AmateurRadio.com

It has turned to rain for this Bank Holiday Monday, but the weather on Saturday and Sunday was glorious. Clear blue skies and a fresh breeze. Perfect days for walking. On Saturday I felt quite depressed thinking about what I might have been doing on such a day before I became ill with a brain tumour. So I determined on Sunday to try to reach a summit. There is really only one possibility from home without transport to get to the starting point: Watch Hill a mile or so to the east of Cockermouth.

G4ILO on LDO-100

Back in the ’90s when I lived on the east side of the town I regularly used to walk to this summit. It used to take me about half an hour of brisk walking from my front door to the lower of the two summits; forty-five minutes to reach the higher one known as Setmurthy. (Cockermouth locals also know it as The Hay.)

Today we live on the opposite side of Cockermouth which adds at least another mile through the centre of the town. I still was a regular visitor to the hill but having a car I could drive to a point on the farthest side where there was a lay-by and I could reach the top in just 15 minutes. So it was one of my favourite spots for portable operating.

Today my walking pace is somewhat slower than it used to be. It took us about two hours to reach the first summit, including a stop for coffee. I half expected that we would have to turn back before reaching the summit but the sight of it was just too tempting and that kept me going.

Given that I wasn’t certain I would even make it to the top I carried just a hand-held VHF rig, the Kenwood TH-D72. I intended that the walk would be tracked on APRS but for some reason only a small section was recorded. I carried a 5/8 wave telescopic antenna to improve the range on 2m but my first CQ calls didn’t raise anybody.

The Kenwood is rather a complicated radio and it is too easy to turn a knob or press a button accidentally. I also need reading glasses to read the display and see what buttons I am pressing. Some setting had been disturbed and I had managed to get the ‘B’ side of the radio, used for APRS, switched to 70cm. With Olga’s help reading the display I was able to get the radio set up as it should be and I made two QSOs to activate this summit which is LDO-100 in Wainwright’s Outlying Fells.

Returning home it was downhill all the way to the town centre. It should have been easy but I my legs were tired. I think I’d overdone it! There was still a climb back up to reach home so we finished the journey in a taxi!

I’m still a long way from back to normal. I doubt that I’ll ever get back to how I used to be for reasons I’ll enumerate in the other blog. But for now I feel that a milestone has been passed and I’m happy with what I managed to do today. If only I could get my driving licence back I would be able to reach many other easy summits.

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].

“The Wilderness Protocol” (ref. June 1996 QST, page 85), recommends that stations (fixed, portable or mobile) monitor the primary (and secondary if possible) frequency(s) every three hours starting at 7 AM local time, for five minutes (7:00-7:05 AM, 10:00-10:05 AM, etc.)  Additionally, stations that have sufficient power resources should monitor for five minutes starting at the top of every hour, or even continuously.” The primary frequency is the National Simplex Calling Frequency…146.52 MHz. The secondary frequencies are 446.0, 223.5, 52.525 and 1294.5 MHz.

Here in Colorado, the summer months mean that many people head for the mountains. Mobile phone coverage has improved in many parts of the high country but is still not reliable in all areas. Amateur radio VHF/UHF repeater coverage is extensive but also does not cover the entire state.

The Wilderness Protocol is a good idea but is overly complex for practical use. Here’s my proposal to make it much simpler for practical backcountry use:

Principle #1: Don’t ever rely on a radio or mobile phone to get you out of trouble in the backcountry. Your primary strategy must be self-sufficiency. Avoid trouble. Be prepared for the unexpected.

Principle #2: Know what repeaters are available in your area. We have many wide coverage repeaters available but you need to know the frequency, offset and CTCSS tone (if any). The Colorado Connection is a linked repeater system that covers  many remote parts of the state.

Principle #3: In remote areas, monitor 146.52 MHz as much as possible. This applies to backcountry travelers, mobile stations and fixed stations.

I’ve been making it a habit to monitor 146.52 MHz in the backcountry. I often come across hikers, campers, fisherman, 4WD enthusiasts, SOTA stations, mobile operators and others monitoring that frequency.  It is fun to chat with other radio amateurs having fun in the mountains.

Just my opinion.
73, Bob K0NR

Note: This is a repost of an older article with minor edits.

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

This weekend is Memorial Day weekend in the United States. Originally the day was known as “Decoration Day”, when families would decorate the graves of their husbands, fathers, uncles, sons, brothers and nephews who died in battle.

