Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from 2024

SOTA: Blue Job Mountain, March 2024

Drizzle ended when the drive did and mine was the first car in the lot. I gathered my things and started up the tower trail. Oops. I turned back to grab the crappie pole. Back on track, snow and puddles and slush filled the way. Slick spots were few, but I tromped across lots of shattered ice bits deposited by tree limbs periodically letting loose cascades of tinkling cylinders. During the half-hour climb I also heard metal bars ringing as if struck by other metal bars. When I arrived atop the foggy summit, I discovered decimated ice sheets shed by the communications and fire towers, with some shards nearly an inch thick. I rejected passing through the active debris field to my usual sitting spot and set up well away from danger in the lee of a small shed. I quickly strung up a 17m dipole and switched on my Rock-Mite to launch the operation. Unfortunately, the radio failed to deliver any audio to my headphones. Puzzled and annoyed but undeterred, I replaced one dipole for another, ...