A place to put my stuff
Related to the Summits On The Air (SOTA) program
This activation followed hot on the heels of 5B/CY-046 (Pipis). It is also a relatively low mountain, but near the capital city of Nicosia. Unfortunately, this site is not as picturesque as Pipis, since the top of the mountain is a commercial radio antenna site.
This peak is worth only one point in the SOTA scheme, but it is half an hour drive from Nicosia and there is a road right to the summit. The summit and the area around it are perfect for a picnic outing as well. The dirt road up is a bit rough in places, but did not require four wheel drive. Cars with moderate clearance should do okay as long as the weather is good.
I chose this site because I thought it would be a fairly easy approach by car and, lacking any trees, would be a good chance to try out my new Buddipole. All of that turned out to be true, and I would say that this is a great site for anyone who is visiting and wants to add a painless activation to their itinerary. Just one critical piece of advice: don’t entirely believe Google Maps.
Continue reading “SOTA 5B/CY-028: Sinoas”I got to Cyprus a few weeks ago, but just got on the air yesterday from SOTA peak 5B/CY-002, Madari. We’ll be here for another three years, so I would like to see how many SOTA peaks I can reach on the island.
I’ve been thinking about these peaks since before we arrived, and here’s my very rough assessment of them based on information that I can glean from online sources. Red means “just about impossible” (like a restricted army area), yellow means “no, I’m not willing to dangle from that cliff” (or, at least not yet — there are easier peaks), green means “a doable hike, maybe in the cooler part of the day”, and blue means “looks like you could pretty much drive on”. These assumptions may prove hilariously wrong when I get a look at these sites in person. The purple marker near Nicosia is home and the darker purple marker is the site for the Region 1 field day operation in a couple weeks by the Nicosia Radio Club, 5B4NC.
Continue reading “SOTA 5B/CY-002: Madari”After activating Stony Man (W4V/SH-002), I hopped in the car and drove a bit more south on Skyline Drive to reach the Upper Hawksbill Trail parking area.
The trail up is wide and well-maintain and joins up with a gravel fire road for the last third of the ascent to the summit. At the top, there is a shelter and stone stairs lead to an observation platform that has a stunning view. The total distance in is about a kilometer and a half and elevation gain is about 100m. I had good cellular data service from parking to summit.
I saved two ten-point peaks for a drizzly weekday, hoping that would cut down on the number of visitors I’d run into, but even on an off day, Stony Man and Hawksbill, two of the highest peaks in Shenandoah National Park, were busy.
This trail in West Virginia is closer to Washington, DC than yesterday’s trails (W3/WE-001 and W3/WE-002) in Maryland. It is a pleasant, easy trail, and one where I didn’t run into anyone else at all.
On the way back to my house from Marsh Hill (W3/WE-001), I stopped at Dan’s Rock. Google Maps got me there with no problem. The site is a graffiti-covered metal staircase to steel observation platform, which overlooks a valley.
Marsh Hill is a very different kind of SOTA site than the ones I’ve been working recently in the Shenandoah Valley — it’s a ski resort. It is at the extreme western edge of my range, working from my house just north of Washington, DC, and it took about three hours to drive out there. When I got out there, I was amazed to see, in the third week of April with outside temperatures in the low 70s F (about 24 C) that there was still a little snow clinging to the slopes.
The first half of the day was W4V/SH-013, Pass Mountain, which was followed by a short drive to the south for this peak. I parked at Jewell Hollow Overlook.
