The Bare Mountain SOTA Remix – A New CW Tale Of The Little Bump

That is Mount Norwottuck that that lady is looking at in the distance. We are on top of Bare Mountain (W1/CR-014), a tiny but steep half mile climb. AA1F and I have been trying for so many ten point mountains that we forget how much we like climbing our local hills. Bare Mountain is one of the Seven Sisters of the Holyoke Range, and home of “the Notch”, a Post-Attack Command and Control System (PACCS), otherwise known as a cold war bunker, now part of Amherst College’s library system (say what?! No I am not kidding). It has been a few years since I activated this diminutive peak.

The sun is starting to set. Our Thanksgiving eve trek out here was fraught with traffic problems. The early sunset mandated that we would make our Summits-On-The-Air activation after dark.

We stuffed Nellie into a new piece of gear, doggie pajamas. Temperatures were going to drop into the 40s once the sun set. Nellie actually does not have hair on her belly…a little known fact about our puppy in case you wonder why we bundle her up so much. AA1F and I once took her out on a fairly arduous hike on a snowy trail when we were all much younger. Nellie had gotten profoundly tired and hypothermic and we had to carry her out. We have never made that mistake since. (She looks adorable though doesn’t she?)

And I look pretty peaceful there, don’t you think? I could hear AA1F’s activation, and could tell he was struggling to get contacts. Well I am actually not happy in the least. I was all set up to try for a cw activation, but I could not hear my keyer’s sidetone. Over and over and over again I checked the settings on my Yaesu FT-818 trying to figure out why my paddle was not working. The serenity of the picture below was in direct contrast to my overwhelming urge to throw my radio off a cliff…

The sunset was beautiful. My mood was not. I am actually googling “818 sidetone not working” in the picture below.

The sun was gone. Headlamps were on. Honestly, I didn’t even really notice the sun had set. I mindlessly flicked on my headlamp and kept trying to get on the air. After the hundredth time of scrolling through the various menus trying to figure out what was going wrong with my keyer, it dawned on me. I was operating split accidentally. Once finally sorted out, I started calling cq on 17M.

And AA1F was taking selfies. And encouraging me to finish my activation. Gary W0MNA and Martha W0ERI, Kansas SOTA Mountain Goats and chasers extraordinaire, came to my rescue, providing me with my first two contacts. AA1F was insistent I finish up the activation, although I would have been happy enough to call it quits and go home right then. He re-spotted me and pulled out his android cw decoder to make sure I was copying the morse code okay. (It’s probably a matter of time before he starts to learn cw too I bet…) I soon had a few more contacts.

This is me looking smug. I completed my second ever SOTA cw activation. I was clumsy and slow, but exhilarated!

This activation I used my homebrew linked 64:1 EFHW antenna for 10M-17M. It worked well enough on my full 6 watts.

Just to give you an idea of how casually I place my antennas on portable activations…not even 15 feet off the ground!

Nellie was no longer amused. Can we please go home?

That’s it. A successful cw activation of Bare Mountain. Happy Thanksgiving!

KM1NDY