K6ARK, Adam Kimmerly, is a legend, known for bringing some pretty awesome stations to a mountain top. For the Trans-Atlantic summit-to-summit party held on 1-November, 2025, Adam worked hard to maximize his chances of scoring some nice summit-to-summit contacts and let his friends operate the station to spread the fun.
The Trans-Atlantic summit-to-summit party is held twice a year. It’s especially rewarding to work stations on a summit in Europe when sitting on US summit across the pond. Some of us bring heavier radios with more power, but Adam always takes it to the next level by bringing antennas that are a little more efficient and have more gain. Working stations that are QRP in Europe running 5-10 watts is always a kick. He started his day early, departing San Diego, California around 3:15 am local time to drive 2 hrs 15 min to the Josephine Peak (W6/CT-025) trailhead just North of Los Angeles. With over an hour until sunrise, he started hiking by headlamp, his pack heavy with an Elecraft K3, 12 Ah battery, 25 ft mast, and homebrew 10 m and 15 m Moxons.
K6ARK
The hike follows a dirt road up about 4 miles (6.5 km) with 1968 feet (600 m) of elevation gain. The road ends at a small summit that drops away steeply in all directions. Ara (N6ARA), Mark (KD7DTS), Di (KO6BTM), and Devin (W6DVN) were about 40 minutes behind him which meant he would have time to set up his station and operate a bit before they arrived. (You can read about the KD7DTS Mountain Goat activation HERE.)
This summit would be Mark’s (KD7DTS) Mtn Goat summit, so not only did Adam want a big station to have a decent shot at EU S2S, he also wanted Mark to have a chance to run it and have some fun.
KD7DTS turning into a Goat
Adam arrived at the summit just before 7 am local time and quickly began setting up the station. With no cell reception, he could not check for spots, and had to either tune around to find stations, or begin calling CQ and let RBN do it’s magic with his alert.
Shortly after Adam began calling on 15 m, F4WBN (Christian/ France) returned with a booming S9+ signal. A few minutes and a couple of contacts later, OK2PDT (Czech Republic) picked him up, also with a strong signal. Then after another US chaser, he could hear an S2S station starting with EA calling. Eventually, Adam pulled EA3GNU (Spain) out of the QSB and managed his first EU S2S of the day.
Interestingly, a shortwave listener in Netherlands heard Adam’s QSO and sent him a SWL report via email with a recording of the QSO from his perspective. Very cool!
DL2DXA (Germany) picked Adam up next, then a string of US chasers.
Adam took a break and let the others operate the rig a bit before getting back on and running 10 m for a bit.
Adam got S57S in the log and a number of US chasers before F4LEK (France) returned his Summit-to-Summit call.
K6ARK Elecraft K3 with custom 10m and 15m moxon antennas.
Tuning around 10 m SSB, Adam heard CN50MV calling from Morocco and worked him.
Running on 10 m CW, Adam logged GW0PLP (Wales), but he wasn’t sure if it was S2S or not. EA2BD and EA2GM (Spain) were his final EU QSOs before the group packed up and headed down the hill. EA2GM and EA2BD on a mountain top in Spain captured their QSO with Adam on video and published it to YouTube HERE (at about the 3 minute mark). Speaking of weather, the Spanish team of Javier and Ignacio were in a tent, with rain at times giving them “legend” status.
Adam operated for a total of about 75 minutes and managed 4 (maybe 5? if GW0PLP was S2S) EU S2S contacts and a rad SWL report from a gentleman in the Netherlands. He had 9 total EU QSOs and Morocco. Adam wishes he could have spent more time operating, and he thinks that if he could have accessed sotawatch spots, he may have been able to work more.
EA2GM & EATBD staying dry on a summit near Pamplona Spain.
RBN data from the day shows the station was working well:
Adam thinks that with a 100 watt station and decent antenna, he was sure there were others out there calling him and trying to get through the louder stations. If you were calling Adam and were unable to bust through, he was sorry he was unable to work you.
Adam said that his biggest challenge was hearing weak EU stations well enough to copy, and the limited EU ops due to weather on that day. (Also, most stations on mountain tops were most likely not running 100w with tuned antennas.)
K6ARK's visual propagation.
Adam’s favorite part of this experience was how patient the EU operators were, as well as strategic, and persistent in sending repeats of call signs in a consistent pattern and timing to make weak signals easier to copy. He said that the ops on the other end of the difficult QSOs were top notch, and the other waiting chasers were patient while he and others worked through it all.
Looking at Adam’s logs, he logged 37 contacts, 8 from the EU, and participated in another fun SoCal Mountain Goat activation. (You can see all his contacts HERE).
If he’s able, Adam says he wants to go bigger, badder, for better shenanigans.
Di KO6BTM, Devin W6DVN, Ara N6ARA, Adam K6ARK
Adam has a YouTube channel called “K6ARK Portable Radio” detailing some of his awesome antenna builds and adventures to mountain top for “shenanigans” as Adam would say. You can visit his channel HERE. I’ve used his antenna kits to build end-fed half-wave and random wire antennas for years. In fact, the random wire on the KX3 helped me net 4 S2S into europe during this challenge. You can get your kit at K6ARK.com.
(The bulk of this post was adapted from a post that Adam made to the SOTA reflector). Thanks to Javier and Ignacio for the use of their photo.
K6ARK.com