It is always fun to do the first Summits On The Air (SOTA) activation of a peak. Most of the Colorado peaks have been climbed by someone along the way but there are still many that have never been activated for SOTA using amateur radio.

I noticed that an unnamed summit not too far from our cabin, referred to as 12306 or W0C/SR-129 had not been activated. At first glance, I thought this was because it was difficult to access. Further investigation revealed US Forest Service info on the Hayden Gulch Road (FS 396) that goes to the Hayden Gulch Trailhead at the west edge of the Buffalo Peaks Wilderness area. Joyce/K0JJW and I approached the trailhead from the west, starting at Granite, CO on Hwy 24, turning east onto FS 397 (marked at the highway) and then quickly looking for signs for FS 396. The San Isabel National Forest map is somewhat helpful but the Latitude 40 recreational map for Salida/Buena Vista is much better.  The road is mostly easy 4WD but it is narrow in many places and moderate difficultly in a few spots. We saw crossover SUVs carefully driving the road with success. It was easy-peasy in our Jeep Wrangler.

Starting the hike, we followed the Hayden Gulch trail to the east. We actually had to search a bit to make sure we were really on the trail as we left the trailhead, as it was not super obvious. Hint: stay to the north (left) of the trailhead sign.

The trail follows an old road that was likely closed when the wilderness area was formed. Once we cleared the trees (shown accurately on the map above), we left the trail and traveled off-trail towards the summit, trying to follow the contour lines and not lose a bunch of elevation. The hike promised to be very pleasant except that we had 30 to 40 mph winds from the west. This was not enough to stop us but certainly made the hike less enjoyable. The views were spectacular but a little difficult to enjoy with the wind blowing.

The hike was 1.8 miles one-way with about 1000 feet of vertical gain. Once on the summit, we got out the standard VHF SOTA gear: Yaesu FT-90 transceiver, LiFe battery and 3-element Arrow yagi. We both quickly worked Bob/W0BV, Walt/W0CP, Steve/WG0AT and Brad/WA6MM. WG0AT was on his way down from Eagle Rock (W0C/SP-113) so we missed a Summit-to-Summit opportunity with him. (We did work him earlier when he was on the summit but we were not.) WA6MM was a successful S2S contact from Mount Logan (W0C/FR-017).

This turned out to be a successful activation and a fun hike. We both concluded that we need to do it again…with a little less wind.

73 Bob K0NR

The post SOTA Activation: Unnamed Summit 12306 (W0C/SR-129) appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Bob Witte, KØNR, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Welcome to Episode 242 of Linux in the Ham Shack! In this episode, we bring back a guest to the show we haven't talked with in almost five years. His name is David Rowe, VK5DGR. He is the creator of the open source sound codec known as Codec2. He is also co-creator and maintainer of the FreeDV application for amateur radio digital voice communication, as well as a contributor to many other cool and interesting technical projects. Hope you enjoy our interview with David and this deep dive into FreeDV, codec2 and more.

73 de The LHS Crew

Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].

BF-362 courtesy: Steven M O'Kelley

This coming weekend will see another monthly CLE challenge. This time the hunting grounds will be 350.0 - 369.9 kHz.

 


For those unfamiliar with this monthly activity, a 'CLE' is a 'Co-ordinated Listening Event', as NDB DXers around the world focus their listening time on one small slice of the NDB spectrum.

A really good challenge in this one is to hear BF-362, located in Seattle, Washington. I suspect that it's a 25-watter but is rarely logged outside of the Pacific Northwest region. If you are east of Montana and can hear it, your system is working well!

Listen for BF's  upper-sideband CW identifier (with your receiver in the CW mode) on 363.030 kHz while its lower-sideband can be heard on 360.943 kHz.

Although we are getting ever-closer to the fall DX season, lightning storms may yet be a problem, but at this time of the year we may get a lucky few quiet nights like this one in mid-June.

courtesy: http://thunderstorm.vaisala.com/explorer.html

If you are interested in building a system for the new (U.S.) 630m band, the CLE will give you the chance to test out your MF receiving capabilities and compare against what others in your area might be hearing.

