Harlan (KC3UJB) and I made a journey up to the top of Mount Philo in FN34jg (POTA US-3134) (SOTA W1/GM-149), armed with enough VHF+ equipment to keep us occupied for a few hours. The park had recently been impacted by the remnants of Hurricane Beryl which came ashore in Texas but had enough moisture to bring heavy rains all the way up into Vermont. Those rains washed out roads and left several people stranded just to our east. Luckily, on the island we are staying, impacts were minimal.

We had operated from the rental house for most of our time in Vermont but decided we needed to go activate a summit. I had met Zach, K1ZK, on one of the VHF+ chat rooms and he had given me lots of good information regarding places I could take radios for an activation and neat places to visit while we were in town. Mount Philo was selected and on one of our last days of vacation, Harlan and I made our way to the top of the summit.

Mount Philo was adversely affected by Hurricane Beryl and while the hard-topped roadways were open, all the trails around the mountain were closed. We were able to drive to the top of the mountain, park, and walk about a hundred meters, or so, to a nice picnic area with a beautiful view towards the south.

Figure 1. A view to the south from the top of Mount Philo.

Using a Buddipole for six meters and an Arrow Antenna for two meters and seventy centimeters, we started making contacts a little after 10:00A EDT. It was surprising to tune down to the voice calling frequency and immediately hearing loud signals from as far away as Alabama (~1806km) and South Carolina (~1200km). Sporadic-E was definitely alive and well this morning!

I was able to put several stations in the log using SSB before reluctantly switching to FT8 to get the remaining few contacts needed for a successful activation. I did put K1ZK in the log on 1.25m (FM) and 70cm in addition to 6m. Harlan got K1ZK plus a few others on the higher bands as he was primarily working that radio. He ended up getting the remaining needed for a successful activation using 6m.

Figure 2. Two well-seasoned operators working the airwaves.

All-in-all, I worked twelve stations for fourteen contacts on the bottom four VHF bands for a successful POTA and SOTA activation.

Table 1. Stations worked by WG3K

Station

Band

Grid

Distance (km)

K1ZK

6m, 1.25m, 70cm

FN34

13.9

KW4OV

EM60

1998

N4JZH

EM93

1366

KF4AAF

EM90

1717

KQ4NMU

EM81

1684

KE4HKO

EM80

1746

WD4OIN

FM14

1191

K1TEO

FN31

329

KY4YE

EM81

1680

KM4RL

EL88

1910

K1NKT

FN34

K1TO

EL87

2046

SOTA activation of Lambs Knoll

The day started with a good night’s sleep; an almost rare thing for me. I had planned on leaving at 9AM but when one wakes up at 8:45A you realize that’s not going to happen. We did leave the house around 10 o’clock so no big …

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SOTA activation of Lambs Knoll