ACØPR, ham radio blog: Harmony High Point W7U/IR-019 and Using Te-Ne-Ke CW Key

Setup at the summit

This is my fourth trip up to this summit. It's beautiful, has nice views, and the access is long but easy--I'm surprised no one else has activated it yet. It's snowed in if you try to go too early in spring. I also did some visual recon for a couple of other summits that can be seen from the top. The weather was great, beautiful day.

Trail report:

Partial tower on the summit

Access is gained through the town of New Harmony, go all the way through main street and to Harmony Dr. [Old State Hwy 144] until it enters Dixie National Forest and becomes FR-029 which is on the west side of town. Trying to gain, what appears to be, more direct access heading north through the center of town will result in many "no trespassing" signs and a locked gate at the entrance of the mountain road.

Once in the National Forest, there is a small dirt access road which will lead to the mountain road and is not obvious or present on a number of maps (it is on the sotamap page), but you can see it off to the right (east). From this point I pulled over and used an ATV. (The entire route will be posted on the mapping page for clarification). This road leads to the mountain road that goes to the High Point.

Looking towards an unactived summit

There would be a number of challenging areas for a 4x4, but doable for an experienced mountain driver. Naturally, time of year needs to be taken into account (still had snow across the road in two small spots in May). It actually gets nicer higher up at times. No problem for the ATV. There is currently an older partial tower on the summit. The final approach is clear of trees and is not a bad climb, although the road does go all the way up. No benchmark that I could find.

The experience:
I enjoy this summit each year. I'm surprised I don't see more deer, although I did still see eight this time. I'm sure it's a popular hunting area, but I don't go in the fall. Setup is easy with the rocks on top. Not much activity on 20 meters which was odd. I didn't stay on much longer than a half an hour, I would have stayed longer if there had been more activity. As I do once in a while, I tried 30 meters since 20 was slow. I only got one contact and after a while of nothing moved on.

Using the Te-Ne-Ke

After I got to the bottom I went to the base of the one of the other summits nearby that haven't been done. The trail was blocked off though. From what I could see, there is a section that can't be avoided that is quite steep. I tend to avoid those that can be sketchy since I go alone. We'll see if it happens in the future.

Date:30/05/2020 | Summit:W7U/IR-019 (Harmony Mountains HP) | Call Used:AC0PR | Points: 6 | Bonus: 0

Time	Callsign	Band	Mode
14:57	NE4TN	14MHz	CW
14:58	K2JB	14MHz	CW
14:59	W0MNA	14MHz	CW
14:59	W0ERI	14MHz	CW
15:00	K0LAF	14MHz	CW
15:01	AC1Z	14MHz	CW
15:11	NQ7R	7MHz	CW
15:11	K7TP	7MHz	CW
15:12	WW7D	7MHz	CW
15:13	WB5USB	7MHz	CW
15:20	WW7D	10MHz	CW
15:27	NS7P	7MHz	CW
15:28	K6QCB	7MHz	CW
15:30	WB5USB	7MHz	CW
15:31	W7RV	7MHz	CW
15:32	W6STR	7MHz	CW
15:33	K7VK	7MHz	CW
15:33	WD6TED	7MHz	CW
15:34	KR7RK	7MHz	CW