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To say I’m hooked on SOTA might be an understatement.  My second SOTA activation was completed on 27 November, just eight days after my first.  Yes, I’m hooked. 

As mentioned in recent blog updates, I had ordered a few items from Buddipole which didn’t arrive in time for my first activation of Mt. Herman (W0/FR-063).  Let me be clear that this was no fault of Buddipole.  I just simply didn’t order the items early enough for them to arrive in time. 

So with my new items including the Buddipole shockcord whip, the Buddipole A123 nanophosphate battery pack and the Buddipole mini-coil and the lessons learned from activation #1, I set out for Green Mountain.  Before I continue any further.  I just want to say that of the list of things I just identified.  The “lessons learned” were truly the most important.  But new toys are always fun to have and certainly fun to play with.

As I mentioned in my activation alert blog post I chose Green Mountain due to its proximity to my home QTH and very honestly its relatively easy climb.  The elevation gain is approx. 1000’ over about 1.9 miles.  I was still a little sore from the Mt. Herman trip the weekend before, but couldn’t pass up the great weather which was forecasted for the area.   Plus I had some turkey and dressing to work off. 

I arrived at the Green Mountain trailhead just before 8 AM (1500z).  This would allow me plenty of time to hike to the summit and get everything setup to start calling CQ at 1700z.  There are several trails leading to the top of Green Mountain.  I had my APRS beacon on and this is how my trek looked as I hiked to the top.

The Green Mountain trail is a well maintained and an easy to follow trail.  As a matter of fact, if you live in the Greater Denver area, I would highly recommend Green Mountain as a good starter SOTA summit.   It’s close to Denver and the metro area and like I said it is both an easy trail to follow and not difficult either.   As I stated previously, there are several trails that make up the Green Mountain Park area.  All are clearly marked as shown to the right.

Like many of the foothills that dot the landscape around the Denver metro area, Green Mountain does have a transmitter site and tower.  The transmitter site and tower is not the summit.  But as I approached the trail that passes near the site, I saw what I thought was a little boy or girl sitting on a rock.  It was still early and there was no one else around.  This little boy or girl continued to just sit there on the rock.  I began looking around to see if anyone else was around and once I got within about 25 yards I realized was just a rock with a pipe sticking out.  Other hikers had placed a sweater, scarf, gloves and a cap.  It sure fooled me.

I made it to the summit from the trailhead in just a little over 45 minutes and began setting up the Buddipole Versatee vertical.  I used an older hiking staff which has a removable knob handle.  Under this knob is a 1/4 stud for mounting a camera.  Buddipole provides a machined brass connector which is 1/4” threads inside, with 5/8” threads outside.  This allows you to stand the Buddipole Versatee on one end and easily connect it to the monopod or hiking staff.  I then guyed it from just below the Versatee and used large rocks to secure it all in place.  If you remember from my first activation, the wind really caused problems with the way I setup the vertical.  Thanks to Steve wG0AT for this idea.

If you’re not familiar with the Buddipole versatee vertical setup, all it consists of is the Buddipole versatee adapter, Buddipole coil and either the arms and whip from the dipole kit or the new Buddipole shockcord whip.  I’m using the mini-coil and the shockcord whip.  The final important element to the vertical setup is a single, elevated wire counterpoise.  Buddipole sells an inexpensive lightweight counterpoise kit that works great.  One end of the wire counterpoise attaches to the versatee adapter and the other I keep elevated off the ground with my other hiking pole. 

The other main addition to my SOTA setup is the fantastic Buddipole A123 nanophosphate battery packs.  I decided to go large and I purchased the largest pack they offer.  This is the 4S4P and is rated at 13.2 volts/9.2Ah and weighs just over 3 lbs.  The SLA I packed up to Mt. Herman weighed over 5.5 lbs and was only 7.5Ah.  This little battery pack is truly amazing and I’m 100% comfortable with the investment I made.

Weather conditions were early fall like.  When I left home the temperature was around 30 F and just in the short 30 minute drive, the temperature at the trailhead was around 38 F.  The sun was shining bright and summit temperatures during my two hour stay were in the 50’s with a very light breeze.

