Hi I before I talk about June’s SOTA/POTA I want to say a few things about May’s. IT was buggy in every sense of the word. I met Matt WE1H at Mount Kearsarge last month for the club’s first SOTA. POTA activation of the year. My battery was giving me issues, and Matt’s radio was giving him issues. Matt let me borrow an extra battery and resolved his radio issue. So we are good to go, right? Wrong a throng of hungry black flies descended on us. We made the call pretty quickly that we couldn’t deal with them as neither of us remembered bug spray.
So while we both were bummed out about driving all the way over there for nothing we did learn a few important lessons. First, if you haven’t fired up that portable rig in a while. Give it a test and work out the bugs
before heading out to operate portable. Iron out any battery or radio issues at home before you set up an antenna in the wild. This is a good time to check and make sure you have all the crazy RF adapters you might need for that portable rig too! And let’s not forget bug spray, head net, and a hat to keep the bugs off you.
Ok, with that out of the way for June’s activation, we will be back at Kearsarge. It’s really a great place to activate.
The plan for Mt. Kearsarge activation is to meet at the picnic grounds at the end of the auto road Saturday at 11:00. I should be there till at least 4 so don’t worry if you can’t make it for 11:00 The physical address for Rollins State Park (the location of the auto road) is 1066 Kearsarge Mountain rd. in Warner. I just went to their website here and they recommend a reservation so plan on visiting the link for a pass.
Anyone that wants to hike up from the other side and meet us here is the physical address of Winslow State Park 475 Kearsarge Mountain Rd, Wilmot, NH 03287. Check The nhstateparks.org website you may need a parking reservation on this side of the mountain as well.
We will most likely be operating from the picnic area at the end of the auto road. If anyone wants to operate from the actual summit it is only .5 miles away. I’m not sure how long a hike it is from Winslow State Park. In addition to SOTA/POTA, the ARRL June VHF Contest starts at 2:00 local so there should be plenty of opportunities to make QSO’s.
As far as radios an HT with an upgraded rubber duck can get you surprising performance from even a modest rise in altitude, so if that’s all you have, bring it and try it out. I’ll have my 6-meter QRP rig and a new homebrew Moxon antenna.
Hope to see you on Mount Kearsarge on Sunday!
PS Don’t forget to go to the state park website for a parking pass! It’s early in the season so you shouldn’t have a problem with them letting you up, but do you really wanna take the chance?
73′
Jim K1BRM
