Summit Information:
Summit Name: W1/EM-016, Schoodic Mtn
Location: Donnel Pond Public Lands, Maine
Latitude/Longitude: 44.57361, -68.1467
Date: June 14th, 2020
Summit Information:
Points: 1
County: Hancock County
Grid: FN54
Wx: 70 degrees, 16 kts SE
Difficulty
Views
Solitude
On a Scale of 1 to 5
Radio Gear:
Radio
Antenna
Arrow Antena
Power
HT
Watts
5 Watts
On The Air:
Number of QSO's
3
Spotting
Bands
DX Worked
Logs Uploaded
Mode
On my previous trip to Donnel Pond Public Lands, I had bailed on completing Schoodic Mountain due to the weather. Today I decided to return and get it activated. Today is also the ARRL VHF Contest so I decided to combine the two as it would increase my chances of making contacts and activating the summit. Like shooting fish in a barrel! Except it wasn’t.
My wife decided to come along on this hike. We arrived at the trailhead to find the parking area “parked up” as they say in these parts of Maine. The sandy beack (Schoodic Beach) is a just a short walk from the parking lot and looked like it was getting a lot of use. We took the trail from the parking lot and had a short but steep hike to the summit. We passed a lot of people on the trail, in fact the most I have seen in the past two months. People seem to be leaving their man caves and getting outside.
We made the summit and took in the amazing views. At the top is a small radio tower and shed. There was plenty of space to strech out and erect antennas. The contest started at 1800z and we were right on time.
I started out on 2m simplex and started calling.
Once I started calling I quickly snagged two VHF calls local to the summit. I kept calling and got nothing!
I even tried to see if anyone was around on the local repeaters that would move over to simplex and work me. Again, no reponse.
At this point I was starting to question whether my equipment was working correctly or not. I asked my wife to listen on my other HT that I had and she could hear me fine.
Apparently no one was interested in the VHF contest that day.
I switched over to HF and spotted myself via the inReach (Thanks Cale & Jay!).
Made one QSO from Ohio and that was it. I tried different bands (40, 30 & 6 meters) with no success.
It was during the HF calling that I started to swarmed by black flies. Time to call it a day and head home.
It wasn’t till I was home till I realized how chowdered my legs were.
