Congratulations, Tom, on becoming Mountain Goat #49 in the W6 Association when you activated Waterman Mountain (W6/CT--012) on 03Jul2026.

Tom is a lifelong Ham, licensed as a Novice at age 10 as part of his parents' (failed) plan to use amateur radio on the family farm. As a tween/teen Tom could be found operating his station from the "shack" in the corner of his parent's basement and he says he grew up on 10-meters SSB and lived every day looking forward to or recovering from ARRL Field Day. 

Fast forward 26 years and Tom stumbled on SOTA in October 2016 when he inadvertently chased K6TW who was on Ontario Peak (W6/CT-048.)  A month later (with way too much gear) Tom activated San Gabriel Peak (W6/CT-019)  and was hooked. Tom says SOTA is a perfect combo of Type 1 and Type 2 fun with hardly any Type 3 (Fun Scale) and it's like Field Day ... every day! Tom averages about 20 activations a year between work, life, and family and loves getting to meet the SoCal SOTA crew at campouts or on trail (especially when unplanned.) 

What was your favorite activation? "Many favorites, but the first among them would have to be Occidental Peak in October 2017. Up until then I'd been activating with my KX-2 or HTs using phone modes. I had spent my lunch breaks for 6 months trying to revive the CW I'd learned as a kid for my Novice test and was ready to go on the air. My first CW QSOs ever were completed while seated in the bushes on W6/CT-098. The callsigns were familiar chasers of those days and in a flash I had 6 QSOs in the log. What a rush!" 

So... 10 years later with 188 activations in the log and plenty of good trail stories to tell Tom looks forward to many more activations ... and stories. 

73

Tom - KB9ENS