SAN JACINTO HIKE A GREAT SUCCESS

Article by W6VR

Thanks to those who participated in our August 2, 1998 hike to San Jacinto

Peak. With lots of running water in the streams, shade trees and

spectacular views, and a tram ride from Palm Springs to "base camp" at the

8,500-foot mark, this is always one of the neatest hikes of the year. The

participants were (in alphabetical order):

Bob - W6VR

John - KT6E

Laura - (Guest of Nirmal's)

Nirmal - KF6RAC

Stan - W9FQN

Ted - KF6BFI

Special thanks to those who supported our hike from other locations. They

were: Mike (AB6QT) atop Palomar Mountain, and Ed (KF6DXX) and Glenn (KE6ZLY)

who at the last minute trekked to Monument Peak in the Laguna Mountains and

allowed us to set a new mirror-flash DX record for our group.

The Mirror Flash Record

It's in the bag. Two-way mirror flashes have been exchanged between San

Jacinto Peak and Monument Peak for our private DX record of 65 miles.

Visibility conditions were good-to-excellent and the flashes could be seen

without the need for field glasses.

Exchanging mirror flashes is always fun and was particularly impressive

for those members of the general public who had hiked up and joined us on

San Jacinto Peak. W9FQN took the time to explain how the "sighting mirrors"

worked and also put in a plug for ham radio where we coordinated the

flashing activities between mountaintops on 147.555 MHz simplex. Imagine

being out in the middle of a wilderness area and directing everyone's

attention to a distant range of mountains where suddenly and somewhat

mysteriously a burst of light appears. There were lots of "oohs! and

"ahhas!" from the public. The crew on Monument Peak did a great job of

steadying their mirror so everyone got a good blast of shimmering orange light.

KT6E climbed over 4000 vertical feet to join us on San Jacinto Peak by

hiking from the west side of the mountain. While waiting for everyone else

to arrive, he stationed himself at the old stone cabin just under the Peak,

managed to find Monument Peak and bag his own light wave QSO. What was

interesting is that John had no real idea where Monument was located - but

still managed to find their point of light thanks to a "talk-in" by ham radio.

Another impressive event took place when AB6QT, who is a supervisor at the

Palomar Observatory, took the time to position himself on the very top of

the dome protecting the famous 200 inch Hale telescope. From there, he

exchanged mirror flashes with both San Jacinto Peak (33 miles away) and

Monument Peak (41 miles from his location). Members of the general public

were surprised and impressed to learn that his light beam was coming from

the very top of the observatory dome.

Most of the mirror flashing we do involves small mirrors - the largest

being 3 x 5 inches in size. Just to make sure that his signal got through

this time, W9FQN lugged a couple of one foot by one foot mirrors to San

Jacinto Peak and cut them loose. The Monument crew had no trouble receiving

that signal and gave Stan's "linear reflector" a Q5/S9 report.

Six Meter Activity

KF6RAC brought along a low powered 6-meter SSB rig and managed to snag a

contact with a ham at March Air Force Base. Other stations in San Diego

County were heard but two-way contact was not established. QRP activity on

6-meters definitely has its limitations when the band is closed.

FRS Activity

W6VR brought along his 0.3 watt HT operating in the Family Radio Service

(FRS) band where 14 specific channels are set aside for low-power

license-free operation in the 462 - 467 MHz range. His first chance contact

was to a fellow ham who happened to be camping on Thomas Mountain 12 miles

away, and who had also decided to listen to FRS Channel 1 throughout the

weekend. He was John Lee, N6YEG, not to be confused with John Lee, KT6E,

who was one of our hikers! Bob QSOed with another ham in Sun City 30 miles

away, and lots of ordinary Channel 1 users who were surprised to hear

someone at a distance. At times, FRS Channel 1 sounded like a DX pileup

with so many people wanting to talk to San Jacinto Peak. The best DX

contact was to Fallbrook 44 miles away.

Lorraine

Lorraine Aubert, AC6XK, will soon be leaving San Jacinto Mountain for

employment elsewhere and we'll miss the red carpet treatment that she has

always extended to our hiking group. She was our guest for dinner after the

hike and showed us the tram's two-meter repeater neatly hidden in a room

next to the restaurant.

We also discussed Ms. Sun Hua Kim, age 52, who a few days earlier had

scaled the fence of the Grubbs View observation deck just outside the

restaurant, then slid 580 feet down the mountain in a series of slips and

falls. Why did the woman scale the fence? Lorraine said that the lady

stated that she wanted to be closer to nature. Obviously, that was

accomplished. Ms. Kim miraculously had no broken bones, was hospitalized in

serious condition but was expected to recover.

It turns out that the San Jacinto Park Rangers had conducted a detailed

debriefing of the rescue of Ms. Kim the day of our visit, so Lorraine had

all the critical information on hand. One new piece of news was that Ms.

Kim did not speak English. Another piece of news was that during the rescue

effort, a good sized rock tumbled down the mountain, became airborne and

nearly missed the head of one of the rescue workers.

In other news, the tram will be closed for an extended period of time next

summer as the support towers are beefed up, the cables are changed and new

tram cars are installed. The new cars will be circular instead of oval, and

each car will rotate once - a full 360 degree twist - during the ride. This

should be interesting to say the least.

By the way, the tram is now closed for annual maintenance and will reopen

on Saturday, August 15.

See the Vistas on the Web

We always seem to meet remarkable people on the San Jacinto trails. This

trip we hiked for a short distance with an east coast ham named Harris who

teaches digital photography. He was working as a park volunteer that

particular day and was setting out to take panoramic photographs from

Wellmans Divide and San Jacinto Peak to support the park's web site.

Those interested in downloading his photos can do so by writing to him for

instructions: hfogel@aol.com. If you are running a PC, you will need to

download Quicktime 3.0 for Windows from the Apple website (www.apple.com).

When the camera swung around at Wellmans, all of the hikers were asked to

move out of the frame or hide behind rocks. But one of our members peered

at the camera through tree branches and was probably caught on digital film.

We'll see if his mug is immortalized on the park's web site!