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QRP To The Field - April 21, 2018

Submitted by K7ATN on

Coming up on Saturday, April 21 2018 is a QRP and SOTA event – with Rivers as a bonus! It’s QRP to the Field, or QRP TTF, an annual party for taking your radio outdoors. The ‘theme’ for 2018 is rivers – you could think of it as “Rivers on the Air”. Operating near a river counts for scoring as much as being on a SOTA summit!  Multipliers: are x1 home station, x2 “in the Field” station and x3 for "River" or SOTA station. Everyone uses 5W for CW or 10W PEP for SSB (or less).

Hex Mountain, WA | March 2018

Submitted by WU7H on
Summit

Myself and AC7MA set off to activate Hex Mountain (1534m, 6 Points + 3 winter bonus) this past Tuesday (20th March). Here is a short video I made at the summit:
https://youtu.be/wEc5C1NV1F0

It was a beautiful sunny day and we had the mountain to ourselves. Snow conditions were great - we were on snow the entire hike but did not need snowshoes. It was about as perfect as an early spring activation could possibly be! Compared to our last activation (Sky Mountain) this was a walk in the park.

Peak 5505, ID | March 2018

Submitted by K7MK on
Summit

Good parking along the road in a pullout (during winter).  Note for winter ascents, stay left of the track at the bottom so you keep high.  Do not go right into the quarry as you will need to climb out.  We had to snowshoe up mud!  We stayed high on the descent.  On your climb up, work your way to the left hand summit ridge.  No trail and steep, but doable.  Metal posts at the top to strap antenna to.  Great views

In the summer you may be able to drive into the gravel quarry and take other ridgelines.

Peak 5740, ID | March 2018

Submitted by K7MK on
Summit

This is becoming a popular summit and may be one of the most accessable summits in the Boise area.  This is about an hour drive from Boise however.  The parking is always good as they plow the side road next to Little Camas Reservoir.  Snowmobile activity is present in the winter and also park along the road.  The snowmobile tracks can help with a winter track up the lower slopes.

In the summer, this track (below) can be used, but a shorter/direct route can be found if you park in a pull-out SW of the summit on Hwy20.

Easy day on Squak Mountain

Submitted by K7DDC on
Summit

I took advantage of the great weather to take a stroll up Squak mountain with a friend and my son. The activation zone is a nice, wide, clear gravel area. This was my first activation on HF and with a new radio. Needless to say I was a little nervous about being able to make any contacts at all. It did take a while for anyone to come back to me, but I pretty quickly made 5 contacts on 20m and one on 40m. Not bad for my first time playing around on HF!

Caribou Peak, MT | July, 2017

Submitted by AE7AP on
Summit

4.0 miles (+2340, -1090) from Bighorn Lake; 15.2 mile approach from Dearborn TH

We made this part of a 4-day backpacking trip that included W7M/CL-082 (Peak 7676) and W7M/CL-008 (Caribou Peak).  See also the trip reports for these summits.  The trip report for W7M/CL-082 describes trailhead parking at the Dearborn Trailhead & the initial portion of the trail to our campsite on the Continental Divide between Blacktail Creek and the Lander’s Fork.