Snow on Mount Wilson Today

[Yabadabado1]

My most important FM in Quito was at a site about 5,000 feet above the city below and had many, many fold-backs...
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The road was carved out of the mountainside and had some gravel mixed with volcanic soil.
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To do maintenance, I had to drive up in the evening with plenty of food and water and warm clothing (it got well below freezing, even at just a few kilometers south of the Equator) and then wait for midnight to work on the transmitter and link.

There were few places for two cars to pass each other, so backing up or backing down could be a problem as the site was shared with the TV station from missionary broadcaster HCJB.

Occasionally, an idiot with his girlfriend would start the drive up "the hill" and discover how frightening it could be. Sometimes the froze, and required assistance to get to a place they could turn around.

Asking "what part of private road don't you understand?" did not seem to generate any remorse. Some brains don't work as well at about 15,000 feet above sea level.

Foldbacks....never heard them called that before. In the southern states tat have mountains, they're called switchbacks. And after having to take one once, I swore that I would drive 200 miles out of my way to get to where I was going rather than drive one of them again.

 

[TomásEstefan]

Foldbacks....never heard them called that before. In the southern states tat have mountains, they're called switchbacks. And after having to take one once, I swore that I would drive 200 miles out of my way to get to where I was going rather than drive one of them again.

Makes total sense, safety is just about everything...my dad used to say, "If I have to I'll drive around the block to avoid making a left turn."

 

[radiocph]

I have not been up for about a decade.

I was up there in 2001. My ham radio club chartered a bus, and we went to visit the observatory. (Still to this day, I wondered how the driver got that 45' vehicle up that mountain!)
Anyway, some of us brought HTs along, but I don't recall if we were able to bring up any repeaters. I do remember that this was apparently one of the few places where the National Weather Service stations didn't come in....

 

[Lou_S]

I was up there in 2001. My ham radio club chartered a bus, and we went to visit the observatory. (Still to this day, I wondered how the driver got that 45' vehicle up that mountain!)
Anyway, some of us brought HTs along, but I don't recall if we were able to bring up any repeaters. I do remember that this was apparently one of the few places where the National Weather Service stations didn't come in....

Assuming you mean Mt. Wilson, your HTs were de-sensitized by all of the RF up there. NWS has a transmitter on the mountain, or at least they did when I worked for KFAC (it was on the second floor of the Post Office building next to our transmitter). You were probably getting into the repeaters you were trying to reach just fine but your HTs couldn't hear their return signals over the noise floor.

 

[davideduardo]

Foldbacks....never heard them called that before. In the southern states tat have mountains, they're called switchbacks.

Many of the English language terms I learned in Ecuador seem to be British, so perhaps that is where "foldbacks" comes from.

 

[Yabadabado1]

Many of the English language terms I learned in Ecuador seem to be British, so perhaps that is where "foldbacks" comes from.

My British ancestors would be slapping me upside the head for not knowing that.