Activation Report: W7O/CN-074 - Round Butte, OR | January 2023

W7MTB on Round Butte

This SOTA summit is a paved drive up. Access is quite easy from Madras, to the East or Culver to the South. 

Madras to Round Butte

Hwy 97/Culver Junction to Round Butte

There is a large open area on the top of the butte to setup your gear. On the Saturday that I was there, I saw one pedestrian and one other car in the 3 hours I was there. There are some small juniper trees but I'd suggest bringing a mast of some kind. 

Working 17m CW from Round Butte

I worked several S2S on 2M with ops up on Frog Lake Buttes [W7O/CN-024], 4620 [ W7O/CN-090] 4925 [W7O/CN-086] then switched over to HF and worked scored another S2S from W6/SC-365 on CW. This was the first time I had deployed my newly build K6ARK End fed random wire tuned with the EmTech ZM-2

This would be an excellent introduction summit for new operators. I presents no physical challenge other than sitting in the cold and wind, but it has beautiful views and feels remote enough to be relaxing.

Resources: 

• SOTLAS
• PNWSota
• Google Maps
• EmTech
• K6ARK EFRW Antenna

Activation Report: W7O/CE-223 - Juniper Butte

Juniper Butte from the South

This is a pretty easy hike, with some elevation gain. My watch clocked 1070 ft of gain in 2.6 miles from where we parked the truck. The primary access road is pretty good dirt that turns into a pretty ok jeep track. It would be possible to drive up the ok-ish jeep track to a point where there is a barbed wire fence gate and the road turns into a true jeep road. 

End of the drive up, time to walk

The barbed wire gate

This would save about 1.25 miles of walking but be prepared to back out if you were to run into another vehicle as there aren't many options for pulling to the side. The hike was quite pleasant, with signs of deer and cow detritus. Views on a clear day of the entire Central Cascade Range from Mt Hood south to Mt Bachelor. There are 2 sections of steep, loose rock the didn't appear to have had 4 wheels on it in a long time. There was evidence that a motorcycle made it at least half way to the summit. 

Getting a little tougher

Steep and Rocky

KK7HJL taking a breather

At about 2 miles, the trail tops out on the western high point, but this is not the AZ. The track splits and you'll have to stay to the right and follow an old fence line for about 1/4 mile before the track pitches up a bit for another 1/4 mile to the summit and activation zone. There are lots of juniper trees to attach a mast to, some may be tall enough to pitch a line into. 

Track Captured on Garmin watch

We worked several Summit to Summits on 2M with some activators up in the Mt. Hood area, then turned on KK7HJL's new AnyTone 6666, 10 M rig. Its a bit of an awkward rig to work in the field as its primarily designed as a mobile unit. The controls took a minute to figure out (I didn't know what the "Clarifier" did but figured it to be some kind of band pass filter). Once I got the rig going and tweaked the "Clarifier" after my first QSO alerted me that I sounded off frequency, I turned it over to Randi [KK7HJL] to make her first HF contacts. We worked 5 stations in the middle of the country, Kentucky, Texas, Illinois, Oklahoma and Kansas, before the band started to deteriorate and we decided it was time for some food and beverage. 

KK7HJL working HF for the first time

On the way down we stopped to check out an interesting remembrance to someone called Erik McDaniel. Googling his name revealed that he died in a nasty car crash in 2021 at the age of 31. He was from Culver, the small berg just to the north of Juniper Butte.

Shrine to Erik McDaniel

The trip down took about the same 1:15 that the trip up took. We arrived at the truck and headed to Wild Ride Brewing in Redmond for some food and a beverage to toast a beautiful and interesting afternoon exploring an area of Central Oregon we probably would never have bother with thanks to our new ham radio hobby. 

GPX File for download: Juniper Butte GPX

Activation Report: Hoodoo Butte W7O/CM-060

Hoodoo Butte AZ

KK7HJL and I had been wanting to get out and do more activations during our Holiday break from work responsibilities.The weather and social calendars colluded to prevent us from making it happen until the last day of our break. We won a pair of lift tickets to Hoodoo Ski area and decided to bring along our radio's to see if we could activate the summit. This is one of the easiest "hikes" we have done, since it really only involved walking from the car to the bottom of the lift. To make it a bit more challenging, we did 4 quick runs on Ed's chair before taking the Green Monster to the top. We were hoping the dense fog would lift as we could see the sun poking through but never got out of the cloud on the lower section of the mountain. After our 4th run we decided it was time so we skied to the bottom and boarded the chair for the long ride to the top. To our surprise about 300 ft below the summit the fog cleared and we were treated to a view of the full majesty of the Central Oregon Cascade Range. To the south we could see Mt. Bachelor, South, Middle and North Sisters. To the East, Black Butte and Mt. Washington. To the North, Mt Jefferson and Mt Hood peaking out. The summit was still, but that didn't prevent my fingers from getting very cold in the 17 degree F temperature. 

KK7HJL with W7MTB Calling CQ

W7MTB

We decided to try to knock the activation out quickly on 2M, I didn't really dress warm enough and my fingers, toes and legs were already cold and setting up the HF antenna didn't sound fun. That didn't go quite as easily as planned. First contact came quickly enough, but the next three took another 45 mins of calling CQ. Our first contact let us know that our signal strength was fading so I tried out the new 2M Band pass filter, only to get a weaker signal report so we went back to working without the filter. I expected we might get some QSO's from the Eugene/Springfield/Salem area but heard nothing. After a while I asked our first contact if he could make a call out on the local repeaters. I wasn't sure if we were getting into the primary repeater and the Mt. Bachelor repeaters are not usually linked to the system. He tried and reported he heard nothing, which was odd for our system. He made a second attempt and we got a call from the Black Butte Ranch area to complete our 4 QSO's to activate. Hungry and cold we headed down the easiest trail to the lodge for some lunch and a beverage.

Mt. Washington from Hoodoo Summit

Things to know:

• Hoodoo Butte can be very windy and cold on the top in the winter. We were expecting much higher winds but got pretty lucky. 

• Ski patrol asked us who we worked for, which was funny and it took a minute to explain what we were up to but they seemed uninterested. 

• The AZ is right at the top of the Green Monster and Hodag Lifts. Super duper easy to get to in the winter if the lift is running. 

• There is a fence just behind the ski patrol office to which one could strap a mast should one choose to do so.

• 2m is usually a LOT easier, everyone must have been hungover from their New Years UTC crossover activations the day prior.

• Bring a second handheld. I couldn't tell if we were getting into the repeater when I attempted to raise some interest to work us on simplex and having a second would have helped confirm.

• If you're going to ride the lifts, a fanny pack might be a better option than a full backpack. Taking it on and off every lift ride gets pretty annoying. 

• Should go without saying, extra layers! This isn’t my first rodeo but it was my first day skiing this season with some new pants and gloves and I was under prepared for standing around in the cold.