up to a series of ski lifts, huts etc whence you veer off to the east on smaller trails eventually arriving at the peak.
The peak is a mixture of trees, boulders and scrub and you have a wide variety of setup locations depending on your antenna and heat tolerance. I chose under the trees to set up my Buddipole vertical along with my KX3 delivering a whopping 10 watts ready to blanket the US.
The first little glitch was the distinct lack of cell reception. I walked east, I walked north and felt a bit like a water diviner but was very out of luck. I resolved to do this the hard way and started CQ-ing (albeit 1 hr earlier than alerted via SOTAWATCH) all to no avail. Not a sausage…no chasers, no luck. It was at this point I wished I had enabled my Yaesu to work with APRS2SOTA but I hadn’t. Onto the action of last resort….the Globalstar 1700, carried only for dire emergencies. Surely this qualified as a dire emergency of some sort or another? I managed to reach a friend who was nice enough to spot me and I was then off to the races, well almost….the 20m band wasn’t being very cooperative but I managed to work just 4 chasers before 20m seemed to just disappear.
Thanks to all my 20m chasers;
W0MNA, W0ERI, KC5CW and N4EX
W7RV had rather creatively sent me a message via SOTA Goat to please try 40m which unfortunately I missed but resolved to do better on Islip W6-CT-010 the next day!
Not sure my Hardrock 50 watt amp would have made a difference as I thought I heard W7CN but he was very hard to make out.
Paul Gacek 