VHF Sweepstakes on Mount Herman

For the 2011 ARRL January VHF Sweepstakes, I repeated the tradition of doing a winter assault on Mount Herman (DM79) on Saturday afternoon. As in past years, Joyce (K0JJW) joined me on the hike, but we also had some other folks along to make for quite a party on the summit this year.

James, Stu and Bob at the trailhead

Stu (W0STU) and I operated independent “Single Operator – Portable” stations from the summit. Stu conned convinced James (KD0MFO) to join him on this trek. We had hoped to get “Alpha Goat” Steve (WG0AT) to go with us, but he made some excuse about needing to prepare for an upcoming trip to Dominica (J7). (Instead of slogging through the snow, Steve wants to go to the Caribbean? Probably a good choice. See Steve”s video of his previous trip up Mt Herman here.) Dan (N0OLD) also hiked up a little later in the day to join us on the summit.

Bob K0NR setting up the Arrow II Yagi Antenna on the camera tripod

Trail conditions were good, with not much snow on the trail. There were definitely some icy spots such that we enjoyed the extra grippers attached to our boots. The weather forecast was a bit marginal, so we were prepared to deal with a snowstorm moving in on us. As I told Stu, the philosophy is “We’ll have a good hike and we might also have some fun working the radios.” In the end, the weather remained solid with only a few snow flakes and temperatures just above freezing. Dan and James built a small campfire (in an established fire ring) that really warmed us up.

Bob K0NR Operating the FT-817

My primary radio was the Yaesu FT-817, driving an ARROW II yagi on 2 Meters and 70 cm and a wire dipole in the trees for 6 Meters. I also had several handheld FM rigs along including one on 222 MHz. Overall, I made 83 contacts with 15 grids for a total score of 1725.

Group photo on the summit: Dan N0OLD, Bob K0NR, James KD0MFO, Joyce K0JJW and Stu W0STU

This may have been the most fun yet for the January VHF Sweepstakes. Of course, any day in the mountains playing with radios is a good day.

73, Bob K0NR

2 Replies to “VHF Sweepstakes on Mount Herman”

  1. Bob, it was indeed a good day on the mountain. I had a blast, and if only that homebrewed 6m dipole hadn’t given me trouble by inducing RF in my radio and dorking up my audio (technical term there), maybe I’d have almost matched your superb score! Drat the luck! Well, there’s always next year. A fine effort on a fine mountain on a fine day.

    But I gotta say, ‘conned’ is a bit of a stretch! Why, James/KDØMFO practically BEGGED me to let him haul crap up that hill, cook us noodles and hot chocolate, and build a fire… just for the chance to watch YOU, the Yoda of portable VHF, work the magic! Conned, indeed! Harumph!

    I claimed 88 contacts and 11 multipliers in the 4 hours up there for a total of 1309. That’s a score I’m mighty proud of for my first-ever contest and first-ever ‘real’ portable operation. I was working a Yaesu FT-857D driving an Arrow antenna and that dastardly 6m dipole that sort of worked sometimes, and a couple of FT-60 HTs to grab the FM calls. [Thanks BSA Troop 6 Hams!]

    Bob, thanks for the mentoring and for helping me get started in VHF+ contesting. I’m looking forward to June!

    73,

    Stu / WØSTU