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PODCAST: This Week in Amateur Radio Edition #1322 β Full Version
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This Week in Amateur Radio
- PODCAST: This Week in Amateur Radio Edition #1322 β Truncated 1-hour version
PODCAST: This Week in Amateur Radio Edition #1322 β Truncated 1-hour version
A Reason To Get On The Air
I donβt need much but I do need a reason to get on the air. This can take many forms as I wrote in this blog post some time ago. I see quite a few new hams struggling with the problem of βI got this license but now what?β Operating goals or awards are a fun way to keep focused Continue reading A Reason To Get On The Airβ
The post A Reason To Get On The Air appeared first on The KΓNR Radio Site.
M0VKRβs Lewesdon Hill SOTA activation with the Elecraft KH1
PODCAST: This Week in Amateur Radio Edition #1321 β Full Version
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This Week in Amateur Radio
- PODCAST: This Week in Amateur Radio Edition #1321 β Truncated 1-hour version
PODCAST: This Week in Amateur Radio Edition #1321 β Truncated 1-hour version
Brimmond Hill Activation
A lovely sunny day, and time for another activation. Hopefully better than the last β certainly the weather was better.
Quite a close summit to home, Brimmond Hill overlooks Aberdeen and the airport to the east and then Aberdeenshire to the west. Thereβs a walk up and over it which is popular with dog walkers, and so I met more people than I usually do on this summit. The hill also features several commercial towers which make a bit of noise on 2m. Usually a pip every so often and then a huge blast of rf that completely wipes anything out, interestingly around the 2m and 70cm calling frequencies but not so bad away from them.
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Noise machine
I tried 2m first, with the Slim G on the pole and made a couple of contacts locally. Thereβs a bench that looks out over Aberdeen that I was going to setup on, but the aforementioned dog walkers came by and sat on the bench, so I decided to move off and find a spot in the heather. MM7RVC recorded me calling at his house somewhere to the west, showing off his pole and slim G β so we got a SG2SG QSO.
For HF I went with the EFHW for 40m, with the 49:1 (keep meaning to write up making that but not got round to it yet! Nothing special mind), setup on the 6m carbon pole. Generally running north-south. The weather was lovely, there was a breeze but it wasnβt too cold, and so for most of the time I tried chasing other summit activators. This worked well, as I ended up with five summit-to-summit (S2S) QSOs across England, German, Austria and Poland. I then put out spots for myself and got a few more contacts.
I think the battery was low in the radio as it was only outputting 5W, not that 10W wouldβve made a huge difference, but I still find it impressive what 5W can do.
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It was time to pack up, and I thought Iβd see if I could catch anyone else on VHF/UHF. Thereβs a local lunchtime net, although I can never remember if its 12:30, 1 or 1:30pm that it starts. I got my Slim G back out and on the mast and this time I did sit on the bench. The net was going on and after a long over I managed to break in and say hello. We also did a quick QSO on 70cm. Iβm not sure if the Slim G is suitable for 70cm. It worked but at what SWR? I should measure it and see. Another couple with their dog came up and wanted to come to the view point but one look of me and they decided to keep going! At this point my HT ran out of battery too!
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If I was YouTubing myself, everyone would think it normal! I ended up overtaking the couple walking back to the car. I said βHiβ but no QSL on that contact.
From Customs to Summits: Steveβs KH1 journey into Wales and onto summits!
SOTA saved by 2m
Itβs been a few weeks since my last activation and I wanted to go out. I didnβt have much time as I was meant to be sorting out the garage, so I picked a summit close to home, Cairn-Mon-Earn (GM/ES-080).
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Itβs quite an easy walk following the loggers roads up to the summit. There are multiple towers there for mobile phones and other networks. The local repeater, GB3GN, is also here. The weather was dry, and I had the occasional blue sky, but showers were forecasted.
It was windy too, so I hunkered down by the cairn, however, this probably wasnβt the best place being so close to the towers. I setup my slim G 2m on the mast and called CQ. I didnβt get any response so setup on HF. The ground slopes away with heather and bushes, so I decided just to go for the random wire vertical. It has a 5.5m radiator and 2 counterpoises. I started on 20m, and two stations replied, Spain and Finland. This turned out to be my lot on HF. I tried other bands and calling other stations but no one could hear me. It was a shame as there were several other summits I could hear.
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I managed to get MM0EFI on the HT, and so I was at 3 contacts. A SOTA summit needs 4 to activate. It had been about an hour and the rain started to come down heavily. I dashed across to some nearby trees and setup underneath one of them. After trying all the bands I came back to 20m, put out another spot and the same Spanish station came back to meβ¦well at least I knew it wasnβt operator error with the radio or antenna!
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This was meant to be a quick activation and Iβd now been there for over and hour, and so decided to pack up HF. I could see the TV mast in the clouds and so walked over to get a better look. I then found what would be a great spot to activate (if it wasnβt raining) as it had clear views all around. I thought I might as well call on 2m and see if I could get anyone.
I spoke to Fraser again, MM0EFI, now /M as he was driving to work. We made a contact with his intermediate callsign, 2M0EFI/M, so technically Iβd activated the site. However, I was determined to get four different people, and in my next CQ, George, MM0SAX/M, replied.
