W7O Summits on the Air Newsletter Jan-Feb 2015
Gear Idea for Activators – Snowshoes! As a skier, I once turned my nose up at snowshoes but have learned they are a great way to get around for winter activations in the snow zone. They are easy to carry on the snow-free parts of a trail and not too expensive to buy or rent. Best of all, the ones with modern strap-in bindings are easy to use with little training or practice needed. It’s pretty much like a walk in the woods – in the winter! Take along poles with snow baskets; they’ll keep you stable and help push you up steeper slopes.
Activator Idea – Sno-Park passes are needed to park in places in the mountains where there is regular snow removal – it’s nice to think that your payment goes directly to making it possible to park at mountain pass trailheads. In Oregon, an annual pass is $25 and daily is $4, although most sales agents charge a bit extra for handling. See www.oregon.gov/odot/dmv/pages/vehicle/sno_park_permits.aspx.
Several years ago Washington State ended thirty years of reciprocity with Oregon on their Sno-Park programs. So if you activate in both states, you’ll need to purchase a separate pass for each. In Washington, an annual pass is $42 and daily is $20, and again, sales agents charge $2 more. See www.parks.wa.gov/134/Permits and check out www.pnwsota.org to search for possible winter activations.
Upcoming Events – For those with 6 meter and up SSB capability, heading out on January 24-25 will have an extra fun factor – the ARRL January VHF Contest. There will be bunches of folks willing to work you on 50.125 and 144.200 MHz SSB, and it’s also possible to work other bands too. There is also some activity on 2 meter FM; but use of 146.52 isn’t allowed for contestants so look for them on 146.55 or 146.58. You don’t need fancy antennas even for QRP – I’ve used a 2 meter 5/8 wave vertical for both 2 meters and 6 meters with fair results even though most VHF folks are horizontal – use the antennas you have. VHF contests are also a great time to activate a summit where putting up an HF antenna is challenging – like some of the busy summits in urban areas. See the rules at www.arrl.org/january-vhf and consider entering a log for the contest – people have gotten first place in their ARRL section with just a few contacts! Note that you should know your GRID SQUARE as that’s the typical exchange for VHF/UHF contests – you can find information here: www.arrl.org/grid-squares.
Resources – It’s especially important in winter to know what trail conditions might be like in the mountains and what weather you might experience…and to be well-prepared. While this newsletter obviously can’t tell you all you need to know, we’ll make suggestions and point you to resources. For example, using highway or ski area webcams can give you some idea of the snow level at higher elevations – Here’s a summary of the webcams around Mount Hood www.timberlinelodge.com/webcams/ and here is mountain pass information for Washington www.wsdot.com/traffic/passes/ and also some webcams near Mount Rainier: http://crystalmountainresort.com/the-mountain/about/webcams/.
And here’s another awesome tool put together by Dan-KK7DS – the ability to generate custom query files for your GPS or Google Earth for every SOTA association: www.pnwsota.org/sotatool. Google Earth is a fun planning tool to check out roads and access to summits, and putting summit coordinates directly into your GPS helps you know where to go…and when you’ve arrived.
This newsletter is brought to you by the SOTA W7O Association Manager Etienne-K7ATN. To subscribe please email climb2ski at Gmail.