While planning for the 2022 Colorado 14er Event, I decided to focus on making some long-distance contacts on 1.2 GHz (23 cm). Last year, Dave/W0ADV and I worked summit-to-summit (S2S) at a distance of  244 km (152.6 miles), which is my best result so far. See my previous post here…

Using 1.2 GHz in the Colorado 14er Event

For this year’s event, I wanted to beat that distance so I checked in with the usual SOTA activators that use the 23 cm band, wondering if any of them would be on summits that would support such an effort. I was thinking in terms of another S2S contact using portable FM handheld radios. I identified a few summits in the San Juan mountains that might work, from Pikes Peak or Mount Evans. Also, northern New Mexico has some potential summits, but I did not find anyone interested in activating them.

Knowing that Lauren/N0LD has done quite a bit of VHF/UHF operating from Pikes, I figured he would have some insight concerning summits that are workable from Pikes. We connected via telephone and discussed some options. In that conversation, he suggested I reach out to two hams that have serious 23 cm stations in Kansas: N0LL and N0OY. This shifted my thinking away from S2S contacts to working a UHF station out on the plains. (Kansas has a noticeable lack of SOTA summits.) Pikes Peak (W0C/FR-004) is well-suited to this approach, being easy to access with a road to the top and an excellent radio horizon to the east. I sent an email to Larry/N0LL and Pete/N0OY to see if they were available. Larry replied that his 23 cm gear was currently off the air but Pete said that he was available to give it a try.

The distance from Pikes Peak (W0C/FR-004) to N0OY is almost 400 miles, so the FM handheld radio approach was probably not going to work. My ICOM IC-9700 was the way to go, with 10 watts of RF power to a Yagi antenna. Pete used an ICOM IC-705 to drive a transverter that supplies 50 watts of RF to an 8-foot dish antenna at 45 feet. I chuckled when I heard this because the IC-705 is a popular SOTA rig…just not usually found on 23 cm.

Joyce/K0JJW and I made it to the summit a bit early and immediately set up for the 23 cm attempt. Normally, we operate on the west side of the summit, away from the visitors center and most of the tourists. For 23 cm, I wanted the best shot possible to the east, so we walked over to the boardwalk on the north side of the summit. It sticks out enough to give an excellent view due east.

Once I was set up, I sent a text message to Pete asking him to start transmitting my direction on 1296.1 MHz. We had agreed to start with CW, our most efficient mode, and perhaps later try SSB. He started with a series of CW dashes and I could easily pick up his signal. Joyce pointed the antenna for me, finding the best direction to peak the signal. Pete’s signal was not terribly strong, but solid copy, only a few dB above my noise floor. Because he was running more power than me (about 7 dB), I was concerned that he would not be able to hear me. I called him using CW and initially, he did not respond. We kept trying and my signal came up a bit at his end and we were able to complete the contact. Conditions were marginal enough that we did not try SSB. (Sorry, Joyce missed out on this one…she doesn’t work CW.)

SOTA Requirements

Although we drove to the summit of Pikes Peak, we made sure we were SOTA compliant. Our normal approach on a drive-up summit is to load up our backpacks with a portable station and hike some distance away from our vehicle. My IC-9700 is not exactly a compact transceiver but it is portable enough to transport some distance and it can be powered using a small Bioenno battery. I’ve carried this size radio (often an FT-991) on other SOTA activations, hiking a mile or two with it. It certainly adds weight to my pack, but it is manageable. The antenna was a Comet CYA-1216E, about 5 feet long, with 16 elements and a specified gain of 16.6 dBi.

So this is my new personal best for 23 cm SOTA:628 km, 392 miles. My thanks go to Pete/N0OY for getting on the air and giving this a try. His station was doing more than half the work with this radio contact. I’ve done SOTA QSOs like this with other weak-signal VHF/UHF operators. They may not be active SOTA chasers but they like the challenge of completing a difficult contact. I really appreciate them getting on the air with me. It’s all part of having fun messing around with radios.

This raises the question of what’s next?
Maybe I can get N0OY to move his station another 50 km to the east for another attempt. Probably not.

Stay tuned.

73 Bob K0NR

The post SOTA 23 cm QSO with N0OY appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Hello and welcome to the 477th episode of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this short-topics episode, the hosts cover the latest solar cycle, the upcoming next instance of the QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo, Kali Linux, contributions to Open Source from large corporations, a new version of PREDICT and more. Thank you for listening and have a great week.

73 de The LHS Crew

Murphy had no issue waiting, I started contesting and things went wrong right at the get-go, as I was CWing "CQ CONTEST" a warning on my PC came up that I lost my internet connection. Then another message informed me my connection had been re-established. This just kept happening over and over and it was only when I was transmitting. This told me RFI was the issue, NEVER up until now have I ever had this issue but such is Murphy. 

 The contest at this point was a bit slow so I decided to investigate the issue further. I had a theory and that was my new PC motherboard has WIFI and uses two small antennas at the rear of the PC. I checked my settings and I was on WIFI, not LAN....so I thought. I removed the two small WIFI antenna thinking that they would be good at picking up RFI and thus could be the reason. I then set my LAN as the internet connection. 

