https://video.benmook.com/videos/watch/fb532739-0683-43e6-9c56-621f57ae58c8 http://blog.benmook.com/w6-cd-016-ryan-mountain/ I was in the area to attend the Experimental Music Festival in Wonder Valley and thought a SOTA activation would be a nice addition to my weekend plans. Ryan Mountain is inside Joshua Tree National Park, and not too far from the north entrance, which, wasn’t too far from the music venue. The hike is about 3 miles round trip, and a bit over 1,000′ in elevation gain, however the scorching February sun made it feel a bit longer. At the top I found a place away from others and setup my vertical antenna with an MTR4B. After a few questions on why I have a fishing pole in the desert, I started operating on 40M CW but didn’t get any QSOs., and only two on 30M. When I moved to 20M, I ended up with a small pileup with one DX call from Japan. https://sotl.as/summits/W6/CD-016 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 22:10:09 GMT https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html PeerTube - https://video.benmook.com https://video.benmook.com/lazy-static/avatars/298a662a-dfdd-4a9f-b98f-8ffd38337b70.png https://video.benmook.com/videos/watch/fb532739-0683-43e6-9c56-621f57ae58c8 All rights reserved, unless otherwise specified in the terms specified at https://video.benmook.com/about and potential licenses granted by each content's rightholder.