AmateurRadio.com

The biggest hamfest is over, but the biggest ham radio on the air event is quickly approaching! Yes I am talking about Field Day 2017! Back in episode 67, I had Ian on and we talked about PSK31. During that interview he mentioned that he was the Field Day Chair for his radio club, the North Fulton Amateur Radio League, so I asked him to come back and talk to us about Field Day.

We had a great conversation about what Field Day is, some general information about it, what its like to be the Field Day Chairperson and be in charge of planning the event for your club and wrap it up with things that his club does during Field Day and what goes on afterwards.

Check out the show notes of this episode for more information about things that we talk about, links that we mention and probably some that we didn’t. The show notes can be found at:

http://www.everythinghamradio.com/podcast/71

Curtis Mohr, K5CLM, is the author/owner of Everything Ham Radio Blog and Youtube channel. Contact him at [email protected].

Recently I attempted a SOTA activation of Skiddaw G/LD-004. It is an easily accessible summit and a really good MTB route (called Back ‘o’ Skiddaw – although I’m not sure there is a link between the lake district and pirates but we’ll run with it). I’ve ridden it before but it has been a few years and the 17.5m route is straightforward and involves 2 out of the 4 lakeland MTB activities, these are of course:

1. Riding – Sounds trivial but read on
2. Pushing – Right its too steep / rocky / muddy. Get off and push the thing (generally up).
3. Humping – Stage 3 is extreme. You have to carry your bike. It is very heavy after a few meters
4.  Throwing – This is the last resort and usually used in the summer when vegetation is everywhere. Pick up your bike and throw it on the bracken. Step into the flattened area. Pick up and repeat.

As I said the route is straightforward. The kit is standard….

1. FT817nd
2. LiPo – 3S 11.1v 2200mAh
3. SOTAbeams SB270 (no longer available but a great antenna)
4. VX-8GR APRS handheld
5. Fishing pole
6. End fed half wave antenna and ilertuner
7. Palm paddle key
8. 7m fishing pole

So imagine the scene. Dropped son off at cub camp and parked up. the sun is shining and the breeze is gentle. A good spring day. No need to check the high level weather forecast as you can see the summit. Assume its a bit colder and windier up top so pack a lightweight fleece.

Ride off. Enjoy the view. Here are a few photo’s

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whilst on stage 2 (pushing) up seat how (a lower summit and not a SOTA one) a fell runner was coming down with full kit on. To the untrained eye this might sound reasonable but as this is Cumbria it is rare to see a fell runner (because they are very quick generally, blink and they’ve gone…into the mist) and its even rarer to see one wearing a jacket. I was concerned. Sure enough the wind got stronger and stronger. Even though I was on the windward face I was shielded or in some kind of wind flow niceness. It didn’t last. Over the top of the ridge and it was howling and cold. Quick up the top and find a windless spot on the leeward side of the summit.

Skiddaw is a loose rocky summit that is old, as are all the lakeland summits and valleys for that matter but thats a whole new post. The summit might have been in a wind tunnel. 40+mph and around 3c. Not good when you’re in shorts. So on with the spare clothes and set up. No chance of HF today and VHF was going to be a quick one. I tried 2m USB but couldn’t keep the antenna straight so switched to FM and added more rocks to the support. No joy. I had to drop it to ground level and made do with the few contacts I made. Not what I planned at all.

There will be many morals to take from this experience. I like to focus on the positives and ignore the negatives, it helps block out the cold in this instance. So the main points…..

2 hours up……..10 minutes down…….great down hill section weaving around the many walkers who on the whole were much better behaved than they have been in the past. Just don’t touch the brake rotors for a while and keep them spinning.

Next summit will be…….TBC

Alex Hill, G7KSE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, UK. Contact him at [email protected].

Operating goals or awards are a fun way to keep focused on accomplishing something via ham radio. Really, it’s a specific reason to get on the air and make radio contacts. I am not big on idle chit chat via the radio (“the weather here is 65 deg and raining”) so having a reason to make contacts helps me get on the air. I’ve tended to pursue awards in a serial manner…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.

Next up was Worked All Continents (WAC), which obviously requires working some DX. But then I decided that if I was going to have any DX cred at all, I needed to get DX Century Club (DXCC). This turned out to be a bit of a challenge with my modest station (100 watts and a dipole) but I found that working DX contests to be very helpful. The big hassle was collecting the QSL cards and getting them checked by the ARRL (back before the Logbook of the World days). Once I checked the box on DXCC at just over 100 countries, I was satisfied and went on to other things. Serious DXers chase all available countries/entities to get Honor Roll and other bragging rights.

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. For me, it took a few more contests than that after factoring in the fallout that occurs when trying to get confirmation QSLs. The 10 GHz VUCC only requires 5 grids which turned out to be not too difficult. My VHF collaborator at the time, Doug W0AH (now W4LY) and I took turns operating from Pikes Peak while the other guy went out and activated the required 5 grids. It helps to have a big honkin’ mountain nearby to use for 10 GHz operating. About this time, I got into working the LEO satellites and worked the required 100 grids for satellite VUCC. I don’t have very many grids confirmed on 2 meters, so that one is still calling to me.

