VE6AB Mobile Ops
Summits On The Air
With plans that included doing some relic hunting with the use of my metal detector on a historic ranch dating back more than 125 years, I hadn't thought about doing much with ham radio operations beyond running my normal RPR HF APRS on 30 meters while out and about come Saturday morning.
However I decided to modify my plans somewhat when I received an email Friday evening indicating that a group of four SOTA Activators would be activating the summit of Buffalo Hill located near Milo Alberta early Saturday morning.
With an interest in SOTA (Summits On The Air), as I am a registered SOTA Chaser, I decided that I would alter my plans slightly, allowing myself to act as a chaser for the guys led by Ian VE6IXD that took the time to hike up to the top of Buffalo Hill located in southern Alberta.
Come Saturday morning, I was happy enough to act as a chaser working from the radio stack of my mobile, as there was a wind blowing out of the west that made things not so pleasant outside with the cooler temperatures present.
This also proved to be true on the summit of Buffalo Hill located approximately 100 kilometers southeast of Calgary, when I made first contact with Ian VE6IXD on 146.520 MHz, and he mentioned the cold biting wind threatening to blow them off of the summit!
After the contact with Ian, I quickly followed up with Malen VE6VID operating from the summit as well. Following Malen, I then contacted Ken VE6AGR on 146.520 MHz simplex.
At this point, I switched mic's from my Kenwood TM-D710, and reached for the Heil Handi-mic that I use with my Kenwood TS-480HX, spinning the VFO dial to the SOTA operating frequency of 14.325 MHz on 20 meters.
Although the band was in terrible shape on the day, and I felt for the SOTA Activators on the summit of Buffalo Hill, as there was no long-distance propagation for summit to summit contacts, I was able to provide contacts via ground-wave.
Finally the guys decided to call it done with the miserable operating conditions, and packed up their gear before heading back down to their vehicles parked near the lower slopes of Buffalo Hill.
I closed up shop as well, and with my radio stack and operating console cleaned up for going down the road, I once more got in to relic hunting mode.
Expand the photo for a closer look.....
Some of the capabilities of the radio stack mounted in my mobile, as seen and described with the link photo.....
https://www.jerryclement.ca/HamRadio/HamRadio/i-Dx5twrj
