This week, let's do some hilltopping from a site reputed to have the worst weather in the world!

When I was a kid, I hilltopped a lot. When the mood struck me, I'd pull out my topographical maps to find a new hilltop to explore, then load my 2-meter radio du jour in my '72 Opel Rallye and head for the hill. As I aged, I had less time for hilltopping, but the love of nature's antenna towers was in my blood. Whenever a hilltop presented itself to me, I would check the airwaves to hear what I could hear.

Seventeen years ago, one of those hills presented itself to me while vacationing in New Hampshire. The "hill" is called Mount Washington, and it is the mother of all hilltops, at least, in these parts. At 6288 feet above sea level, Mount Washington is the highest peak in the US Northeast, and its summit is said to have the world's worst weather (a wind gust of 231 MPH was recorded there in 1934). Radio propagation from the top of the hill is interesting, to say the least.

With vacation time quickly approaching, I recently searched the Internet to find what was there regarding ham radio operations from Mount Washington. I discovered some interesting Web pages.

The Whitman Amateur Radio Club of Whitman, Massachusetts, has a page that tells the story of the club's DXpedition at the top of the mountain. A good time was had by all!

The Mount Washington Observatory Web page has a live camera to view conditions from the highest hilltop in the Northeast.

Jim, N1FFW, has a Web page that describes how hams provided communications for the annual Mount Washington Hillclimb in 1998. The Hillclimb is a timed event for both cars and trucks to see who gets from the base to the summit of the mountain in the least amount of time.

ARTSCI Publishing has an on-line database of open repeaters and their list for New Hampshire has one repeater on the Mount Washington: W1NH on 146.055/146.655 MHz.

Finally, there is the Mount Washington Observatory Web page. These are the folks who watch the weather and other environmental events on the mountain. Their Web site is not really ham radio-related unless you are planning to operate on the mountain. But, their site is very interesting and includes three "live cams"--two looking at the mountain from near and far and a third at the summit of the mountain. The view from the summit is spectacular when the mountain is not shrouded in clouds and eerie all the time!

Until next time, keep on surfin'.

Editor's note: Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, of downtown Wolcott, Connecticut, is an ARRL Life Member and an incessant contributor to QST and QEX (587 pieces in 25 years), not to mention the author of five ARRL books, contributor to a bevy of other ARRL titles, and the new editor of Packet Status Register, the quarterly newsletter of Tucson Amateur Packet Radio (TAPR). First licensed in 1969 as WN1LOU, he upgraded to WA1LOU in 1971. Stan began using computers with Amateur Radio in 1978 when he bought a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I computer and wrote BASIC programs to dupe contests and calculate antenna bearings. A virtual beach boy, Stan has been surfing the radio dials as long as he can remember. Instead of surfing all over Manhattan and down Doheny way, however, he now surfs the Internet searching for that perfect page. To contact Stan, send e-mail to wa1lou@arrl.net.

Previous: ARRL to Offer HF Digital Communications Course

Next: Inside Your League: The Technical Relations Office