SOTA Weekend Activation – September 20, 2014

by  Brad WA6MM

SOTA = Summits on the Air (Click Here)

This past weekend included (2) new SOTA Activations Parnassus Mountain (13er Clear Creek County) and Bard Peak (another 13er Northwest of Silver Plume).

From Brad’s Notes on his September 20th 2014 – Activation…

Hi Guys,

Had a great day yesterday activating both Parnassus Mt and Bard Peak for SOTA.  There was little wind and it gave me a chance to work out the logistics of using my new 2M Tape Measure Yagi. I’ve attached a picture of my set up on Bard @ 13,641 ft.  The other picture shows how I fold it up for travel with my pack.  Special thanks to Bob KI0G for getting me started with the Tape Measure/Yagi design!

The antenna worked great, but I mainly worked guys out to the east and one guy near Mt Evans.  I pointed the antenna west towards Glenwood Springs/Vail around 1700 UTC but was not able to make any contacts.  I guy came back to me from Castle Rock (east) though!  He still heard me off the backside of my Yagi.  I rotated the antenna towards him and his signal went from 1/3 to full-scale on my s-meter.  I also tried pointing it towards Wyoming as I usually am able to work guys there….but alas nothing this time.

Thanks for the encouragement to build a better antenna system.   BTW, Phil N0KE… I did use the “tiger tail” when I was using my 1/2W telescoping whip.  I didn’t do any A/B testing with it though since I was anxious to get the Yagi set up.  I’ll do more testing next time.

 

Until the next time…73!

If you’d like to contact Brad and learn more about his Mountaineering and SOTA activations you can reach Brad via email –   wa6mm-at-comcast-dot-net

Brad  WA6MM