barnard mountain SOTA

Hogback, Virginia

Hogback (W4V/SH-007) is a super easy 8 point summit that is barely a 5 minute walk up. This site is a good location for ARRL VHF contests as no tourist every visit. The AT does run nearby but not over the summit.

Summit Information:

Summit Name: Hogback, (W4V/SH-007)

Location: Front Royal, Va

Latitude/Longitude: 38.762, -78.2742

Date: January 4th, 2021

Parking: Free


Points: 8 + 3 (Winter Bonus Points)

County: Warren County

Grid: FM08us

Weather: Partly cloudy, 32 degrees

Permit: Yes, $20 Entrance fee

Robertson Mountain Map

Sugarloaf Mountain

Difficulty

Views

Solitude

On a Scale of 1 to 5

 

Barnard SOTA log

On the Air:

DX Contacts

0

Spotting

Yes

Power (Watts)

5

Radio Logs

Uploaded

Bands

2, 7 & 14 meters

Radio Mode

FM & CW

 

 Arriving at the summit of Hogback you will find a large array of builings and commercial antennas. If you walk past all that there is a nice size rock that can serve as a standing station.

I made some contacts on 2 meters and did some HF as well. I noticied my keyer cable was almost broken and had to apply some tape to keep it working. It should be noted there is a lot of RFI at the site which can make it hard to hear other stations. I need to address this with a 2m filter or get a different radio. The Yaesu FT1DR does have an attenuator but doesn’t cut out all the RFI. By this point in the day it was actually decent with temps in the mid 30’s.

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