Today the holiday weekend has become known as the “unofficial start of summer”, and like everything else has taken on more of a secular connotation.  Please take time from your busy weekend, in the midst of your cookout, party, ballgame, travel, or whatever to say a prayer and remember all those who made “the ultimate sacrifice”.

Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Most of the time during these full weekend contests I don't get on Friday evening as I find it to be a ZOO with lots of stations sending at a blinding speeds. I don't blame them as they want to get their score rolling so that on Saturday they are well in the game. I started on Saturday morning around 8 in the morning the power output is 5 watts QRP into my attic dipole. It's funny I was sending serial numbers in the teens and I am receiving serial numbers the the triple digits. Now that would be depressing if I was in the contest to make a showing...but I'm in it to have fun!! So how did the first day go......

1. The propagation was.....shall we say (because this is a family blog) crap!! 
2. I was in the contest for a grand total of 5 hours today. 
3. There was some down time as you can tell from fact number 2...software troubles, USB port trouble and K3 updates and the list can go on.  (This is normal contest OMG stuff)
4. The attic dipole once again did very well considering the conditions.
5. The evening once 20m closes down I am done as with the poor conditions for some reason 40m has not been a great band for me with the attic dipole. 

Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

The regular bands were wall to wall WPX tonight.  I tried calling “CQ QRP” for a long time, near both the 20 and 40 Meter QRP watering holes (I even went up to the 7.122 MHz neighborhood for a bit), but netted no QRP sprinters. I just did not feel like taking part in WPX, so I migrated on over to 30 Meters.

Once there, I heard K9DTH, Ron in IL calling “CQ DE K9DTH QRP” near 10.106 MHz. I put out my call and Ron came back to me for what was the beginning of a really enjoyable QSO.

It turns out that Ron was using a K1 that he just got yesterday. 5 Watts to an off center fed dipole garnered Ron a 579 report from me. I received a 599 report in return.

The weather by Ron seemed to be about the same that was here – cloudy and cool. Not exactly the kind of weather you’d expect for the weekend touted as “the unofficial start of summer”. The high for the day here was 57F and there were on and off spritzes of rain all day.

Hopefully the weather will improve over the next few days.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

There are numerous awards available in the Summits on the Air (SOTA) program. There are awards for activators and chasers alike, and just about any way you want to slice and dice the data, there is probably an award for it. There are certificates and trophies and you can pick the increments (in steps of 100) on the certificates. There are however two benchmark awards, the SOTA Sloth Award for working summits totalling 1,000 points and the SOTA Goat award for activating summits totalling 1,000 points. The "Goat" is obviously much tougher but both qualify you for a very nice glass trophy depicted below.

Today I qualified for the SOTA Sloth award, working W6UB on 40m from Black Balsam Knob in North Carolina to put me over the 1,000 point level. It has been a lot of fun to get to this point and honestly the program is quite addicting. A synonym for the award is SOTAholic, which is very appropriate. Since peaks can be worked once each day for points there is no worrying if you need it or not and you always have something to work.

The SOTA community are usually well versed not only in QRP operation, but also in hiking and backpacking. There is a Yahoo group (nasota) that has many knowledgeable members on the best way to get to the top of the mountain and put out a good signal. So if you are inclined toward such things, you would enjoy the program.

So I suppose my slothfulness has be officially certified and I can no longer deny it. I can't wait go get the award.

More information on SOTA can be found at http://www.sota.org.uk/



Mike Crownover, AD5A, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Texas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

When I first got the G4ZLP interface, I bought leads to connect both the FT847 and the FT1000MP to the computer. I hadn’t really got the FT1000MP connected up, and had used the FT847 for pretty much all my digimodes activity on both HF and VHF.

Given that the receiver on the FT1000MP is a bit nicer, particularly on LF, this seemed a bit of a waste, and particularly now the Es season is upon us, the FT847 is pretty much continuously busy on 50 and 70MHz. That meant no JT9 on HF.

So yesterday, I hooked up the FT1000MP. No problem at all with the interface. However, I did notice that I needed to crank the input volume control on the computer much further up. Not a problem on WSJT-X but actually on JT65-HF there was barely enough audio output for proper decoding.

Reading around the net, it seems that a number of people have found the Audio Out jack to be quite low level on the MP. Obviously, there are options – the speaker socket would offer more audio – but at the expense of losing the ability to listen. Or even a small audio amp to increase the audio level a bit.

Either way, it is working now and it’s nice to be able to play JT9 on HF and keep an eye on 50/70MHz simultaneously.

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].