ACØPR, ham radio blog: Sand Mountain W7U/SU-061, a few DX and some Pixie fun!

The "actual" summit

Sand Mountain is probably the summit that's the "most fun" to get to since it's basically an ATV haven with red-sand trails going everywhere. For some reason though, the high point is marked incorrectly in SOTAmaps (in fact not even close). There's another area that people think is the high point since it's marked with a huge pile of rocks and a big sign that reads "Top of the World," but both topo maps and the benchmark confirm that's not the high point either.

Trail report:

This mountain is not far from town (St. George) and really close to Sand Hallow State Park (just to the south of it). It’s just off of Southern Parkway, in fact when you pull off of it, you’re already on the mountain and ready to head on up. The whole mountain is an ATV playland with sand dunes, trails all over, etc. That’s its main use! There’s a main trail that goes straight up to the upper end of the mountain, from there all it takes is a little maneuvering to reach the high point (which is currently marked incorrectly on the sotamaps site). There are people on the mountain everyday, and not a lot of options for mast setup, but at the "benchmark" summit there are a few bushes. There is also an actual benchmark at the summit. Which may not be the true summit either, I've seen a higher point via topo map, so I'm not really sure what's going on with this mountain.

The experience:

This is always a good time, although I am always cautious on the sand dunes, there are a lot of accidents that happen on ATV's out there. It is the coolest looking non-green mountain ever though. I wanted to do something different. Once in a while I'll take out my 40 meter Pixie to have some fun. For those who don't know, a Pixie is a tiny radio that comes in a kit, you solder it together and you have an HF radio, one set frequency (I think mine is 7.023, which is unfortunately in the Extra portion, which is bad because you want Generals to be able to call you too), and this one puts out about 1 watt. It's like 2"x 20". It is CW only and has very poor audio, but hey, this "expensive" one (because of the case), cost $10. It's really a toy.

I started on 20 meters though and there was plenty of activity and my 4 watts were getting into Europe as well, José EA7GV in Spain and Peter HB9BHW in Switzerland. Super fun! Then I set up the Pixie. My goal was four contacts--the same needed to activate the summit. I mean, I only stayed on it for like ten minutes and got three contacts. I could have kept trying, but didn't want to frustrate my 40 meter chasers and went back to the YouKits HB-1B to get 8 more contacts on 40. I also realized that my last contact, WA7JTM was a summit-to-summit contact. I had a blast and it was a good day on this simple 1-pointer.

Date:17/04/2020 | Summit:W7U/SU-061 (Sand Mountain) | Call Used:AC0PR | Points: 1 | Bonus: 0

Time	Callsign	Band	Mode	Notes
16:28	W6IYS	14MHz	CW
16:28	WB7BWZ	14MHz	CW
16:29	K3TCU	14MHz	CW
16:30	WU7H	14MHz	CW
16:30	W5ODS	14MHz	CW
16:31	EA7GV	14MHz	CW
16:32	W4KRN	14MHz	CW
16:33	W2AFE	14MHz	CW
16:33	W0MNA	14MHz	CW
16:34	W5BOS	14MHz	CW
16:34	W0ERI	14MHz	CW
16:35	K7GT	14MHz	CW
16:35	WB2FUV	14MHz	CW
16:37	N4EX	14MHz	CW
16:39	N6TVN	14MHz	CW
16:39	K0WRY	14MHz	CW
16:40	HB9BHW	14MHz	CW
16:43	KA2KGP	14MHz	CW
16:44	W9MRH	14MHz	CW
16:53	NW7E	7MHz	CW	PIXIE 1 W
16:55	W6TDX	7MHz	CW	PIXIE 1 W
16:56	W7RV	7MHz	CW	PIXIE 1 W
17:03	KT5X	7MHz	CW
17:04	K7JFD	7MHz	CW
17:04	NS7P	7MHz	CW
17:05	W0NF	7MHz	CW
17:06	WW7D	7MHz	CW
17:07	K7MK	7MHz	CW
17:10	AA7DK	7MHz	CW
17:11	WA7JTM	7MHz	CW