Thanks to the stations that tried to work me yesterday 5.23.2023 on top of Mount Bradley, Alaska! The band was pretty weak when I was on summit and my CW is very out of practice. I thought it would be just like riding a bike but I have not practiced CW in over a year. I was able to pick a call sign here or there but quickly got frustrated with my inability to decode. I am running a mountain topper 4 band on a sotabeams bandhopper modified for 20M only. Alaska has many challenging summits I will be attempting all summer, stay tuned. Here are a few pictures, there are more and some video on my QRZ if you are interested. Thanks for chasing, cheers!
Hi Rob, nice try and nice pix! I was able to hear you faintly a few times here near Seattle, but others were trying to call you so I didn’t want to add to the confusion. I heard W6TDX and K6HPX calling you many times. I was hoping you might go to 15 or 17 meters, but figured you must be using something like an MTR with limited bands.
Practice your code and we will be looking out for your spots. I just had my first ever S2S with Alaska last weekend (thanks @w7ga!). Not much activity up there so I’m excited that you are going to be activating some summits… hope to catch you S2S soon!
Hi Rob,
Be looking for you again. You said that you “needed 2 more”. Because you got 2 QSO’s, you got the mountain, just not the points.
And yes, the higher bands would probably have been better.
All Best, Ken
Thank you so much for the feedback, I will be heading out for another summit next week. I am debating getting some new qrp gear as well. Again thanks for the feedback. That summit was brutal!
Good idea, Rob. Priority for success from your location to the lower 48… - testing equipment before departure is first, then cooperating propagation, then band selection, then power, then antenna selection/positioning. Other thoughts would be having a mentor come with you, and looking at the check list suggestions in the FAQ of the files section of nasota.groups.io
Thank you for your input. I have activated a few summits in the past. Many times I’m going for the exercise, I’m not really a get mentored kind of guy.