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I've had so much to blog about lately and so little time to sit down and actually write it down that I felt the need to just say a few words in summary fashion without pictures. So below are a few radio things that I have going on.

As I have blogged in the past, I have a QTH is Santa Fe, NM. From there I have done the majority of my SOTA expeditions. There is a great ham radio community there and an even better SOTA community. Including myself, there are four hams who have earned SOTA Mountain Goat status in the Santa Fe areas and soon to be five. So we have a lot of fun in the mountains of New Mexico. To bring some organization to that group, we have formed the New Mexico Mountain Goat club to promote efficiently summit radio operations. This week the club call was finally issued, NM5MG. So listen for this call around Memorial Day weekend (end of May).

I have built my first stealth antenna with help from AD6D, in the form of a flagpole, at my Santa Fe QTH. The 20 ft. flagpole from ZeroFive antennas works great. I've installed an LDG tuner at the base to get the antenna resonant 10 -20m and added a piece of wire, attached to the flag fastener and raised to the top, in an inverted L configuration to get tuned resonance on 40m and 80m. No doubt it is a compromise, but I'm on the air and can work a lot of stuff.

I will be travelling to Dayton for the first time in 15+ years. I am looking forward to seeing old friends there. My focus in ham radio has matured a lot since the last time I was there, so looking forward to the flea market.

I am also working on perfecting remote operation of my home QTH station in Boerne, TX. Early results are encouraging. I just to need to tweak a few things and get comfortable with the process.

Hopefully next time, I can write some specifics about these projects.

I've had so much to blog about lately and so little time to sit down and actually write it down that I felt the need to just say a few words in summary fashion without pictures. So below are a few radio things that I have going on.

As I have blogged in the past, I have a QTH is Santa Fe, NM. From there I have done the majority of my SOTA expeditions. There is a great ham radio community there and an even better SOTA community. Including myself, there are four hams who have earned SOTA Mountain Goat status in the Santa Fe areas and soon to be five. So we have a lot of fun in the mountains of New Mexico. To bring some organization to that group, we have formed the New Mexico Mountain Goat club to promote efficiently summit radio operations. This week the club call was finally issued, NM5MG. So listen for this call around Memorial Day weekend (end of May).

I have built my first stealth antenna with help from AD6D, in the form of a flagpole, at my Santa Fe QTH. The 20 ft. flagpole from ZeroFive antennas works great. I've installed an LDG tuner at the base to get the antenna resonant 10 -20m and added a piece of wire, attached to the flag fastener and raised to the top, in an inverted L configuration to get tuned resonance on 40m and 80m. No doubt it is a compromise, but I'm on the air and can work a lot of stuff.

I will be travelling to Dayton for the first time in 15+ years. I am looking forward to seeing old friends there. My focus in ham radio has matured a lot since the last time I was there, so looking forward to the flea market.

I am also working on perfecting remote operation of my home QTH station in Boerne, TX. Early results are encouraging. I just to need to tweak a few things and get comfortable with the process.

Hopefully next time, I can write some specifics about these projects.

I received the commemorative book on the FT4TA expedition to Tromelin in the mail a couple of days ago. Just a word to say that it is a nice memento of the expedition. I enjoy collecting expedition books as they are nice reading to learn how things worked, but also to look at a few years in the future to remember how things worked, "in the good old days":-)

You can see a preview of the book here:  http://www.blurb.com/books/5999560-hamradio-dxpedition-to-tromelin-island-ft4ta-2014

I highly recommend it.

I received the commemorative book on the FT4TA expedition to Tromelin in the mail a couple of days ago. Just a word to say that it is a nice memento of the expedition. I enjoy collecting expedition books as they are nice reading to learn how things worked, but also to look at a few years in the future to remember how things worked, "in the good old days":-)

You can see a preview of the book here:  http://www.blurb.com/books/5999560-hamradio-dxpedition-to-tromelin-island-ft4ta-2014

I highly recommend it.

As I have blogged in past, I have a QTH in Santa Fe, NM. I have 5 acres, but according to the deed restrictions all I can do is look at it. No towers, no antennas, nothing. Since I spend most of my time here activating SOTA summits it's not that big of deal, however from time to time there is something I might miss because I have no HF capability, plus I like to chase SOTA peaks as well and I haven't been able to do that from here.

So with the help of Hector, XE2K, I am now able to work HF from here in a couple of ways. The first challenge was the antenna. While there is strict prohibitions against transmitting antennas, there is nothing prohibiting flagpoles. So I got permission to put up a flagpole. The flagpole I bought was from ZeroFive antennas. I bought the 20 ft. version. which is resonant on 20m with no tuning. I am using 16 43ft. radials However, I also put a SGC remote tuner at the base, which tunes all bands from 10m - 30m. Hector, who is very good at expanding the capabilities of any antenna, suggested we add a radiating wire to the mix. So we cut a 43 ft. piece of wire, attached it to the flag fastener and hoisted it to the top of the pole and tied off the end, in an inverted V configuration. the two antennas now are resonant, with the tuner, 10m - 80m. While it's not optimum, it is functional and now I'm on the air. In the photo below you can see the flagpole and the wire that makes 40m and 80m possible.


The next HF solution is to remote into my K3 at my home QTH in Texas. So I bought the K3/0 which is the remote radio device along with the RemoteRig interfaces. It is also now functional. So if I need a beam, I have access to that as well. So I am back in business on HF. Below is a look at the station. The K3/0 is on the left and an Icom 7200 on the right.

As I have blogged in past, I have a QTH in Santa Fe, NM. I have 5 acres, but according to the deed restrictions all I can do is look at it. No towers, no antennas, nothing. Since I spend most of my time here activating SOTA summits it's not that big of deal, however from time to time there is something I might miss because I have no HF capability, plus I like to chase SOTA peaks as well and I haven't been able to do that from here.

So with the help of Hector, XE2K, I am now able to work HF from here in a couple of ways. The first challenge was the antenna. While there is strict prohibitions against transmitting antennas, there is nothing prohibiting flagpoles. So I got permission to put up a flagpole. The flagpole I bought was from ZeroFive antennas. I bought the 20 ft. version. which is resonant on 20m with no tuning. I am using 16 43ft. radials However, I also put a SGC remote tuner at the base, which tunes all bands from 10m - 30m. Hector, who is very good at expanding the capabilities of any antenna, suggested we add a radiating wire to the mix. So we cut a 43 ft. piece of wire, attached it to the flag fastener and hoisted it to the top of the pole and tied off the end, in an inverted V configuration. the two antennas now are resonant, with the tuner, 10m - 80m. While it's not optimum, it is functional and now I'm on the air. In the photo below you can see the flagpole and the wire that makes 40m and 80m possible.


The next HF solution is to remote into my K3 at my home QTH in Texas. So I bought the K3/0 which is the remote radio device along with the RemoteRig interfaces. It is also now functional. So if I need a beam, I have access to that as well. So I am back in business on HF. Below is a look at the station. The K3/0 is on the left and an Icom 7200 on the right.

Today, March 8, 2015 at 1732z, I made my fourth QSO from Peak 9431, W5N/PW-019 with N4EX. That QSO qualified the activation and thus earned me my SOTA Mountain Goat award. After 2 years and 2 days my point total is now 1,007, hallelujah!!

Peak 9431 was also  the second activation I ever made and I activated it with Fred, KT5X and John K1JD, both of which were with me today. Also this was my first activation using snow shoes the entire way, which actually was sort of fun. I made 37 QSO's and had a nice run of Europeans on 15m. It was a great day. Below is a video and a couple of pictures of today's activation.