But how did it all perform?  Well…I began calling CQ at just before 1700z and logged my first contact on 20m at 16:58z.  I worked 21 contacts on 20m (including a summit to summit contact with wG0AT) and finished up with another 18 QSO’s on 17m for a total of 49 QSO’s in just under two hours.  While band conditions weren’t as good as last weekend, I still had a lot of fun and truly look forward to activation number three.

Speaking of my next activation.  It may actually be a few weeks (or longer) before I have the opportunity to do another SOTA activation.  My wife and I are planning to travel to Texas in about 10 days and then the Christmas holidays are just around the corner.   Also, winter weather will surely arrive at some point and bring snow covered trails and much, much colder temperatures.  I’ve said several times that I don’t consider myself to only be a fair weather SOTA activator, but I also like playing it safe. 

Regarding my possible next activation.  The Colorado Front Range weather can be cold and snowy one day and a few days later all visible signs of snow have melted away.  With that said, there are dozens of SOTA summits just in my backyard ranging in elevation from 6,800 – 9,500 feet with good, solid trails.  I plan to just start at the bottom of the list and work my way up (at least during winter).  This is sure to keep me busy for a while. 

Until next time….

73 de KD0BIK (Jerry)

Tonight I made my first digital-mode contact! Using PSK-31, I worked special event station VE3FRST (“UN International Year of Forests”) on 40 meters. Michael, VE3NOO, kindly emailed me this screenshot of the moment:

A few things had me fumbling around, but over the next few contacts I started to get the hang of it. After VE3FRST I went on to work another station in Ontario, one in Alabama, and one in France with PSK-31 before retreating to my key and working Costa Rica with CW.

I highly recommend the DigiMaster PRO PLUS! It comes with a USB soundcard and was very easy to hook up and get going with Ham Radio Deluxe/Digital Master 780. It performs both as a CAT interface and as a data interface, and works great.

I learned the hard way that not all CAT cables are worth buying. Buy cheap, and you’ll buy twice like I did. My first one was a cheap cable from “affordableradio” on ebay. It uses the Prolific chipset for the serial-to-USB interface. Stay away from Prolific! The only thing prolific about it was the prolific number of spontaneous disconnections and “Blue Screen of Death” crashes. I tried everything — every driver I could get my hands on, I/O buffer adjustments, etc. but it was junk. I couldn’t bring myself to sell it to another ham, so I returned it. No refund yet, but here’s hoping.

K3NG reposted one of his classic articles Things I Wish I Knew When I Was A Young Radio Artisan. Here’s a few items from the list:

With antennas, it’s not about the feet and inches (or meters), think in terms of wavelength.

Don’t worry about the orientation of a dipole when it’s less than a half wavelength above ground.

When the bands are open any goofy antenna will make contacts. People will think this makes a goofy little antenna a good antenna. Not so.

I don’t agree with everything on the list but it is still worth reading.

73, Bob K0NR

Welcome to Handiham World.

Early Winter Reading: Becoming a Ham (Part 10)

