This is my second time activating Mt Richards. The first time was almost exactly one year ago.
Last time I took a weird way up that involved some bushwacking and very steep hills. This time I stuck to the mainline road which was so much easier.
Weather today was great. Clear and sunny, about 14C. Where I activated from was not the prettiest area. Mainly a big clear cut but still some nice views through the trees.
I recently got a FT5DR and have been tracking my SOTA hikes with APRS and letting others in our BC SOTA Facebook group know about it. I think this has been a really good tool to use as the local chasers can see right when I reach the summit. Big thank you to VE7JH who spread the word of my activation. When I tuned into 146.520 there were 3 or 4 chatting and waiting for me. Got my 4 QSOs right away which was nice.
Started to setup for 20m. While setting up had someone calling me on 146.520 again so ran over to get another QSO.
Spent about 30 minutes on 20m SSB and in totall got around 25 contacts, a few being the same folks that chased me on VHF which was great.
After the pileup died down I tuned around and found a POTA activation and was able to hunt it which is a bonus.
Overall a really good activation. Next time I’ll go back to the area I activated from before as it was much nicer.
Once the days get longer I’ll do the mountain across the street which is Maple Mountain VE7/CV-028.
