Sunday morning I got to combine 2 hobbies I enjoy: a sunny morning makes it tempting to hike and a VHF radio contest is on. After packing radio, battery and accessories, I ended up with 30lbs weight on my back, good exercise for the backpacking trip in August.
Amazing what large crowd is up on Tiger-3 even on a early Sunday morning! So I immediately continued to summit 2 which was almost deserted. I rigged up my radio and antenna (a simple 6m half-wave wire dipole) and got on the air for the next ~60 minutes. The high place for the antenna helped with receiving considerably, could easily hear into Colorado and faintly into Minnesota (on CW). But my portable radio is limited to 5W QRP transmitting power, add to that the simple dipole, so unfortunately I could not make 2-way contact with those distant stations. Did about ~20 QSOs, most of them in CW and a few on SSB.
Stats:
| Distance: | 5.8mi / 9.3km roundtrip | Elevation gain: | 2405ft / 722m |
| High point: | 2757ft / 827m |
| Hiking time: | 1:10hrs up and 1hr down |
| Weather: | sunny; ~60 at TH |
Hikers:
W7CF (David)
