One of my primary interests is playing with antennas. I had decided to go up to Sheridan Peak (W7O/NC-009) to test some, as an opportunity to get out of the house while we had workers here. I had been up to the parking lot at the trailhead many times, as the local club used to operate Field Day from there. On a weekday it should be pretty quiet and peaceful. The peak is covered with 50m+ tall trees. The hike is 700m, with about a 60m climb.
My wife, however was worried about my physical condition for such a strenuous expedition, so I invited Kathleen K7KER to come along to manage the SOTA side of things: I could set up my antennas, and she could try them out. My purpose was to see how well the antennas worked in the field, rather than making contacts.
So I collected ropes, wires, antennas, cables, antenna analyzer, K2, lead-gel battery, a coax switch for comparing antennas, and other equipment (not all of which optimized for small size or low weight) and set out with a 15kg backpack.
We found a convenient log to sit on near the highest point (although the top was relatively flat, and we would have had better low angle radiation close to the edges of the AZ where the ground dropped more steeply). First step was to get on 2m: I hoisted a 2-element wire collinear from an overhead branch with 5m of coax, and got her started while I put up the dipoles for 20m and 40m at about 8m (using another branch). This was a test of a dipole using some 75 ohm Belden 735A coax, as discussed in another thread. (It is somewhat stiff, but low loss, and half the weight of RG-58.)
After lunch, Kathleen shifted to 40m and 20m, and I moved about 30m down the trail to set up my 10m vertical loop hanging from yet another branch. I sat on the ground, set up the K2 propped up on my toe, and listened around - there were a couple big gun stations running on 10m working all sorts of DX (although I couldn’t work them), and I could hear some of the stations calling them, especially around the Caribbean and South America. So I told Kathleen that 10m was open, but she had brought her KH-1 rather than the KX-2, so couldn’t get on 10m. So I went back to listening to see what I could hear and after tuning way up the band where there didn’t seem to be any activity, I came across a station sending a weak CQ SOTA. What the heck - I gave them a call. After a few issues with a balky key (I had left my Bencher paddles at a home, saving a little bit of weight), QRM, and the K2 complaining about a low battery, I finally completed an S2S with @ZL1BYZ, a distance of 11000km. Shortly afterwards we packed up and headed back down the hill.
Well, not actually completed, of course, since the job isn’t finished until the paperwork is done. That required that I set up a SOTA account and enter the data. Every time I pulled up the registration page, it gave me a cookie error, on two browsers and 2 different machines, and even after changing my cookie settings. Kathleen found a workaround and was able to register me, then the database page came up totally blank on my desktop. Finally I was able to access it from a different device and record the contact info, about 24 hours after it happened.
So the day was a success: the antennas all seemed to work well, although we never got a chance to set up a second one and compare them. I had not planned on making any SOTA contacts, but now I have 3 S2S points, and a respectable average contact distance.
I already have started a list of improvements to make, including more medium-length ropes and a better key, and am in the process of unpacking my pack and weighing each item in the process. And, if I never make more than 3 contacts, I can keep going back to the same place for more experimenting. And maybe I can even find a good spot to set up the 5-element 20m wire delta loop beam for some special occasion…