Becoming a Ham – Part 10
By T. A. Benham (SK – formerly W3DD, a callsign which has been reassigned.)
Tom Benham, now a silent key but who most recently held callsign W3DD, was a ham radio pioneer, and being blind didn’t even slow him down! Join us now as W3DD recalls more about satellites in the early days.
The Trailer
During April of ’59, the students and I heard of an offer from the Government. If we went to Indian Gap, near Harrisburg, we might be able to pick up some surplus equipment. Two boys and I went and we found a fully equipped trailer that was designed for tracking aircraft. It had a parabolic six-foot dish on top that was driven by a sophisticated system from inside. The trailer was 20 feet long and about 8 feet wide. We could have it for the price of getting it hauled to Haverford, which turned out to be $200. The college comptroller authorized the expense and the trailer was parked in a little lot behind the Physics building. With the help of several students, chief among them Amateur Ridgley Bolgiano, the trailer was converted into a satellite tracking station. The 6-foot dish was too small, so we set about finding a larger one. I had heard that ITT, in Nutley NJ, might be interested in giving a hand, so three of us went to visit. We were received most cordially and I asked my contact if they had any parabolic dishes that were due to be scrapped. He paused a minute, looked out the window, picked up the phone and called the Disposal Department. “Hey Jim, you know that 12-foot dish outside my window? Well, it looks like hell, cluttering up the lawn. Please send it to Haverford College, attention T. A. Benham and get rid of the unsightly thing.” That was more than we could have hoped for, but it wasn’t all. He next called his wife. “Dear, I have three very interesting fellows in my office and I want to bring them home to dinner so you can meet them.” We went to his house, had a very nice lobster dinner and a pleasant visit. In a week or so, an ITT truck appeared with the dish. The boys and I got it put together and mounted on top of the trailer. Then Ken from Gerald Electronics came out and helped get the equipment inside the trailer in good operating condition. Since it was intended to track planes, it was nowhere near ready for satellites. When the trailer was ready to be installed in a location suitable for tracking, it was moved to the middle of a large field about a quarter-mile behind the Physics building. We drove two stakes into the ground and strung a string between them to provide an exact north-south line so the tractor driver could point the trailer as nearly north as could be arranged. He had to maneuver the trailer several times to get it lined up to our satisfaction. We had built a heavy platform for it to rest on so it wouldn’t settle in the ground and perhaps alter its position. It was very interesting and exciting. We had electric, telephone and teletype lines buried from the nearest pole, which was about 300 feet away. One of the interested boys paid the monthly charges for the phone, another paid for the teletype, I paid the electric.
Linkup with NASA
Now we became a significant link in the NASA tracking chain, at least until they got their multimillion dollar system going. Ridgley built a remote control system so we could turn on functions in the trailer from anywhere. For example, I was coming home from Washington one evening and knew we had to track something about midnight. We stopped in Baltimore and by telephone I turned on the heat, and the receivers to give them time to stabilize. At that time it was illegal to use phone lines for private purposes, but we dodged the rules. One afternoon, there was a knock on my office door and a man entered saying, “I’m from the FCC. I have a complaint from the telephone company that you are running equipment by remote control through their lines.” “No, we’re not connected to their lines and are not violating the regulations,” I replied. “Well then, why have they complained?” I explained that we had mounted a coil on the wall under the wall phone in the trailer. When the phone rang, a voltage was induced in the coil which we used to control relays, timers, etc. He wanted to see, so I took him to the trailer and showed him. He was amazed and left saying “I guess we can’t stop you from that!” “No,” I agreed. “We do all this without removing the phone from the hook, so there is no way the phone company could know we’re doing it. If they allowed us to use the line, they could charge and it would be much easier for us to accomplish the task.” I never found out who complained to Ma Bell. Now days it would be no problem. Back in 1936 when I operated my transmitter from the College I had a dedicated line for which I paid, but it allowed control from only one location. The conditions under which this remote system were built had an interesting quirk. Ridgley was driving back to College from his home in Baltimore. Somewhere along the rather poorly lit route 926, he dozed a little and ran full tilt into the rear of a parked truck. Both of his knees were smashed. He spent many weeks in Bryn Mawr Hospital while they were mending. It was during this time that he and I designed the system, on the phone and in person. Then we got tools and parts together and took them to him. He mounted and wired all of the components on a piece of Plexiglas® measuring about two feet square. It was a beautiful piece of work and functioned like a charm. I was heart broken when it was destroyed in a fire! The operating code was simple. Call the number and let it ring once, then hang up. Within a minute, call and let it ring twice. This set two timers running. Then call again and let it ring three times to turn on the heat, or four times to turn on a receiver, etc. Timing was important. To turn things off, let the bell ring four times the second call instead of three and this would set things up for being turned off. 
To be continued…

My latest antenna project turned out very well. I took it to the beach for an on the air test this afternoon. This magnetic loop antenna tunes from 40 meters through 15 meters. In my haste to get to the beach, I forgot my antenna analyzer. After setting up the Mag Loop, I turned on the radio, turned the volume up full blast, and tuned the antenna for the loudest noise. Bingo!!

I was on the air. It couldn’t have been simpler.

The antenna is made from 3/8 inch copper tubing, 1 1/2 inch PVC pipe and a few odds and ends from Radio Shack. The heart of the antenna is an air variable tuning capacitor, 11 to 300 Pfd. The large loop, (the main loop) is fed with a half Faraday feed loop. All the information for building this antenna is readily available on line and partially from the ARRL antenna hand book.

