W7N/WP-147 SOTA de KD0FNR

A fairly gentle hike led to a QSO with Japan at 3/4 watts, and a brand new SOTA ham radio activation.

Summit: W7N/WP-147 8340

Getting there

Welp, there's no public transit avilaable to this particular summit, so the gang and I drove.

If you're not from the area, and you're able to, plug in the cooridnates of the peak and let Google plot a route for you. You'll also want to download the offline Google maps for the area; there's plenty of phone signal at the summit, but there are places on the drive in where there’s none at all. Google Maps led us through several forks in the gravel/dirt road to a location just to the south of the summit.

If you stop where we did, you may notice a set of tire tracks that lead most of the way up to the mountain’s central ridge. They make for a nice easy start to the hike. When the tire tracks peter out, you can navigate the rest of the way up on a variety of game trails. My path deposited me on a picturesque saddle in the ridge that decidedly was not the summit. I hiked toward the peak of the saddle only to find yet another saddle. That saddle finally led to the actual SOTA peak. The complete hike was more strenuous for the distance and the altitude than anything else and it was very pretty:

Radio Details:

Here’s the cool part: this summit actually has trees! If you’re using a dipole, this is a good place for it.

Also, just faintly, but the signal was there, I could make out JG0AWE in the noise, and vice versa. He was the fourth QSO that made the activation official!

QSO/RBN spot map:

and on Google Earth

QSO Log

Callsign	rx RST	tx RST	Time (GMT)	Frequency
WW7D	539	579	2023/05/17 17:40:00	14058.4
KX0R	539	549	2023/05/17 17:51:00	14058.4
WU7H	339	559	2023/05/17 17:54:00	14058.4
JG0AWE	339	229	2023/05/17 18:13:00	14058.4
N5ZN	339	559	2023/05/17 18:57:00	14058.4

POTA tx QSL:

QSL rx album:

References

Comments

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