2m SOTA fun from Cowtrack Mountain
For 2026, I've spent a fair amount of time attempting 2m weak signal contacts. There is a SOTA challenge this year to make 2m CW and SSB contacts from summits, so W6LOR and I have been hitting the peaks and trying to make it work. Before this year, my experience with this was pretty limited, but I've managed to put together some gear and have had some modest success. My farthest contact so far happened this weekend, so here is a short recap! Four-element 2m Yagi Lorene and I headed to Cowtrack Mountain (W6/ND-019). This is a seldom visited peak east of Mono Lake in California, not far from the Nevada border. This is one of Lorene's favorite peaks, and the day promised to be not too hot. The approach is via a sandy double track road that gradually gets worse and worse. After a bit of driving, we pulled off before a particularly deep sandy stretch and started hiking the double track. W6LOR heading out along the sandy double track. There are some spectacular views of the Sie...