Another non-NW activation while on my summer work assignment in Cleveland. I was getting bored with the 2 and 4 pt summits on OH, which are mostly on private land, so decided to make an expedition to something with a little more elevation. W3/PT-007 had been previously activated, so I knew it could be done and is an 8 pointer, which would be my first. Finding the summit on the map was a little confusing, however. There is a summit at the coords, but it's either un-named or called "Bear Cave Lookout". Another confusing factor is when looking at SOTA Maps, there appear to be two SOTA summits in the same spot! Seven Springs Mountain (W3/PT-003) has the same coords, but 300 ft higher elevation. Well a visit to the W3 Association webpage cleared things up, W3-PT-003 has been deleted, and the name of W3/PT-007 has been changed to "Bear Cave Lookout". Apparently though that info hasn't made it's way into the main SOTA database..
After the ~3hour drive from Cleveland, I made my way to the summit by turning off of PA-259, onto Derry Ridge Rd, which took me to Firetower Rd, a gravel road in pretty good shape until the last 1/2 mile or so, when some careful navigating and slow speed was required. But my sub-compact rental car made it intact 
. On the topo map, and on my GPS map, there appear to be two roads to access the summit - one that starts somewhat east and angles NW, then joins up with the other road that heads straight north from Firetower road. If the more westerly road ever existed, it was long ago swallowed up by the woods. I parked at the gate at the more easterly approach, and made the 1.5 mile (per the GPS) walk up the gravel/dirt road to the summit. There are lots of radio towers in the summit area, one particularly large one that is relatively new, and many older installations that are in various stages of dis-repair. I notice one old microwave horn tower, obviously no longer used. A relic of an earlier era!
The firetower itself at the summit is likewise long abandoned. The lower couple of flights of stairs were removed, so ascending the tower is left as an exercise to those who are more daring than I. There is a broad level open area at the summit, surrounded by woods, with a few modest oak trees in the middle. I thew my EFHW up over a branch, found a level rock in the shade to sit on, and fired up on 20CW, only about 1.5 hours late for my announced activation ;-). Almost immediately NA6MG pounced for a quick S2S, followed by a string of callers, including N5XL for a 2nd S2S and W3IBT for a weak 3rd, who was operating from W3/PT-001, in the same region, but far enough away to be a bit of a struggle on ground wave. After the pileup faded and CQ's brought no more answers for a few minutes, I tuned around a bit and came across W7JET, who was handling quite a pileup just a kHz down or so. I tried in vain to work him for about 15 minutes, but just couldn't seem to get through the crowd. Even throwing in a few "S2S"'s in didn't help. Realizing that many of the calls I was hearing hadn't worked me, I went back up the band a bit and called CQ. The new spot from RBNGate did the trick, and another 15 QSO's were in the log in no time. When that petered out, I packed up and headed back to the car.
