Just wanted to share a summary of our first annual W7O campout in Southern Oregon at Hyatt Lake Recreation area. It was a great success with about 23 operators participating in activating as well as some of their families. For the non-hams there was plenty of wildflowers, birds, peacfullness, view, and wildlife to enjoy. The location was perfect for what we were doing, central to numerous summits, weather was good and the camp hosts were very kind and supportive. If my numbers are correct, we managed to keep very busy by reaching 126 activations among 30 different summits over the course of the extended weekend!! WOW! Some just did 1 summit, some did 9-12. 146.58 was smoking all weekend, it is rare around here to hear anything on 2m simplex! Some nice milestones as few new YLs joined SOTA, a couple that just got licensed before the trip, and also MG was reached for Bill WJ7WJ. I myself did 5 summits for 24 points, 55 s2s for 289 points and reaching 3000 s2s pts, over 100 qsos, and 7 completes. Best of all we got to meet some terrific people. The whole weekend I felt was a reflection of what sets ham radio apart from some hobbies, particularly SOTA, plenty of team effort, support, positive attitude, self sufficiency, and really just a lot of kindness and camaraderie.
If you missed it this year, mark you calendar for next as I’m sure we will do it again. Too much fun not to!
73,
Amy
AG7GP
Some pics, having trouble loading so may add more later…
Panorama from Table Mountain, the most popular of the weekend with view of most every summit activated. The ones in red you can’t see. I think I have them all correct but not sure you can enlarge to see
It looked like a great SOTA camping trip. I worked as many as I could hear and it was a full time job, but lots of fun. Thanks to everyone there for all of the contacts.
Looks like such a great time, and thanks for sharing the pictures and write-up! Was frustrating to cancel my trip plans after getting so sick right before the event! Looking forward to participating next time!
73, James WA7JNJ
Thanks for chasing Gary. I know many of us found it hard to get to hf at all, 2m was keeping us busy, and some were getting thru the 2m pileup then moving to another summit. Great fun!
What a great event you had! I know there was plenty of hard work to make it work so well.
I really enjoyed your many S2S contacts from here in Colorado. These worked well on several HF bands. Most of you grabbed my calls and made our contacts, in spite of the usual challenges. I sensed some of the fun from the multiple operators on various peaks and bands!
Wow! What a crowd! I worked several of you but not all. And thanks for all the
activations! And looking at the photos, I don’t see one single person I recognize!
Too bad… But I’ll bet we’ve worked somewhere along the way.
