Field Notes. W6/SC-460

Let’s rewind a few months. January 22, I took both my boys as well as my dad with me on a short walk up to this peak. At the time, the only radio I owned was a VHF HT. I had planned to activate the peak, but my plans were foiled. I had spotted myself a handful of times and I called CQ for about 30 minutes straight before giving up with only 2 contacts logged. I was bummed at the time, but not for long.

Shortly after telling a few people about this failed attempt, some suggested learning Morse Code and using CW to get on some of the HF bands that were within my reach as a technician class license holder. A week later I had ordered a small, three-band, CW-only transceiver from Venus Technologies and a 3D-printed paddle from CW Morse. I also immediately signed up for the CW Academy Beginner course. All the while this failed activation was in the back of my head, but I now had found a way to circumvent this peak with poor VHF coverage.

Fast forward to the present, I learned the CW alphabet for the most part. I still get various letters confused with others and my numbers are horrible. But I have to start somewhere so why not a SOTA activation?

My plan for this activation was to do it with CW only on 40M since that’s what I can do as a technician with the equipment I currently have. Don’t let anyone make you think that you can’t operate CW as a tech. It’s possible and in my opinion, the best way to start. I got out to the peak early. I think I started calling CQ around 7:00 AM PST. The reason for this was to avoid a pileup and let me encourage you to do the same if you’re just getting started in SOTA and CW. It worked perfectly, all the QSOs were spread out evenly over about 20 minutes and no one was trying to get their call in over someone else. I could pick away at each call methodically without having the additional stress of multiple calls at once.

I digress, this is not a difficult peak to get to. Park at the end of Del Dios and take the bike path to the summit. The walk is about 5-10 minutes and there is no significant gain. Watch out for cyclists as it’s a heavily trafficked MTB area. I set up at a picnic bench just off the summit which had a nice space to run a 40m EFHW out without getting in anyone’s way.

Bear in mind that I started learning CW in February. I do appreciate how patient all the chasers were with me as I continued to ask for repeats over and over. Since this was my first CW activation, I recorded it so that I could listen to it again and check my log. Here is a clip of the first few QSOs that day.