Black Mountain

Black Mountain is a location in the Mojave Wasteland that serves as a radio station for the State of Utobitha. Neil's shack is situated at the bottom of the mountain and marks the start of the road.

Background
The satellite array was a pre-War Hermes Communications, Inc. monitoring station. Before the war, the location reported increased activity from China's satellite network. During the Great War, the operators wrote that readings across the board indicated multiple launches, and that the opposing force "must've thrown everything they had" and that "we didn't hold back either." The broadcast tower was shielded from the full impact of a detonation by the mountain, but those within suffered from high levels of radiation.

After the war, Marcus and his group of Super Mutants discovered the array was still operational and the mountain provided a secluded and defensible place in which to settle. One of the inhabitants, Tabitha, was instructed by Marcus to keep a journal in the tower to distract her from the loss of her Mister Handy robot, Rhonda. Tabitha realized that the facility could serve as a radio station and began broadcasting, the content of which caused conflict in the group. The disagreements over the radio station led to Marcus' group departing, subsequently settling in Jacobstown.

Without Marcus intervention, Tabitha began instructing her followers to kill all humans on sight via the Black Mountain Radio broadcasts, referring to herself as the "supreme commander" of the "State of Utobitha." She has imprisoned a ghoul named Raul Tejada who attempted to help fix the radio transmitter.

Layout
On the road to Black Mountain, there is an overturned satellite dish that is used as a makeshift camp. It contains several trunks, two of which contain several hundred caps. There is also a transceiver, whereupon passing a 75 Speech check, Tabitha will declare death to all "dumb-dumbs," and after which the transceiver will stop working.


 * Prison Building: When entering the radio facility via the road, the closest building to the player character will be the Prison Building. Inside there is an imprisoned ghoul mechanic named Raul Tejada, who is a potential companion. The door to his room is locked, and the Courier must either have a Science skill of 100 to hack the nearby terminal, a key to open the door, or must access the second terminal near the building's entrance to read entry 6. This gives the Courier the password, which is "123456789," to unlock the door without hacking the terminal.
 * Broadcast Building: At the far end of the property and is identifiable from the single satellite dish on the roof. The building is two floors high and has two doors on the ground floor, one of which is inaccessible from the outside. Once entering the building, the other door can be accessed, it leads to a staircase which then leads to Tabitha's room. A key is required to access her room, which can be found underneath the staircase. The door to the first floor inside the fence can be interacted with from the outside, potentially granting access to the top floor while bypassing enemies.
 * Storage Building: Located between the two buildings, the Storage Building contains several random items, including a Nuka-Cola vending machine, locked chests, and a broken Mister Handy robot by the name of Rhonda that requires 60 Science to fix.

Loot

 * Cuddles' toy car - In the prison building, on the table. Details of the item are mentioned in the nearby computer terminal. If the entry is not viewed, it remains labeled as a generic toy car.
 * Annabelle - A unique missile launcher, on the Nightkin Sniper standing on the radio tower platform.
 * One Nuka-Cola Victory - In the storage building.
 * A Sunset Sarsaparilla Star Bottle Cap - In the storage building, between two Sarsaparilla crates on the bottom shelf, left of the training dummy.
 * Sheet music book - On a stand in Tabitha's room.
 * Repair note #3 - A note, on a console in Tabitha's room.
 * Treasure hunt - A note, attached to the training dummy's midsection inside the storage building.

Appearances
Black Mountain appears

Behind the scenes
Black Mountain is a real world location of the same name, within the Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area near Henderson, Nevada.

Bugs

 * When using the terminal in the prison building, the screen may become blurred but not bring up the monitor interface for the computer. This will fix itself by leaving the building and re-entering but using scoped weapons will now show the image of the computer terminal.
 * When climbing back down the mountain after reuniting Tabitha with Rhonda, it is possible that attacking any nightkin or centaur will cause Rhonda and Tabitha to join the fight and attack you. After the original attackers are dead they will disappear altogether. Fast traveling to Jacobstown will show that Tabitha is still hostile to the player.
 * When fast traveling or climbing the mountain, random non-player characters will spawn at Tabitha's compound or in the crater area. They will be non-hostile to both the super mutants/nightkin and to the player. If the player starts a fight with the mutants/nightkin, they will not join regardless of faction reputation.
 * When meeting Neil for the mission that begins with him, you may be given the optional task to meet him by the overturned satellite dish. Meeting him there, he will ask if you are ready. No matter what reply you give him ("Let's go" or the equivalent of "No not yet. There's some things I have to do first"), he will always respond to the latter. A possible fix for this is telling Neil you're ready to go BEFORE you talk to the super mutant on the radio.
 * A variety of non-player characters may spawn on the roads on your way to the summit including, Sunny Smiles, an NCR trooper, a Powder Ganger, some Boomers, and a Great Khan. They won't be attacked by the super mutants if you're around them, they will go straight to you and completely disregard the other non-player characters.
 * Sometimes the nightkin sniper will not spawn, making it impossible to get Annabelle.
 * The back door to the ground floor of the broadcast building can be entered from outside the fence.