Kel and I hiked up W6/CT-146, Hoyt Mountain. This is worth 4 points for SOTA folks. Parking is just off Highway 2, at Grizzly Flat Trailhead. Once you’re there, follow the big fire road. Stay to the right at the split by the old water tank base. Eventually, the road kinda just stops under the high tension power lines at the top. It took a bit of time to find, but here is a narrow, somewhat overgrown trail right in the middle of the hill which goes up to the summit. Further up, the trail gets better and more defined. This bit was somewhat challenging for me, and presents you with a few false summits.

I started out working 2M FM thinking someone could spot me on SOTAWatch. To my surprise, I could only get a single station! I’m generally able to get tons of 2M contacts, but this was a holiday weekend so….. I setup my HF station – Yaesu 817 into a resonant vertical antenna cut for 20M, supported by a squid pole. While doing this, I figured out how to self spot using the APRS-> SOTA gateway. After getting a message back from the system informing me I was spotted, I started calling out on 14.340Mhz, where I was immediately picked up by W0MNA in Kansas, followed by ZL2IFB in New Zealand, my first QRP/ SOTA DX station. 🙂 I made several more contacts, noticed the time and started packing down the station when I found the radio was configured to transmit at 2.5 watts. No wonder I was getting 44~47 signal reports. The hike down is the reverse of the way up. Overall, this is a fun hike.

https://summits.sota.org.uk/summit/W6/CT-146

Date:30/Nov/2019 Summit:W6/CT-146 (Hoyt Mountain) 

Time	Call	Band	Mode	Notes
09:55z	AI6SP	144MHz	FM
10:15z	W0MNA	14MHz	SSB
10:17z	ZL2IFB	14MHz	SSB
10:18z	WU7H	14MHz	SSB
10:19z	W0ERI	14MHz	SSB
10:20z	N4EX	14MHz	SSB
10:21z	N5HA	14MHz	SSB
10:22z	K6LDQ	14MHz	SSB
10:25z	K5SVV	14MHz	SSB
10:28z	KI6EAB	14MHz	SSB