Back at San Bernardino National Forest with Terrible Conditions
Trying to beat the high temperatures once again, I headed up to the mountains of the San Bernardino National Forest near Big Bear, CA (US-4463) for a Parks on the Air activation. Remembering the lessons from my last trip, I brought along my Kelty Waypoint car tarp for some additional shade. Despite being considerably cooler than the lower elevations, it still topped out at about 90 degrees, which made for a warm day.
As with the prior activation, I brought along my Chameleon EFHW with the custom cut linked wire, my Yaesu 710, and my Weaver Arborist throw weight and collapsible storage box. Working with the Weaver equipment is much quicker than working with a mast, and throwing the bag takes just a little practice before you get pretty good at hitting the branches you’re looking for.
Once the station was set up, I turned on the radio and heard (almost) nothing. As had been predicted, the bands were in terrible shape due to solar flares and I was only able to pull out stations in the western half of the US, and even then there were significant dead zones to the northeast that I just couldn’t beat.
As you can see on the map, I managed to barely pull off my activation, with a total of 14 stations logged, mostly from California, Washington, and Texas.
