Sulphur Mountain

I was looking around for an easy, somewhat local peak to activate and came across Sulphur Mountain. Thank you Tom and Carol for a very helpful write up. Getting there was a rather easy hour-long drive from home. I plugged in "8183 Sulphur Mountain Rd, Ojai, CA" and let GPS direct me. After arriving in Santa Paula I drove north on Highway 150 past Thomas Aquinas College and about three miles later turned left onto Sulphur Mountain Road. This is a paved but narrow and twisty road serving ranch-style homes before it finally dead ends.

As this is an area filled with private property and, I'm assuming, people who enjoy living in a somewhat secluded area. I carefully parked my car at the side of the road taking care to ensure it couldn't be in the way of anyone. There are actually two adjacent gates. The one on the left is the one that takes you to the peak. It was at this point, as I started my rather short hike, I should have donned my mosquito net. More on that in a bit.

The hike itself took about five minutes or so. The trail is actually a somewhat disintegrating driveway. It also splits halfway but keeping left will get you where you're going.

Near the top is a telco site with some big microwave dishes.

Knowing how commercial transmitters can interfere with ham radio operations I made sure to put a few hundred yards between me and the antennas. Thankfully there's a nice area near the remnants of an old house well suited for activating.

Here I set up shop and got my 20-foot telescopic pole up with a random wire. As I got an early start from home I was on the air pretty much dead on 9am, just as I had set the sotl.as alert for the day before. It was at this point something became very clear to me. For whatever reason this place is densely populated by suicidal gnats. One successfully ended its existence by flying into the back of my throat. However, sometime last year I managed to buy a cheap mosquito head net for exactly this type of situation. I had left it in my backpack in the original packaging and almost forgot about it. After quickly putting it on I could finally concentrate on activating and not fight a battle with insects with nothing to lose.

I started on 40m and got two pretty quickly, Derrick (K6SPX) and Ted (W6TED) who I almost ran into at an earlier activation. Then I started struggling getting more. I dialed around and got Bud (N7CW) doing an activation in Arizona. Then nothing. I switched to 30m and still nothing. Finally I moved to 20m, my favorite band, and got just one more contact, Gary (W5ODS) in Oklahoma. For whatever reason that was it for HF.

I needed to start going back home soon but quickly got my Quansheng K1 and Yagi antenna out. Here's what I likely did wrong: I thought I didn't need the 2m filter that had enabled me to activate Occidental Peak earlier. I called and called and heard nothing. Only later did I learn that multiple people did indeed reply. Maybe the nearby microwave antennas desensed my HT or something else. Regardless, the big lesson is to use filters if you have them, so the N6ARA Tinyfilter will be on my HT permanently from now on.

I packed up my gear, quickly got to my car, and headed home. Four contacts is enough for an activation but it's a lot more fun when you have a bunch. It's also more fun when you don't have gnats trying to fly away with you but I am very grateful to have been prepared for that.

Now back to researching what to activate next!