Good links for Magnetic Loop builders: http://aa5tb.com/index.html,

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CW-QRP-HOMEBREWERS/,

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MagneticLoopAntenna/messages

http://www.alexloop.com/

My next Mag Loop will be 5.5 feet in diameter and made from 5/8 inch copper tubing. More on this as it develops!! There was an unexpected bonus in the speed and ease of setting up an antenna for portable use. I was on the air in minutes after getting out of the truck.

Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in building one of this fantastic antennas. The antenna has a very high Q so it has a steep tuning notch.

If you use a Faraday loop to feed it, it will be very directional. You can also use a Gama match instead of the feed loop, to feed the antenna. How did it work? I made a very nice contact on 15 meter CW with a ham in Milwaukee this afternoon. Not bad for 5 watts, an small antenna for a contact from Florida. The QSO ended with air boat QRN! The air boat passed by close to shore and I was on the water’s edge about 100 feet away. Next time I’ll bring the Bose noise cancelling headphones!!

De AA1IK

Ernest Gregoire

Geezer in the park

Mt. Herman is in the books as my first SOTA (Summits On The Air) activation.  I’ll get to all the particulars in just a minute.  First, I want to thank a few individuals who truly made a difference in helping me make this activation a success.

Steve Galchutt, wG0AT.  If you’re the least bit interested in SOTA and/or any type of portable operations, you’re probably already familiar with his YouTube videos.  If not, please take a look.  Steve answered my many questions about the SOTA program and activating Mt. Herman.   Thanks Steve.

Budd Drummond, W3FF.  Budd is the Budd in Buddipole.  Without his fantastic products, all I’ll describe later would not be possible.  In addition, Budd helped spot me and cheered me on as the pileup started.  I was told he would probably show up and help stir up contacts for QRP stations.  Show up he did.  Thanks Budd.

As I described in my activation alert and the update released a few days later.  I’ve done backcountry hiking, backpacking, camping and have climbed a few 14’ers here in Colorado.  I’ve also operated portable HF before but have never combined the two in any way before today.  I had some (OK…a lot) of concerns and probably over prepared for this and also brought along a lot more gear than I truly needed.  More about this in a minute.

A major concern I had going into this activation centered around powering my station.  I have been researching the Buddipole nanophosphate A123 battery packs and decided to bite the bullet and purchase one.  Unfortunately, it didn’t arrive in time (no fault of Buddipole Company) and I had to go to “Plan B”.  This “Plan B” ended up being my old stand by which is a sealed lead acid 7.5 Ah battery weighing in around 6 lbs.  The battery is a couple of years old but I’ve maintained it the best I could.  I tested it prior to the trip by running the FT-817 on WSPR.  My station transmitted every 6 minutes or so for a transmit duration of almost 2 minutes each cycle.  It powered the 817 in this condition for nearly 3 hours before beginning to fall off.   

As a precaution I carried along a rollup solar panel which I’ve had a few years.  I was concerned  the battery wouldn’t hold out and figured if it was a sunny day, the solar panel would help supplement the battery.  The solar panel and solar charge controller weighs in about 2 lbs. 

My antenna setup for this activation was probably the one area I felt fairly confident with.  I’ve owned my Buddipole for several years and have used it in portable operations and even set it up at home a few times.  I’ve used it in the dipole configuration as well as vertical.  The Buddipole setup is a highly versatile system and of course very portable. 

For portability I went with the vertical versatee setup.  Which consists of a mast, the buddipole versatee adapter, coil, two mast sections and standard whip with one wire counterpoise.   The challenge I experienced was with the mast.  I had also ordered the new Buddipole shock cord mast and like the battery it didn’t arrive in time.  I wasn’t looking forward to carrying the extended mast I have for the buddipole tripod.  With the help of Steve, wG0AT he shared with me some pictures of using a hiking pole to support the vertical.   This will work….but did it really?