After restarting my PC I was back to contesting but this time there was the loss of internet connection but not as often. Thinking now it was possibly my LAN hub at the rear of the PC. I then connected my LAN (with toroidal chokes) directly to my PC. Again I had intermittent connection issues and I was sure it was still the WIFI and maybe the antenna female connector ends on the PC motherboard were picking up RF still. The issue happened less often so removing the antennas did help.

 
It was not off to the BIOS to shut the motherboard WIFI down.....going into the BIOS.....what could go wrong here?? Once in the BIOS, I clicked here and there and just could not find any WIFI settings. Closed the BIOS and restarted the PC.
Once restarted I knew something was wrong, the PC was really slow and jerky is the best way to describe it. I went to the internet to see what the hell I had done only to find the internet now was running as if I was on dial-up! 

I have now gone from intermittent internet connection to a funky PC and very slow internet speed. Oh, and I also noticed that in my contest program N1MM+ I lost the contest macro setup and all my contacts. I have no idea what that has to do with the BIOS but it happened.
After some reading on the internet on my laptop, I concluded the best thing to do was update the BIOS and MSI motherboards they make it very easy to do. My thought was, that whatever the heck I did will be undone by a BIOS update. After all, I have nothing to lose if I wanted I could reformat the hard drive and slide a backup clone image onto the drive from my backup files on another hard drive. I would have all my programs and setting from an earlier time. Some may think I could just use Windows system restore. In times of need, I have ALWAYS had system restore let me down with a final message after a restore that windows was unable to restore to an earlier date!! 

The BIOS updated without any issues and when the PC restarted I was back to normal but the slow internet was still there and RFI seemed to be dropping the connection still. I just happened to go back to Windows 10 internet connections box (for the 100th time) but this time I noticed for some reason I was back on WIFI. I manually changed it back to LAN and the connection issue was gone and the surfing speed was back. 

I decided to restart the PC and have a look at the Windows 10 internet connections box again. After the restart, I was back on WIFI again and it would seem for some reason each time the PC was restarted it would default back to WIFI. The very slow connection was due to the fact the antennas were removed and RFI was affecting the WIFI board via the female antenna connectors.

 
I then just right-clicked on the WIFI connection icon and clicked disable!! You know what folks that did the trick. Only if 2 hours earlier I had done just that I would not have messed with the BIOS, lost my N1MM+ contest settings, squeezed behind my desk to the rear of the PC and wasted 2 hours. Sometimes the solution is just a click away!!

In this episode, Martin Butler (M1MRB) is joined by Caryn Eve Murray KD2GUT, Edmund Spicer M0MNG, Ed Durrant DD5LP and Chris Howard M0TCH to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin (M6BOY) rounds up the news in brief and in the episode's feature Edmund Spicer M0MNG previews International Lighthouse and Lightships Weekend 2022.

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

ARISS contact with Summer Camp students at Kopernik Observatory and Science Center, Vestal, New York, USA

• A Radio Relic
• Two New Amateur Radio Bands for Canadian Hams
• Hams on SOTA Event Help Prevent Major Forest Fire
• Angola DXpedition Promises People the moon
• Failure in Launching Indian Schoolgirls’ Ham Satellite
• NRAO Program to Educate Emerging Generation of Scientists using Amateur Radio
• QSO Expo Returns for Autumn 2022 Show
• Remembrance Day Contest
• AP75PAK Celebrates 75th Anniversary of Pakistan

The Technician license is your gateway to the worldwide excitement of Amateur Radio, and the very best emergency communications capability available!

We are once again offering our highly-successful Technician License Class in Black Forest, Colorado.

• Earn your ham radio Technician class radio privileges
• Pass your FCC amateur radio license exam right in class on the last day
• Multiple-choice exam, No Morse Code Required
• Learn to operate on the ham bands, 10 meters and higher
• Learn to use the many VHF/UHF FM repeaters in Colorado
• Find out how to participate in emergency communications

Schedule: in-person plus online

Sat   Oct 15    9:00 am – 3:30 pm In Person
Sun  Oct 16    4:00 – 5:30 pm Online (Zoom)
Tue   Oct 18    6:00 – 8:00 pm Online (Zoom)
Sat   Oct 22    9:00 am – 3:00pm In Person (includes Exam Session)

In-person sessions are held at the Black Forest Fire & Rescue Station 1, 11445 Teachout Road, Colorado Springs, CO 80908

Registration fee: $30 adults, $20 under age 18
Advance registration is required.
Note that the FCC now charges a $35 license fee, payable after you pass the license exam.
Students must have the required study guide: Ham Radio School Technician License Course, 2022 – 2026

Register

To register for the class, go to:
http://w0tlm.com/radio-classes/tech-registration

Any questions, contact Bob Witte KØNR [email protected]

Sponsored by the Tri-Lakes Monument Radio Association www.w0tlm.com
For more information on amateur (ham) radio visit www.arrl.org

The post Technician License Class – Black Forest, Colorado appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

AmateurLogic.TV Episode 172 is now available for download.

A super cheap Hotspot. Thrifty Old Digital Update Roundup. Modding Pi-Star to include M-17. DVMega Globetrotter opens up your digital possibilities.

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