My First S.O.T.A. Activation by Frank Skinner KØJQZ

Some of the best things are unplanned, or half planned. After a grueling morning planting bushes in the 100 degree heat that we have known in Southern Colorado as the norm I asked the XYL (Lynn, KC0YQF) if she was game to head out to San Isabel National Forest near Buena Visita for an overnighter and a hike up Midland Hill the next day. She was game. We hastily packed, feed the fur kids and headed out.

I had no plan and the only thing for sure is I knew the road to turn off to get to the National Forest. We found a campsite and decided to set up camp before the storm hit.

While relaxing in the camper listening to the rain fall I looked at the topo map and noticed there were two ways to get to the trail head. One was to go up a ways and take another county dirt road and one was to go into town to “Riverside Park” on the Arkansas River and I opted for that. The next morning we woke at 5am, had some coffee, stopped in Buena Vista for breakfast and headed to the park. There were a few cars but not many. We headed out.

Of course I did get lost once and that cost us about 15 to 20 minutes and this was before we got to the Midland Hill Summit Trailhead. After making it to the summit trailhead, we had already hiked about an hour, I realized I may had made a mistake and should of parked at the summit trailhead and forgone the nice but unnecessary visit to Buena Vista’s Riverside Park. No matter we where on our way up to the summit.

Onward we marched. I was sick for a few years so while this is no big feat it has taken me a long time to be able to send code again, walk, run and of course climb up to a summit. We tried Mt Herman a few months ago and I was not really up to the task but walking 3 miles everyday at lunch has really helped me prepare for this.

We saw two people on bicycles on the lower trail but not a sole on the upper trail to the summit.

Upon arrival at the summit it was time to setup the buddistick vertical and start some QSOs. It is rather funny to think that at 9,500 feet that the little KX1 and Buddistick is a much better station than my K3 (QRP Version) and my vertical at 6,000 feet. A couple of CQs and nothing…. I decided to check to see if I could self -spot and I was able to do a shameless spot and the QSOs started rolling in.

I was only able to operate for a little less than 20 minutes and made only 8 QSOs. I was pretty disappointed but the clouds were moving in and I knew it would take us an hour to get to county road 304 and at least another 30 minutes to make it back to the truck. We made it with about 15 minutes to spare before the sky opened up. Of course we celebrate rain lately and enjoyed the cool down. I apologize for those that waited for me but I had to bug out. One thing I did not want to do is to get stuck on the summit with the ham gear.

I have a few lessons learned. I took too much stuff and while I like the buddistick I just hate carring coax. I built Stu’s tuner and will fashion something else for next time. I took two rigs, the ATS4b and the KX1, I just wanted to make sure I could operate just in case something happened to one of them. The KX1 has the advantage of the built in tuner but the AS4b is smaller and with Stu’s tuner I may just use it next time. There will be a next time.

So my first activation came to an end. I have been following all the hams in Colorado that do this and have worked a few from home. I am fairly active as a chaser but really never had the appreciation for the activators until I tried it. Lucky for me Lynn came along, as it is nice to chat while on the trail. She is studying for her General and when she passes I promised her a rig to get on HF with (KX3 is a top choice). I am just a cw operator so I will leave the fancy SSB Ops to her.

I want to thank the following operators I was able to chat with for my first SOTA Activation.

•  W6ZKH
• W7CNL
• K6ILM
• WO6M
• NS7P
• WA2USA
• K7NEW
• N4EX

72, Frank K0JQZ
f_skinner at yahoo dot com

Some video impressions:
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0d2MFrfu10

If you would like to leave questions or comments, please do so through Youtube.

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!! WARNING !! There are old mountaineers, and bold mountaineers... there are no old-bold mountaineers. Hiking and mountain climbing are potentially hazardous activities particularly in Colorado with its extreme elevations. I am not accepting responsibility for any death or injury resulting from activations based on my trip reports. Proper training, experience, and personal capability assessment is required - enjoy!