After a successful SOTA and POTA activation at Hanging Rock State Park on Tuesday, July 13, 2021, I drove to nearby Pilot Mountain State Park. It was quite warm, but a beautiful day with no afternoon thunderstorms in sight.

I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to play a little more radio. As the French say, “Il faut en profiter!”

Although I’ve seen Pilot Mountain numerous times in my travels, I had never actually visited the park so this was a new-to-me park activation.

Pilot mountain is a landmark in the Yadkin river valley and has a fascinating back story.

Per Pilot Mountain State Park’s website:

“Pilot Mountain is a remnant of the ancient Sauratown Mountains. A quartzite monadnock, this rugged mountain rock has survived for millions of years while the elements have eroded surrounding peaks to a rolling plain.

Pilot Mountain is capped by two prominent pinnacles. Big Pinnacle, with walls of bare rock and a rounded top covered by vegetation, rises 1,400 feet above the valley floor, the knob jutting skyward more than 200 feet from its base. Big Pinnacle is connected to Little Pinnacle by a narrow saddle.

The mountain was mapped in 1751 by Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson, father of President Thomas Jefferson. Pilot Mountain became North Carolina’s 14th state park in 1968. The Pilot Mountain Preservation and Park Committee proposed the establishment of Pilot Mountain as a state park in order to protect it and the surrounding area from commercial development. The group secured options on the land and raised matching funds that made it possible to purchase with
federal grants.”

Pilot Mountain is a SOTA summit, but it has never been activated because it would require an experienced rock climber (assuming access is even allowed). The base of Big Pinnacle is 61 meters above the summit trail system, so well outside the 25 meter activation zone.

Pilot Mountain State Park (K-2750)

I only had my sights set on making a park activation out of Pilot Mountain and, frankly, I didn’t even have time to explore the trail system that Tuesday.

Finding a spot to set up was quite easy. I entered the park and took a right at the roundabout which lead to the parking area at the top portion of the mountain.

From there, I found a small picnic area perhaps 50 meters from the parking lot. I carried my gear there and set up shop!

Since I was doing this activation mid-afternoon, I had the picnic area to myself, save one unfortunate woman who was trying to (conspicuously, if I’m being honest) fit in a bit of meditation time. She picked out a picnic table near one of the main trails basically in the center of the picnic site , so I assumed she was pretty good at blocking out noises you’d normally hear at a busy park.

But the question remained: could she block out the sweet sound of CW emanating from my FT-817?

There was only one way to find out!

In truth, I try to lay low at parks and not disturb other people. In this case, I picked a table on the perimeter of the picnic area but it was still only a couple tables away from her. Since I was making one of my real-time, real-life field activation videos, I would be using the speaker–instead of headphones–with the FT-817.

In other words, there was no escaping a little CW music!

I shared my picnic table with this little Praying Mantis

I think he’s upset that my throw line is all over *his* ground.

Gear:

Yaesu FT-817ND
Elecraft T1 ATU
28.5 foot speaker wire antenna using one BNC Binding Post Adapter (affiliate link)
CW Morse “Pocket Paddle”
GoRuck GR1 USA
Bioenno 3 aH LiFePo Battery (Model BLF-1203AB)
Weaver arborist throw line/weight and storage bag (affiliate links)
Rite In The Rain Weatherproof Cover/Pouch (affiliate link)
Jovitec 2.0 mm Mechanical Pencil (affiliate link)
Muji A6 Notepad (affiliate link)
HEROCLIP Carabiner Clip (attached to my backpack–affiliate link)
Portable Zero FT-817 Side Rails and Bail

This was also the first time I’d used my new orange single-level CW Morse paddle very kindly gifted to me by contributor/subscriber, Nathan (N8HWV).

Although it might look like a dual lever paddle, it’s actually a single lever!

Thank you so much, Nathan!

On The Air

I started on 20 meters CW and, fortunately, it was hopping!

I worked 18 stations in 19 minutes. Whew!

Many thanks to N2EIM and NA9M for the P2P (Park To Park) contacts!

I then moved to 40 meters where I worked K8DRT for a second time (first was on 20M) and my “it wasn’t a real activation unless I worked him” buddy, K8RAT.

40 meters wasn’t in as good of shape as 20 meters was.