Cerros de Los Lunas SOTA de KD0FNR

This summit's a nice, fairly easy hike to a flat mountaintop with six foot tall cedars that worked just fine for suspending a 20 meter halfwave dipole ham radio antenna.

Summit:

El Cerro de Los Lunas W5N/SL-015

This was a fun climb just a few miles off the interstate, I-25. I'd forgotten how gorgeous New Mexico rain clouds are, and how much advance notice they give.

Where there are little whisps coming down out of the grey cloud, it's raining. It sprinkled on me just a bit, luckily after I was done playing radios.

Getting there:

The trail mentioned on the SOTA site for the peak—route A specifically—is a big improvement over any other routes I found, (alltrails for example), to the summit. There were a few issues though. There’s no longer a gate at the end of the road. There is a dip in the barbed wire though, and I was able to easily step over. I was unable to find the ‘main’ trail mentioned in the route’ on the SOTA site. I was, however, able to find a small arroyo that I followed as it meandered first away, and then back towards the peak. I also found a huge arroyo that, frankly, I’d call a canyon. In any event, the route was still roughly as described, at least in spirit: follow an arroyo, it will eventually turn left towards a trail that will take you to the summit. I reached the summit with relatively little wear ‘n tear. However, if you don't like walking on sand—I hate it after a high school cross country career in New Mexico—don’t walk along the arroyo. If you do, you’ll get that all-to-familiar feeling of losing an inch or two during every stride forward.

First hikes always feel really long to me, and I didn't think to time my ascent. I did time my dead-reckoning return. That took about 23 minutes. It should be noted that I came straight down the mountain without a trail. The rocks look like they might slide, but didn’t during my descent. I could see the car from the summit, so I hiked along a line to the car on my return.

Radio Details:

I'm still using the RockMite 20 as my SOTA/POTA radio while the 12 year-old, Daize, and I debug the QCX+ we built. The antenna was suspended from scrub cedar to ham radio op—yours truly—to scrub cedar so, probably, the feed point was four feet up. As you’ll see below, four feet was plenty.

QSO/RBN spot map:

This is the first map created using the new auto-geolocating code described in rm-rnb-hitory issue #32, and enabled by the QRZ.com database and the Google mapping API.

Happenings of Interest

K6EL, whom I often ask for advice regarding summitons near San Francisco was my first QSO of the outing. I called CQ SOTA and he answered KTEL S2S right back. (He was on Mt. Davidson W6/NC-423 .)

QSO Log

Callsign	rx RST	tx RST	Time (GMT)	Frequency
K6EL	599	599	19:09	14058.3
W0MNA	579	559	19:10	14058.3
W0ERI	559	559	19:12	14058.3
K5VWW	339	339	19:13	14058.3
WB6POT	339	599	19:23	14058.3

Unschooling Highlights

This was a quick trip scheduled smack on top of one of hte gang’s most enjoyed weekly outings with their buddies, so none fo them were along. They would have had an easier time with the climb—the descent especially—than I did.

We will be talking about the trip though. They know the area, and I’m sure that something that happened will come up in our everyday conversations, (Or not? I’m like the kids. Something really cool happened, I’m sure, but I won’t remember it till the context is just so.) What we’ll do for sure is review the QSO map above. I’m writing this before I look, but I assure, something is cool!

POTA tx QSL:

QSL rx album:

References

El Cerro de Los Lunas W5N/SL-015

Mt. Davidson W6/NC-423

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