Good Day,
Depending on WX I plan to activate W7Y/EW-017, Leg Benchmark early morning on Aug 4th around 1400 UTC.
I plan to take my KX1 and operate on 40M, 30M, and 20M CW.
I will watch the WX and post updates and add alerts in the next few days.
73,
Chris, N7NAV
Good Day,
Going to do an early morning (local) activation of W7Y/EW-017, Leg Benchmark on Aug. 4th around 1200 UTC.
Using the Headquarters Trail Head it will be a quick hike up to the summit. After reviewing the topo and notes from my last activation of this summit I’m looking at 2.7 Km hike with 213 M elevation gain with a pretty consistent 7.8% slope.
WX will play the biggest role for this activation. The area should receive a good amount of rain the day before and may effect the trail conditions. I also picked an early time to avoid expected rain latter in the day. Forecasted is partly cloudy skies with a 26% chance of rain. Temperatures should be between 11 C to 18 C with 85% humidity and 3 Kph winds out of the W.
I will take along the FT-70D and KX1 with the LNR Trail Friendly end-feed antenna. I plan to operate for about two hours total on:
7.062 MHz CW
10.118 MHz CW
14.064 MHz CW
146.250 MHz FM
I will be using my American Morse MS2 key for any SKCC interested contacts while on the summit.
Space WX looks like it will be quiet and sunrise for this QTH will be at 1200 UTC. Hopefully we will get a little grey-line propagation as the Sun comes up.
That’s plan so far!
73,
Chris, N7NAV
Morning Chris,
I’ll be looking for you Wednesday with my KX1 at around 3 watts and AXE1 antenna !
I’ve been out chasing with the KX1 and AXE1 this past week, I discovered thou that the tuner in the KX1 won’t tune the AXE1 as I have it set up.
I get high SWR readings, so after doing some reading I decided to try the T1 tuner and bypass the KX1’s tuner.
That worked just fine, it tunes 20/30 and 40m now with very low SWR and around 3 watts output.
And I’m making contacts to NM, AZ, CA, CO, and ID from central UT.
I’ll look for you Wednesday and see what we can do !
Ed
N7EDK
Ed,
That’s great to hear! I was wondering if the tunner in the KX1 would handle the AXE1. How does the receiver stack up against the MTR3B?
73,
Chris, N7NAV
Hi Chris,
Well, you have more volume with the KX1, and the filter to help with noise.
It’s hard to say, I need to get the MTR3B out and listen to both again and see, I think the KX1 might have a slight advantage thou.
I’ll let ya know what I find.
Ed
N7EDK
Ed,
Elecraft certainly makes a great receiver. My ME-40+ is the only other QRP rig I have that comes close to the receiver on the KX1 (I do have a K2, but we won’t count that one here).
73,
Chris, N7NAV
I have an alert set up and will use spotting SMS during the activation. I might play around with using the Garmin inReach for spotting.
Leg Benchmark is a fun hike. Last Summer I realized upon topping out I hiked the WRONG peak! I hiked one about a mile away. Well that activation turned a lot longer than I planned😂.
I will warn you. I might have saw the flash of a mountain lion lowering its head from above me! 90% certain. Might I suggest Mr Ruger as a partner!
Erik
KE8OKM
Erik,
There are mountain lions and black bears in that area. The black bears leave you alone and it’s not so much the mountain lions you see but the ones you don’t see! Luckily I have never had any issues here in cat country, but moose is another story. They are big and they know it. I’ll take the bears and big cats any day as long as I don’t cross with a moose.
There is a little bushwhacking to get up on the ridge, but it is not too bad. I remember the last time I activated from there I did have to walk around a bit before I found the Coast Survey marker. My notes remind me that there are enough trees in the area I will be able to get my LNR Trail Friendly up and operational.
And I do take the brothers Smith and Wesson with their terrible signal report of 357.
73,
Chris, N7NAV
I’ll have to look through my pictures but I think there was 2-3 benchmarks up on Leg or maybe they were 3 separate high points. Anyway I’m Jealous, your activation will be awesome!
Erik,
3 is what I remember too.
73,
Chris, N7NAV
One more thing! I’ll setup my gear and listen for you be aware my Morse/CW is in its infancy!!!
“73”
Erik
KE8OKM
Erik,
It will be a good pairing then. I steeped away from CW over the last year and am now getting back to it. I’m not were I would like to be so I will be operating QRS.
Looking at the propagation predictions it looks like we might have a decent path on 20M or 30M. I used low dipoles for the model and 1W (I’ll be operating at 3W). Hopefully we will be able to connect.
73,
Chris, N7NAV
Propagation predictions for the activation. Assuming the Sun and Magnetosphere behaves them selves we should have some reasonably quite bands to hear my 2W single.
7 MHz:
10 MHz:
14 MHz:
WX looks good for tomorrow morning. We are under a flash flood advisory today into tonight, but it should not effect the roads to the trail heads too much. With this WX check I don’t see any reason that I will be delayed in the activation.
See you on the air!
And our space WX looks good for quiet bands tomorrow:
Solar Radiation Storm Forecast for Aug 03-Aug 05 2021
Aug 03 Aug 04 Aug 05
S1 or greater 1% 1% 1%
Radio Blackout Forecast for Aug 03-Aug 05 2021`
Aug 03 Aug 04 Aug 05
R1-R2 1% 1% 1%
R3 or greater 1% 1% 1%
NOAA Geomagnetic Activity Probabilities 03 Aug-05 Aug
Active 35/15/25
Minor storm 15/01/05
Moderate storm 01/01/01
Strong-Extreme storm 01/01/01
NOAA Kp index breakdown Aug 03-Aug 05 2021
Aug 03 Aug 04 Aug 05
09-12UT 3 1 2
12-15UT 2 1 2