First Video of N0B on Humboldt Pk

Steve/wG0AT just published the VHF video of the N0B efforts on 14,064' Humboldt Peak for the Colo 14er event. Thanks to all for fun QSOs and sending Steve your photos! Hope you enjoy the show! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qJxok9YJKI

Extreme QRP on 14,100 Humboldt Peak!

What a great QRP adventure! And wG0AT and N7UN made it to the top of 14,100' Humboldt Peak, spent four hours operating as N0B on HF (CW and SSB) and 2m VHF for the Colorado 14ers special event ( http://www.14er.org/ ) in spite of the winds gusting to 40+ mph. Although we never made contact with Brian/N6IZ who was simultaneously climbing 14, 161' Mt. Shasta in northern California nor Mark/AF6AZ on 14,026' Mt. Langley in southern California, N0B had over 60 QSOs from the summit. Our best DX was Kurt/HB9AFI who gave us a solid 55n on 20m CW.

Our adventure began on Friday with a "challenging" 4WD drive into the Sangre de Christo Mountains trailhead for Humboldt, a basecamp move up to 11,700' on Saturday which included a "conditioning" climb to 13,000' for acclimatization. Early Sunday (5:00 am) we started our summit assault with Steve's loyal "sherpas" (pack goats), Rooster and Peanut, carrying our water, batteries, and radio gear. Recent rock slides above 13,000' made our last 1,000' very challenging as we were in places climbing "hand over hand" up refrigerator-sized granite bolders and helping our pack goats choose the safest routes. Fortunately we had a partially-built rock shelter at the top to shield us from the worst of the mountain-top winds and provide a launch-point for our QRP signals with QSOs throughout the US on 20m CW and SSB while Steve manned the VHF 2m station.

After nearly 5 hours at the summit, hypoxia and altitude sickness coerced us to retreat to more oxygen-rich elevations. What a trip and adventure! And before long, we were thinking about next year's 14er event: What QRP adventure are we going on next? Stayed tuned for more information and links to pictures and videos!

Steve had a "goat-cam" on Peanut to record the climb above 13,000' . See Peanut's view of the adventure! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1jDG0tBm90

ARRL Featured Article for 2008 Event

Click here for our 2008 Colo-14er event story published by the ARRL. A similar article was published by the QRP-ARCI organization for their Spring 2009 magazine.

News Release #2

In one week, the Old Goats DXpedition team (including Rooster and Peanut!) is off to participate in the Colo 14er "special event" hamradio (see http://www.14er.org/ ) activation of Humboldt Peak (14,064') this August 9th using our 2008 callsign of N0B. After setting a "first" for a QRP HF out-of-state, 14er-to-14er qso in 2008 (Mt. Whitney, CA to Uncompaghre, CO), this time we hope to make a 3-way, summit QSOs between Mt. Shasta, Mt. Langley (both in CA) and Humboldt Peak in CO. The Colorado team of Steve/wG0AT and Guy/N7UN will hike into a 11,000’ base camp on Friday and setup QRP antennas for Friday and Saturday radio fun.

Then at 4 am MDT on Sunday we will start the summit climb of Humboldt with a goal of an 8 am MDT summit activation using the special event callsign N0B. At the same time, Brian/N6IZ will climb Mt. Shasta (14,162') and Mark/AF6AX will be climbing Mt Langley (14,062'). Guy/N7UN will be carrying a portable APRS unit (see http://aprs.fi and use N7UN-9 for the SSID) for near realtime route tracking. Anybody that might be interested in participating even if its basecamp activities in support of the climbing teams, please contact Guy/N7UN. Look forward to working you from the summit!

News Release:

The Old Goats DXpedition team (including Rooster and Peanut!) is planning another Colo 14er "special event" activation of Humboldt Peak (14,064') this August 9th using our 2008 callsign of N0B. After setting a "first" for a QRP HF out-of-state, 14er-to-14er qso in 2008 (Mt. Whitney, CA to Uncompaghre, CO), this time we hope to make a 3-way, summit QSOs between Mt. Shasta, Mt. Langley (both in CA) and Humboldt Peak in CO. The Colorado team will hike into the 11,000’ base camp on Friday and setup QRP antennas for Friday and Saturday radio fun. Then at 4 am, Sunday, we will start the summit climb of Humboldt with a goal of an 8 am summit activation using special event callsign N0B. At the same time, Brian/N6IZ and Mark/AF6AX will be climbing Mt. Shasta and Mt Langley. Anybody that might be interested in participating even if its basecamp activities in support of the climbing teams, please contact Guy/N7UN.

N0B & N6IZ have First HF(QRP) 14er-to-14er QSO (state-to-state)

Video #2 "Gaining Altitude" is an account of N0B's journey into thin air with Rooster and Peanut is now online!

You can view the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug2sQj908go&eurl=http://n0b-14er.blogspot.com/

On August 10 2008 N0B (operators Guy/N7UN and Steve/N0TU) along with their faithful Sherpa/goats (Rooster and Peanut) set out to climb Uncompahgre Peak, CO (14,309') from the Nellie Creek Trailhead (11,400'). Meanwhile in CA, Brian/N6IZ was climbing Mt Whitney (14,498' highest peak in lower 48) had 8 miles and 6200' between him and the summit, almost double the effort of N0B! The Ham 14er Event (http://www.14er.org/) provided a perfect venue for our Old Goats QRPexpedition adventure. The video tells the rest of the story.

BTW this adventure was so inspiring Guy and Steve are already making plans for next years Ham 14er Event! Meanwhile Rooster and Peanut suggest we stick to lower elevations for our QRP/goat hikes.

So here's the N0B list of productions by Steve/N0TU:
Video # 1 "Getting Attitude"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCYROUAefsU
Video # 2 "Gaining Altitude"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug2sQj908go
Video # 3 "Altitude with Attitude"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV_0eaTX_R0

Related links:
http://n0tu.blogspot.com/
http://n7un.blogspot.com/
http://www.14er.org/

We Made It!!

Wow!! What a trip! We made it to the top of 14,309’ Uncompaghre, spent several hours on HF and VHF making numerous contacts before our descent. In spite of early clouds and 30 mph winds, we braved the harsh mountain top conditions until the sun broke through and warmed our bodies and spirits. The next 2 hours was “fun on HF CW and SSB” as we made contacts around the country. Our most notable contact was with Brian, N6IZ, on 14,497’ Mt. Whitney in California! We had coordinated our mountaintop schedule to align with Brian's in an attempt to be the FIRST to have a Colorado 14er contact with an out-of-Colorado 14er. Brian had a KX1 at 3w and a vertical and we had a K2 at 5w to an inverted Vee dipole on a Jackite 28’ mast. And Steve’s “mountain” pack goats were our invaluable sherpas! More information, writeups, and videos will follow as we craft our stories! Steve/N0TU has posted a few pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/n0tu.qrp/14er/photo#5234032384522587906 .