Rattlesnake Mtn - W7W/KG-113 - June 10, 2013

Rattlesnake Mtn is part of King County's "Big Backyard" series of  hikes.  There is a trail head at the northwest end of the mountain at Snoqualmie Point and at the southeast end at Rattlesnake Lake.  Walking from TH to TH is about 11 miles.  We took the Lake route which is 4.3 miles and gains ~2500 ft.  See:  http://your.kingcounty.gov/ftp/gis/web/vmc/recreation/BCT_RattlesnakeMtn_brochure.pdf

Myself, Ms Pat WT7N, and Chuck AC7QN hit the trail about 10:30 AM and arrived at the high point at 13:10 PDT.  There is a very old Comm Tower at 3517 ft ASL, about 150 ft from the trail.  We opted to set up away along the trail and away from the possible interfering comm tower at 3501 ft ASL.  

Local chasers were following me on APRS and once they knew I was at the summit (The D72A provides the frequency of the 'B' band in the APRS status message)... I began getting calls on 146.520.  4 stations were quickly worked on 2M FM.  I had to sign off of 2M in order to have time to set up my HF station.

I erected my 18 ft Crappie Pole with 44 ft doublet and attached the pole to a trail marker sign post.  I also attached my PVC pipe 2 meter Coaxial Dipole to this same post.  Mason twine tied to nearby trees elevated the ends of the doublet.

The black crappie pole is seen emanating from the trail sign post.  One red doublet wire is seen heading north.  It's hard to see the white PVC pipe vertical dipole also strapped to the post.  

This activation was my first use of the homebrew 44 ft doublet fed with TV twinlead and a homebrew 4:1 balun.  I operated 40M, 30M, and 17M CW.  I skipped 20M because Chuck AC7QN was set up nearby on 20M SSB.  We interfered with each other but I made my CW QSOs quickly and then he was able to work some SSB Chasers.

My KX3 and 2600 ma/hr LiPo battery are sitting on a piece of 1/4" plywood which is normally used as a lap-desk.  The TV twinlead and balun box are seen.  The Handy Talky is a Kenwood D72A for 2 meter QSOs- but mostly used for Spotting myself to sotawatch.org.

This my first time operating 40M on a SOTA outing.  3 local stations were worked but the highlight was Phil NS7P on SOTA summit W7O/WV-088.  30M and 17M provided a handfull of QSOs.  Thanks to all who followed my aprs tracks and made contact with me.  Here's a movie I created of Chuck AC7QN's activation of Rattlesnake Mtn:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/kr7w-sota/9020106340/in/set-72157634077239308

There is a bench at the summit that has this view looking east toward Snoqualmie Pass down the I-90 Corridor.  It's pretty scenic for being less than 30 miles from the metropolis of Seattle.

Happy Trails,

Rich KR7W