Bigelow Mount, W7/AW-003

  On February 26, 2012 I & my cousin Jesse drove to Tucson.  Fueled up on pancakes, grits, & coffee at the Cracker Barrel, we then drove through the endless stop lights and stop signs to get to the other side of Tucson.  Once on the east side the fun begins by traveling up the Catalina Scenic Highway.  It has the word scenic in its name for a reason!  There were several Lance wannabees riding their bike up the mountain.  What a great ride that must be, seeing all the scenery at a slower pace than a motorized vehicle.  We stopped and payed the $5 that allowed us to use the facilities and park for the day.  In no time we were at the Bigelow TH.  After getting out of the car, we evaluated how many clothing layers we would need, we made sure we had all the essentials to do a SOTA activation.  It was then time to turn on my new toy.  A Yaesu VX-8G.  How much fun.

  I made the VX send out a burst, making sure it was heard and we had a time stamp of when we left.  We headed up the trail and I was quickly reminded that I hadn't hiked in a while.  I was packing 14lbs+, but my hiking partner practically nothing, 30 years younger and barely removed from cross-country track, I had a workout in front of me keeping up with him.  There were many cairns showing the way, but really, there was no need, as the trail is worn enough to follow.  Close to the top, the VX made some noises and a white LED was flashing.  Hmm, I think I remember seeing in the manual that a white LED means you have a message.  Sure enough, I had a message from my buddy Steve-wG0AT.  Seems Rooster told Steve we were nearing the top.  Apparently Steve and others were watching us go up the mountain on APRS.  I'm loving this little APRS HT.  Jesse, a non-ham couldn't believe I was able to receive messages on a radio.  Pretty cool!

  We finally topped out and we walked around looking for the summit medallion.  It wasn't until later that Jesse found it.  It was where we had been told, "east of the fire tower” Except it was in a rock, not in cement.

  Jesse also found some kitty kat paw prints!  Here kitty, kitty.

We setup on the east side of the summit right along the road.  It had a nice drop off at the edge of the road.  I turned on the radio and thought it was broke.  The squelch was such that it wasn't letting any signals in....there was absolutely no noise.  I could hear the bottom of the band on 20M.  Interesting that months earlier on Mt Lemmon there was several S units of noise, just a few miles away.

Once I figured out that the radio wasn't broke, I called CQ and instantly had a pileup.  wG0AT was the loudest and was 1st in the log.  3 more were in the log quickly.  Later on back at home Jesse told my wife (Donna-KB0JOK) that we talked to 4 people in 2 minutes.  Ended up with 21 Q's, the most so far on a summit.  I think my AZ stick is working.

We sat in the sun the whole time and were more than warm.  I actually got sunburn from it.  We packed up and headed down the mountain.  It was cool/cold gong back down.  We weren't creating heat going down, but in short order we were back to the TH.  After making sure we got our $5 worth we headed down the highway.  At one point I looked in the rear view mirror and a Lance wannabee was gaining on us.  He went around us and we followed him going 45-50 mph around curves.  We were having fun watching this guy!

We stopped at a local restaurant to fuel up and looked at an email from Steve.  He had screen shots of our APRS beacons on the mountain and as a bonus, he included audio of a Summit to Summit I had with Scott, W7IMC.  Thanks Steve, R&P!   Its people like Steve that make the hobby so much fun!

Thanks for the contacts!

WG0AT

NS7P

WB9WHQ

AJ5C

VE2JCW

VE2WFF

NR7F

K4QS

NU6T

N4EX

WA2USA/4

K6ILM

KC0UER

W7IMC S2S

WA5DTK

K7EUG

W7TNS

ND0C

W4AMW

KJ6KIH

W7RIS

more pictures here...

Until another summit...73 de Jon N7AZ

Mt. Lemmon, W7 / AW-001

    With a big time lapse since my last activation it was time to play some radio.  So we loaded up the car and headed for Tucson, AZ.  In a couple hours of driving we were through Tucson and was heading up the Catalina mountains toward the summit of Mt. Lemmon. My cousin Jesse was in charge of taking pictures as we made our  way up the Sky Island Scenic Byway.

 I didn't know there could be such scenery.  Driving from Tucson to the top of Mt. Lemmon takes one through 7 different climate zones, the equivalent of driving from Mexico to Canada.  Close to the top we pulled over at a picnic area and had sandwiches, etc that my wife Donna-KB0JOK had made for us.  

Since I had put out a SOTA alert before we left, we hurriedly finished up, as I/we were way behind time.  Once at the parking lot, Jesse and I packed the radio station & accessories and hiked along the fence of the Steward Observatory.

  To get to the summit which is to the north of the observatory property, so we had to hike up and down some steep hills with virtually no trail.  The only trail was stepped down grass made from others.  In short order we made it to the summit.  Once at the summit we had nice views to the north and a nice take off angle for radio signals.  We setup the vertical with elevated radials and attached it to a pole in the ground.  Another pole close by had electrical outlets, but unknown if it had power.

   After calling CQ SOTA for sometime on 20M SSB, NS7P-Phil answered.  NS7P always seems to be there.  Next contact was AD7FC on Timberwolf Mountain, my first Summit to Summit!  After making several more contacts, I switched to CW and worked Fred-KT5X in New Mexico.  At this point my hands were freezing and we broke down the station and headed back for the car and a nice drive back down the mountain.  As I was making contacts, Jesse walked around taking pictures.  One could see the famous Biosphere from where we were.

Many thanks for the contacts!

NS7P
AD7FC
ND0C
VA6FUN
N7CNH
VE3XN
VE3IC
KT5X

73 Jon N7AZ