When tuning for NDBs, put your receiver in the CW mode and listen for the NDB's CW identifier, repeated every few seconds. Listen for U.S. NDB identifiers approximately 1 kHz higher or lower than the published transmitted frequency since these beacons are modulated with a 1020 Hz tone approximately.


For example, 'AA' near Fargo, ND, transmits on 365 kHz and its upper sideband CW identifier is tuned at 366.025 kHz while its lower sideband CW ident can be tuned at 363.946 kHz. Its USB tone is actually 1025 Hz while its LSB tone is 1054 Hz.

Often, one sideband will be much stronger than the other so if you don't hear the first one, try listening on the other sideband.


Canadian NDBs normally have an USB tone only, usually very close to 400 Hz. They also have a long dash (keydown) following the CW identifier.


All NDBs heard in North America will be listed in the RNA database (updated daily) while those heard in Europe may be found in the REU database. Beacons heard outside of these regions will be found in the RWW database.


From CLE organizer Brian Keyte, G3SIA, comes the details:


Hello all

Here are the full details for this weekend's co-ordinated listening event.
It is open to everyone including CLE new-comers:

Days: Friday 24 August - Monday 27 August
Times: Start and end at midday, your LOCAL time
Range: 350.0 - 369.9 kHz

This range is a busy one, usually giving us a high number of NDBs heard.

We last concentrated on these frequencies during CLE219 in May 2017.

Wherever you are, please join us and log the NDBs that you can positively
identify that are listed in this busy frequency range (it includes 350.0 kHz
but not 370 kHz) plus any UNIDs that you come across there.

Send your CLE log to the List, preferably as a plain text email
(not in an attachment) with "CLE235 - FINAL Logs" at the start of its
subject line.

Please show on EVERY LINE of your log:

# The date ( e.g. 2018-08-24  or just the day no. 24 ) and UTC
(the day changes at 00:00 UTC).
# kHz (the beacon's nominal published frequency, if you know it)
# The Call Ident.

Show those main items FIRST on each line, before other optional details
such as Location, Distance, Offsets, Cycle time, etc.

If you send any incomplete logs to the List during the event, please also
send your 'FINAL', complete one.

Please always make your log interesting to everyone by showing your
own location and brief details of the receiver and aerial(s), etc., that
you were using.

We will send the usual 'Any More Logs?' email so that you can check that your log has been found OK.


You can check on all CLE-related information from the CLE Page

http://www.ndblist.info/cle.htm

It includes a link to seeklists for the Event from the Rxx Database.

Good listening
Brian
----------------------------------------------------------
From: Brian Keyte G3SIA ndbcle'at'gmail.com
Location: Surrey, SE England (CLE coordinator)
----------------------------------------------------------

(REMINDER: You could use any one remote receiver for your loggings,
stating the location and owner - with their permission if required.
A remote listener may NOT also use another receiver, whether local
or remote, to obtain further loggings for the same CLE). 
-------------------------------------------------------------------


Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Here is this week’s space weather and geophysical report, issued 2018 Aug 20 0445 UTC.

Highlights of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 13 – 19 August 2018

Solar activity was very low. Two small regions developed on the visible disk this period. Region 2718 (S07, L=191, class/area Hrx/020 on 17 Aug) developed on 14 Aug and decayed to plage by 19 Aug. Region 2719 (S06, L=133, class/area Bxo/010 on 19 Aug) developed in the SE quadrant on 19 Aug. No significant flare events occurred from either region. Other activity included a filament eruption centered near S11W04 observed lifting off the solar disk at approximately 19/0538 UTC. An associated coronal mass ejection was observed off the SW limb in SOHO/LASCO C2 imagery at 19/0812 UTC. WSA/Enlil modelling of the event suggested the ejecta was primarily directed westward of the Sun-Earth line and is not expected to cause any significant effects.

No proton events were observed at geosynchronous orbit.