Recently, I spent some effort going for the CQ WPX Award (worked prefixes award). This is an intriguing award structure because every new callsign prefix counts as a new one. For the basic mixed-mode award, you need to work at least 400 different callsign prefixes. I found this format to be a lot of fun because “everyone is DX” so to speak, but DX prefixes are also very valuable. The same approach is used for the WPX contests, which naturally brings out stations with less common callsign prefixes. A big motivator for me was when the ARRL announced Logbook of the World (LoTW) support for the CQ WPX awards. I mean, there was no way I was going to collect 400 QSL cards to submit for this award, but using LoTW made this very efficient. More on that story here: CQ WPX, LoTW and the End of QSL Cards.

Summits On The Air

Lately, I’ve been active in the Summits On The Air (SOTA) program, both activating and chasing summits. This is a natural fit for me as I’ve enjoyed mountaintop operating in various forms, mostly on VHF and UHF. (See my SOTA blog postings.) The SOTA program has a wide variety of awards, supported by a very powerful 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 other’s posted scores.

I’ve been using VHF (and UHF) exclusively for SOTA and managed to qualify for the Shack Sloth Award using just those bands. (Shack Sloth is achieved with 1000 chaser points.) Shack Sloth is a bit of a misnomer for me as many of my SOTA chasing contacts were done while hiking, mobile or portable (not sitting at home in a shack). The Mountain Goat Award is taking a bit longer because I have to drag myself up enough summits to reach 1000 points as a summit activator.

Here’s the current scores for the Colorado (W0C) SOTA activators:
At the top of the list, we find Carey KX0R totally killing it with 2808 points. These folks have all reached the coveted Mountain Goat status: KX0R, K0MOS, K0JQZ, W0CCA, KC0YQF, W0CP, KC5CW.  I am further down the list, tied with AD0KE at 302 points. Now, remember this is not a competition Honestly, I wish I were further along the path to Mountain Goat but I’ve decided to keep at it and enjoy the journey. Walt W0CP recently gave me some excellent advice: just keep making progress.

Other Goals

You may not find the awards and goals I’ve mentioned to be very interesting, but there are many other options. In 2016, the ARRL sponsored the National Parks On The Air (NPOTA) program, which created a lot of interest and activity. I did just three activations for NPOTA but many people really got into it.

You might also set your own personal goal, not associated with any award. I know one ham that decided his goal was to make a ham radio contact every day of the entire year. This sounds simple but if you have a full-time job and other responsibilities, it takes some persistence to make this happen. Perhaps you are public service oriented; you might set a goal for the number of ARES events you support this year. I challenge you to think about what it is you are trying to do with ham radio and set a goal that is consistent with that.

Those are my thoughts, what do you think?

73, Bob K0NR

The post Pursue Radio Operating Goals 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].

As originally feared, MF conditions took a nasty beating this weekend during the monthly CLE .

It's really amazing how closely synced to terrible conditions the CLE's have become ... perhaps we need to offset our monthly activity by staging the next one in two weeks to see if we break out of sync with the Sun's regular 27-day rotation of coronal hole streaming.

Friday night was the best, much better than most other regions in North America from what I could tell as the geomagnetic storm had not yet struck ... but most others suffered from severe thunderstorm noise further to the south and east of BC.

Once the geomagnetic storm was underway, the DST quickly tanked and both Saturday and Sunday nights saw a shroud of absorption thrown over the NDB band, at times making me wonder if I even had an antenna connected to the receiver. I haven't seen such poor conditions on MF in several years.

courtesy: http://wdc.kugi.kyoto-u.ac.jp/

courtesy: http://www.noaa.gov/

Fortunately, the following stations were heard on Friday night, before the storm, using my Perseus SDR and LF / MF inverted-L resonated to ~350 kHz:

27 06:00 350.0 SWU Sweden - Id Falls, ID, USA
27 11:00 350.0 RG Oklahoma City, OK, USA
27 05:00 350.0 NY Enderby, BC, CAN
27 08:00 351.0 YKQ Waskaganish, QC, CAN
27 06:00 353.0 RNT Renton, WA, USA
27 06:00 353.0 PG Portage La Prairie, MB, CAN
27 12:30 353.0 LLD Lanai Island, HWA
27 06:00 353.0 IN Ericsburg, MN, USA
27 11:00 353.0 DI Dickinson, ND, USA
27 11:00 353.0 AL Dixie, WA, USA
27 06:00 356.0 ZXE Saskatoon, SK, CAN
27 10:00 356.0 ZF Yellowknife, NT, CAN
27 11:00 356.0 PND Portland, OR, USA
27 05:00 356.0 ON Penticton, BC, CAN
27 11:00 356.0 MEF Medford, OR, USA
27 10:00 358.0 SIT Sitka, ALS
27 10:00 359.0 YQZ Quesnel, BC, CAN
27 10:00 359.0 YAZ Tofino, BC, CAN
27 10:00 359.0 SDY Sidney, MT, USA
27 06:00 359.0 BO Ustick, ID, USA
27 08:00 362.0 RPX Roundup, MT, USA
27 08:00 362.0 BF Seattle, WA, USA
27 10:00 362.0 6T Foremost, AB, CAN
27 10:00 365.0 MA Mayo, YT, CAN
27 05:00 365.0 DPY Deer Park, WA, USA
27 06:00 365.0 AA Harwood, MN, USA
27 07:00 366.0 YMW Maniwaki, QC, CAN
27 11:00 368.0 ZP Sandspit, BC, CAN
27 10:00 368.0 VX Dafoe, SK, CAN
27 11:00 368.0 SX Skookum - Cranbrook, BC, CAN
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

As originally feared, MF conditions took a nasty beating this weekend during the monthly CLE .

