McLean Hill VE6/RA-031 - Brief Report

Old Reflector
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First activation of McLean Hill VE6/RA-031

After the debacle last week of flailing in chest deep snow I thought I would try something lower and more frequented.

McLean Hill is 5650 ft (things don’t qualify for mountain status here until they are around 2000m). Since this hill is centered in a multi-use park. This means ATVs & Off Road bikes, summer and winter.

The upside of ATVs is that in the winter there is a good chance that a compact trail will have been made all the way to the summit. I brought skis and snow shoes just in case. At the trail head I made the decision to carry my snow shoes as there was less than 6 inches of fresh snow (I ended up carrying them all day). On the trail, as hoped I was able to follow a recent ATV track and make it to the summit in under 2 hours and setup.

16 QSOs quickly followed on 20m but still no joy on 40m [Despite a tuned 40m radial pointing at VA6FUN]. At one point I had to call QRM, QRM since out of the snow /cloud cover 3x ATV came bearing down on me and more importantly my antenna with all its radials. Fortunately I was able to wave them off and actually they came back later for a chat as I was packing up (Is there a more appropriate Q-Code?).

Of particular SOTA Newbie coolness for me:

	First ever Summit to Summit [S2S]  to THE WG0AT cool!!!)
	2nd S2S to K0JQZ
	3rd S2S to K6ILM
	8 watts into Hawaii  !!! (Thanks James - kh6cb) = 620 Km/Watt SSB

Thanks everybody for your patience, being a newbie Ham I struggle with non-standard phonetic callsigns, a bit of a brain freeze for me.

w0mna 1992.6 Km TXS Gary
n7ngo 2503.6 Km TXS Douglas
w4rk 2222.93 Km TXS Vernon
wg0at 1527.04 Km TXS Stephen First S2S
k0jqz 1527.04 Km TXS Franklin 2nd S2S
n6jzt 1923.85 Km TXS Harold
aj5c 2359.35 Km TXS Robert
kc3rt 2889.66 Km TXS Eugene
ns7p 1003.52 Km TXS Phil
K6ILM 1589.1 Km TXS Elliott 3rd S2S
kh6cb 4963.36 Km TXS James in Hawaii !!!
k0yo 1426.37 Km TXS Michael
k6cel 1416.15 Km TXS Bennet
ku6j 1353.07 Km TXS Eric
wa2usa 2576.77 Km TXS Dennis wa2usa/P4
kf9kr 2432.35 Km TXS Charles

Not very good weather for Pics; McLean Hill VE6/RA-031 | Flickr

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In reply to VA6MCB:
Hello one can only wonder what that climate must be like as its 39c out side here. No activating going on in vk5 just wishing summer gone so we can get some done . Nice flickr photos . 73 ian vk5cz …

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In reply to VK5CZ:
Thanks Ian, you should visit VE6 land July - August and combine a bike trip Jasper - Banff with some SOTA . 73 VA6MCB Walker

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In reply to VK5CZ:

can only wonder what that climate must be like as its 39c out side here

Well it’s now about -1C at 900Z. Quite a heavy frost and the large ornamental pond at the office is frozen over. The sky is bright blue with juts a few slight whispy clouds high up and there’s no wind. Glorious day for hill walking. Sadly I’m at work :frowning:

This is the 1st day this year where we have had wall to wall blue sky and sun in this part of Scotland. That’s 49 days of grey sky, rain, snow, sleet, mist, fog and generally miserable WX. So maybe if the weather is too bad for hill walking you’d rather have your unsuitable WX than our unsuitable WX! :slight_smile:

Andy
MM0FMF