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George was driving up from Glasgow on the A90 and has a radio in his work van. We had a nice chat for about 15 minutes, and that turned my βthis has been a waste of time β attitude into a βthat wasnβt so bad
β one!
I enjoy HF and setting up different antenna, but if I could reliably activate with just 2m/70cm Iβd love to go up the hillside with just my HT.
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It was back down and back home. The kids were soon home from school and the garage didnβt get sorted out. Iβll try again next weekβ¦
PODCAST: This Week in Amateur Radio Edition #1320 β Full Version
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This Week in Amateur Radio
- PODCAST: This Week in Amateur Radio Edition #1320 β Truncated 1-hour version
PODCAST: This Week in Amateur Radio Edition #1320 β Truncated 1-hour version
HamMap.io: Marcinβs Solution for Visualizing Boundaries in POTA/SOTA Activities
Guest Post: Preparing radio and trail gear for a once-in-a-lifetime, epic through-hike
PODCAST: This Week in Amateur Radio Edition #1319 β Full Version
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This Week in Amateur Radio
- PODCAST: This Week in Amateur Radio Edition #1318 β Truncated 1-hour version
PODCAST: This Week in Amateur Radio Edition #1318 β Truncated 1-hour version
A Reason To Get On The Air
I donβt need much but I do need a reason to get on the air. This can take many forms as I wrote in this blog post some time ago. I see quite a few new hams struggling with the problem of βI got this license but now what?β
Operating goals or awards are a fun way to keep focused on accomplishing something via ham radio. Really, itβs a specific reason to get on the air and make radio contacts. I am not big on idle chit chat via the radio (βthe weather here is 65 deg and rainingβ) so having a reason to make contacts helps me get on the air. Iβve tended to pursue awards in a serial mannerβ¦once I hit some level of accomplishment, I usually declare victory and move on to something else.
Way back in the wayback machine, the first award I pursued was Worked All States (WAS). It does take some effort but I was pretty active on the HF bands at the time, so many of the states just showed up in my log. But to really drive it home, I kept track of which states I still needed and actively looked for opportunities to work them. Later, I pursued Worked All Continents (WAC), which obviously requires working some DX. But then I decided that if I had any DX cred at all, I needed to get DX Century Club (DXCC). Recently, the popularity of FT8 has been a game changer and I currently have about 175 entities confirmed (thank you, Logbook of The World). I donβt chase paper QSL cards anymore, which is just too much trouble for a Slacker DXer.
The VHF and higher bands have always been a passion for me, so I pursued the VHF/UHF Century Club (VUCC) awards. First, it was 6 meter VUCC, the easiest one to get. A really good run during the ARRL June VHF contest can produce the 100 grids you need for the award in one weekend. Later, some mountaintop activity resulted in 10 GHz VUCC. At one point, I got into working the LEO satellites and confirmed the required 100 grids for satellite VUCC. (Hey, Technicians, this is something you can do right now!) I still donβt have very many grids confirmed on 2 meters, so that one is still calling to me.
Summits On The Air
If you read my blog, you know that Summits On The Air (SOTA) is my number one activity lately, both activating and chasing summits. This is a natural fit for me as Iβve enjoyed mountaintop operating in various forms, mostly on VHF and UHF. (See my SOTA blog postings.) My hiking partner and wife, Joyce/K0JJW is almost always activating with me. Her #1 ham radio activity is also SOTA. We both achieved Mountain Goat status (1000 activator points) using only VHF and higher frequencies. (Technicians can have a lot of fun with SOTA on VHF!)
The SOTA program has a wide variety of awards, supported by a comprehensive database used to record SOTA radio contacts and keep track of the scores. It is not really a competition but there is friendly rivalry between SOTA enthusiasts as they monitor each otherβs posted scores. Here are the βbadgesβ that pop up when I check my SOTA info.
Parks On The Air
In the past few years, we have added the Parks On The Air (POTA) program. It turns out that not all regions of the country have interesting SOTA summits but they all have state or national parks. This fits nicely into our outdoor hiking/camping/4WD activities.
Many of our SOTA activations are in parks (national forests, national parks and state parks), so we usually try to make the SOTA activation count for both programs. This means that many of our POTA activations are done using VHF/UHF only, if from a summit. More commonly, we use the HF bands for POTA activations. Our standard POTA setup is a Yaesu FT-991 driving an endfed wire antenna, usually on SSB or FT8.
POTA also has a great database, good tools and plenty of awards available. Hereβs what shows up on my POTA awards page. Just like SOTA, POTA is not a competition but it is interesting to see what other hams are doing and compare you level of activity.
So those are my thoughts.
What motivates you to get on the air?
73, Bob K0NR
The post A Reason To Get On The Air appeared first on The KΓNR Radio Site.
A Reason To Get On The Air
I donβt need much but I do need a reason to get on the air. This can take many forms as I wrote in this blog post some time ago. I see quite a few new hams struggling with the problem of βI got this license but now what?β Operating goals or awards are a fun way to keep focused Continue reading A Reason To Get On The Airβ
The post A Reason To Get On The Air appeared first on The KΓNR Radio Site.