The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit was at normal levels on 13-15 Aug, moderate levels on 16-17 Aug, and at high levels on 18-19 Aug. The largest flux of the period was 18,287 pfu observed at 19/1800 UTC.

Geomagnetic field activity ranged from quiet to active levels over the period. Solar wind speed was at nominal levels at the beginning of the period with solar wind speed ranging from 310-430 km/s while total field was between 1-4 nT. The geomagnetic field was quiet on 13-14 Aug. By 15 Aug, solar wind speed increased to approximately 450-500 km/s with total field increasing to a maximum of 14 nT by 16/1005 UTC as a positive polarity coronal hole high speed stream (CH HSS) moved into geoeffective position. A further increase in solar wind speed to near 570 km/s was observed late on 17 Aug before slowly receding to nominal levels by midday on 19 Aug. The geomagnetic field responded with quiet to active levels on 15-18 Aug. By late on 19 Aug, total field increase again to 12 nT along with an increase in solar wind to near 550 km/s as a negative polarity CH HSS was becoming geoeffective. However, only quiet levels were observed on 19 Aug.

Forecast of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 20 August – 15 September 2018

Solar activity is expected to continue at very low levels.

No proton events are expected at geosynchronous orbit.

The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit is expected to reach high levels on 22-27 Aug and again on 13-15 Sep due to CH HSS influence.

Geomagnetic field activity is expected to be unsettled to active levels on 20-25 Aug, 03-04 Sep, 07 Sep, and 11-15 Sep with a chance for G1 (Minor) geomagnetic storm levels on 20-21 Aug due to recurrent CH HSS activity.

Don’t forget to visit our live space weather and radio propagation web site, at: http://SunSpotWatch.com/

Live Aurora mapping is at http://aurora.sunspotwatch.com/

If you are on Twitter, please follow these two users: 1. https://Twitter.com/NW7US 2. https://Twitter.com/hfradiospacewx

– – – – – – – – – – – – –

Be sure to subscribe to our space weather and propagation email group, on Groups.io

https://groups.io/g/propagation-and-space-weather

Spread the word!

– – – – – – – – – – – – –

Links of interest:

+ Amazon space weather books: http://g.nw7us.us/fbssw-aSWSC
+ https://Twitter.com/NW7US
+ https://Twitter.com/hfradiospacewx

Space Weather and Ham Radio YouTube Channel News:

I am working on launching a YouTube channel overhaul, that includes series of videos about space weather, radio signal propagation, and more.

Additionally, I am working on improving the educational efforts via the email, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, and other activities.

You can help!

Please consider becoming a Patron of these space weather and radio communications services, beginning with the YouTube channel:

https://www.patreon.com/NW7US

The YouTube channel:
https://YouTube.com/NW7US

..

Visit, subscribe: NW7US Radio Communications and Propagation YouTube Channel

In this episode, Martin M1MRB is joined by Chris Howard M0TCH, Dan Romanchik KB6NU, Ed Durrant DD5LP and Frank Howell K4FMH to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief, and this episode’s feature is Austrian Innovation and US Book Review.

ICQ AMATEUR/HAM RADIO PODCAST DONORS

We would like to thank Charles Riley (G4JQX) and our monthly and annual subscription donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit - http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate

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Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

Amateur Radio Weekly is curated by Cale Mooth K4HCK. Sign up free to receive ham radio's most relevant news, projects, technology and events by e-mail each week at http://www.hamweekly.com.

AmateurLogic.TV Episode 120 is now available for download.

George installs Raspberry Pi Desktop for PC and Mac.
Tommy visits John Amodeo on the new set of Tim Allen’s Last Man Standing. Watch it come together.
Emile shows the long awaited, multifunction, PiClock.
October will be ALTV’s 13th Anniversary. We are celebrating with another contest. Get all the details here.

1:21:16

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YouTube

George Thomas, W5JDX, is co-host of AmateurLogic.TV, an original amateur radio video program hosted by George Thomas (W5JDX), Tommy Martin (N5ZNO), Peter Berrett (VK3PB), and Emile Diodene (KE5QKR). Contact him at [email protected].