It's really amazing how closely synced to terrible conditions the CLE's have become ... perhaps we need to offset our monthly activity by staging the next one in two weeks to see if we break out of sync with the Sun's regular 27-day rotation of coronal hole streaming.

Friday night was the best, much better than most other regions in North America from what I could tell as the geomagnetic storm had not yet struck ... but most others suffered from severe thunderstorm noise further to the south and east of BC.

Once the geomagnetic storm was underway, the DST quickly tanked and both Saturday and Sunday nights saw a shroud of absorption thrown over the NDB band, at times making me wonder if I even had an antenna connected to the receiver. I haven't seen such poor conditions on MF in several years.

courtesy: http://wdc.kugi.kyoto-u.ac.jp/

courtesy: http://www.noaa.gov/

Fortunately, the following stations were heard on Friday night, before the storm, using my Perseus SDR and LF / MF inverted-L resonated to ~350 kHz:

27 06:00 350.0 SWU Sweden - Id Falls, ID, USA
27 11:00 350.0 RG Oklahoma City, OK, USA
27 05:00 350.0 NY Enderby, BC, CAN
27 08:00 351.0 YKQ Waskaganish, QC, CAN
27 06:00 353.0 RNT Renton, WA, USA
27 06:00 353.0 PG Portage La Prairie, MB, CAN
27 12:30 353.0 LLD Lanai Island, HWA
27 06:00 353.0 IN Ericsburg, MN, USA
27 11:00 353.0 DI Dickinson, ND, USA
27 11:00 353.0 AL Dixie, WA, USA
27 06:00 356.0 ZXE Saskatoon, SK, CAN
27 10:00 356.0 ZF Yellowknife, NT, CAN
27 11:00 356.0 PND Portland, OR, USA
27 05:00 356.0 ON Penticton, BC, CAN
27 11:00 356.0 MEF Medford, OR, USA
27 10:00 358.0 SIT Sitka, ALS
27 10:00 359.0 YQZ Quesnel, BC, CAN
27 10:00 359.0 YAZ Tofino, BC, CAN
27 10:00 359.0 SDY Sidney, MT, USA
27 06:00 359.0 BO Ustick, ID, USA
27 08:00 362.0 RPX Roundup, MT, USA
27 08:00 362.0 BF Seattle, WA, USA
27 10:00 362.0 6T Foremost, AB, CAN
27 10:00 365.0 MA Mayo, YT, CAN
27 05:00 365.0 DPY Deer Park, WA, USA
27 06:00 365.0 AA Harwood, MN, USA
27 07:00 366.0 YMW Maniwaki, QC, CAN
27 11:00 368.0 ZP Sandspit, BC, CAN
27 10:00 368.0 VX Dafoe, SK, CAN
27 11:00 368.0 SX Skookum - Cranbrook, BC, CAN
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

In this episode, Martin M1MRB / W9ICQ is joined by Leslie Butterfield G0CIB, Edmund Spicer M0MNG, Martin Rothwell M0SGL and Chris Howard M0TCH to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief, and this episode’s feature is WSPR by Ed Durrant D5LP and Small Portable Antennas by Bill Barnes N3JIX.

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

• Harmonisation of CEPT Novice Licences

• 70 MHz in Germany

• 60m Allocation for Mexico

• Poland to Join 60m - adds more 70 MHz space

• Correction to Use Uruguay 60m Allocation

• 5 Year Experiment of 4m band in Kazakhstan

• Geoparks Communications Weekend

• WIA Trials Online Exams

• UK Frequency Allocations

• Proposed FM repeater K2Sat

• AM Licence for Radio Caroline

• Realtime Band Conditions

• Foundation Course in Lowestoft

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

In this episode, Martin M1MRB / W9ICQ is joined by Leslie Butterfield G0CIB, Edmund Spicer M0MNG, Martin Rothwell M0SGL and Chris Howard M0TCH to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief, and this episode’s feature is WSPR by Ed Durrant D5LP and Small Portable Antennas by Bill Barnes N3JIX.

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

• Harmonisation of CEPT Novice Licences

• 70 MHz in Germany

• 60m Allocation for Mexico

• Poland to Join 60m - adds more 70 MHz space

• Correction to Use Uruguay 60m Allocation

• 5 Year Experiment of 4m band in Kazakhstan

• Geoparks Communications Weekend

• WIA Trials Online Exams

• UK Frequency Allocations

• Proposed FM repeater K2Sat

• AM Licence for Radio Caroline

• Realtime Band Conditions

• Foundation Course in Lowestoft

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