I think I finally fell asleep on Friday night just before midnight.  I was excited and I was mentally going through my pack (which I had packed a few hours before).  I finally convinced myself I had everything and fell asleep.  I was awake before my alarm sounded at 5 AM.  The plan was to have breakfast somewhere between Denver and Monument, Colorado and arrive at the trailhead by 8 AM local time (1500z).  This would allow me two hours to make it to the summit of Mt. Herman and setup to start calling CQ around 10 AM local (1700z).

I arrived at the Mt. Herman trailhead right on schedule and began the hike.  I’ll admit I’m not in shape…..far from it.  But I allowed enough time to do 1 mile hike (about 1000’ of elevation gain) and was on the summit with about 45 minutes to spare.  I started setting up the antenna first.  The wind was rough…really rough on the summit.  While I setup guy ropes, the wind was really punishing my antenna. 

As I previously stated, I was planning to lash the versatee to one of my hiking poles.  I brought along about a half dozen tie-wraps or zip ties.  I use these things all around the house and office.  I’ve always considered them the next best thing to duct-tape and bailing wire.  I’ve never had a tie-wrap break on me and figured this would be a better solution to bungee cords.  Unfortunately within 15 minutes the first two zip ties had been broken and the antenna crashed to the ground.  I had four more and decided to go for broke and use all four.  Success???

I had watched several of the Buddipole Youtube videos on setting up the versatee vertical.  The recommended setup was two antenna accessory arms, red coil: tap 5, standard 5.5 foot whip with all 6 extensions out.  The counterpoise 14.25 feet.  I managed to fight the wind, the vertical was standing straight and I quickly checked using my iP-30 antenna analyzer.  Just a few tweaks to the counterpoise and I had an SWR reading of 1.5.  This was good enough for me.

I quickly got my Yaesu FT-817ND setup and was in business.  I dialed up the HF Pack 17m frequency of 18.157.50, listened for a few minutes (heard nothing) then asked if the frequency was in use (heard nothing) asked again and after hearing nothing I began calling CQ.  At 17:15z the first station answering my CQ was just a few miles below me down in the town of Monument, Colorado.  wG0AT had been listening for me. Steve posted my callsign on the SOTAWatch website which alerted  all the other SOTA Chasers to my activation.  Let the fun begin.

The pileup was simply amazing and contacts flew into my paper logbook (just a Rite in the Rain journal).  From 17:15z through 17:49z I worked 28 stations consisting of 22 US, 2 Canada, 2 Germany, 1 Spain and 1 Czech Republic.  All on 5w.  I truly didn’t count on working DX and certainly didn’t count on adding to my DXCC count.  But the Czech Republic was a new DX entity for me and I’m truly pleased to have worked  him.  Thanks again to Steve, wG0AT who sent me the picture below showing my APRS route up to the summit and three of the DX stations QSL cards.

My plan was to spend about an hour working 17 meters and then try 12 meters.  However, just after wrapping up with W7RJC at 17:49z the vertical came crashing down to the ground.   The temperature on the summit was below freezing and I guess that made the plastic zip ties brittle and they just couldn’t handle what mother nature was dishing out.  I was out of options and decided to pack up. 

Besides the high wind, I could not have asked for a better day for my first SOTA activation.  The picture (below) was taken with my iPhone and shows the view from the summit towards the northeast.  Once I got everything packed away I took some time to enjoy a sandwich my wonderful wife made for me the night before and take in the beautiful sights around me. 

Just before strapping the pack on for the descent back to the car I took this photo (below) to capture just how pleased I was with the events of the day.  I had finally combined a couple of my favorite hobbies together into one activity and can honestly say, I can’t wait for the next SOTA activation.

This experience has helped me to also better understand I need to do more to get back in better physical shape.  As I’ve always said, amateur radio is different things to different people.  The best part about the SOTA program is it can be enjoyed both from a mountain top or from the comfort of your ham shack.  I’ve done both and will continue to chase and activate every chance I get.  I hope you’ll join me.

Until next time….

73 de KD0BIK

If you’re just getting started with CW, you need to know that learning Morse Code is only part of the puzzle. You’ll also need to learn basic CW Operating Procedures, and you’ll need to know some commonly used abbreviations, too. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to print out something like this and keep it near your key until sending and receiving these are second-nature: