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With the Es season just a distant memory, I’ve moved the 70MHz antenna from the FT847 onto the 70MHz FM rig, which is a converted Philips FM1000 PMR set. It seems to be working, though there are no QSOs to report just yet. I can hear the MB7UW packet node on 70.4875 some miles away and the GB3RAL beacon on 70.050 is loud! Test transmissions from the Wouxun handheld within the shack are loud too. So, hopefully there will be a QSO before long.

There’s a net in Swindon on a Friday night now, 2000z, run by John, G4SRE – starting off on 70.450 and moving to 70.475 – so should be able to work some of those guys, and there’s also some activity from Reading on, I think, a Tuesday night.

Series Three Episode Twenty-Five of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast. News Stories include:

• Celebrating Chilean mine rescue
• FASTRAC sats to be open to all Radio Amateurs 
• W8ROG named Knight of the Legion of Honour 
• RAC Volunteers honoured 
• Network and RSGB announce new agreement 
• MMANA-GAL Yagi designs 
• Amateur Radio repeaters linked - FSTV beacon returns
• Baird's TV book to be auctioned 
• MB7IWR gets antenna upgrade 
• Smart Meters - WPC modem uses 2-4 MHz
• Foundation success in North Wales 
• Ofcom act against pirate
• Lancashire radio repeater to close down
• WIA Centenary 

Your feedback, upcoming events and Martin (M1MRB) reviews Radio Books for Christmas.

Series Three Episode Twenty-Five of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast. News Stories include:

• Celebrating Chilean mine rescue
• FASTRAC sats to be open to all Radio Amateurs 
• W8ROG named Knight of the Legion of Honour 
• RAC Volunteers honoured 
• Network and RSGB announce new agreement 
• MMANA-GAL Yagi designs 
• Amateur Radio repeaters linked - FSTV beacon returns
• Baird's TV book to be auctioned 
• MB7IWR gets antenna upgrade 
• Smart Meters - WPC modem uses 2-4 MHz
• Foundation success in North Wales 
• Ofcom act against pirate
• Lancashire radio repeater to close down
• WIA Centenary 

Your feedback, upcoming events and Martin (M1MRB) reviews Radio Books for Christmas.

As 2010 comes down the final stretch, I’ve been reflecting on the past year and thinking about 2011.  This year I didn’t do as much operating as past years and I continue to struggle with keeping my interest going.  I don’t think I had a casual CW QSO all year and I haven’t homebrewed a thing.  I’m not sure why, but homebrewing just doesn’t hold the fascination it once did and it seems tedious.  But on the positive side, 6 meters was fun this year during the sporadic E season, despite a rather abrupt ending in August.  The Pennsylvania QSO Party was a blast as usual and I finally made a sweep of all 67 counties which was a new accomplishment.  I participated in the best Field Day I’ve been involved in for several years and was pleased to operate with some folks I hadn’t seen for awhile.  So perhaps while there may have been less quantity, 2010 was likely the year of higher quality.

Looking forward I’ve decided that a new activity and focus in 2011 is going to be activating summits in the Summits On the Air (SOTA) program.  Most areas of the world have SOTA associations that designate the official summits with an identification number.  You can both collect and activate summits and receive awards for both.  My interest is mainly in activating summits.  

SOTA appeals to me for several reasons.  I’ve always been interested in operating in remote and often desolate locations.  There’s some satisfaction in being far away from civilization and establishing communications with a minimal amount of equipment.  I love to combine hiking and amateur radio.  Operating from the trail gives me yet another reason to hike and gives me goals to pursue.

I’ve also had a desire for some time to go on a DXpedition, like somewhere around Antarctica.  I have just about all of the James Brooks 9V1YC DXpedition videos which have stirred up my desire for adventure.  Unfortunately I don’t have six or eight weeks for a vacation at this point in my life nor I do I have the requisite $30K to $40K needed for a trip like this.  But I can dream.  While SOTA summits aren’t like Heard Island or Bouvet, I can make my own little DXpedition adventure.

I haven’t activated a summit yet, but I’ve heard that activations can amass sizable pileups as many people are hunting for SOTA summits, especially in Europe where the program originated and it appears to be quite popular and growing.  It seems SOTA is just getting geared up here in the States, with four callsign area associations established just this past year and two others established in 2009.

Earlier in the week, I noticed from Alan, VA3STL’s blog that the proceedings of the Ottawa D-STAR symposium were on-line.

Alsn did a nice write up on his blog and it’s great to see that the slides from many of the presentations are online too.

I’ve not really had a chance to look at the presentations fully yet, but at a first glance they look great – I’ve learned plenty in the few slides I’ve looked at so far.

Thanks to Alan, VA3STL and also to the Ottawa Amateur Radio D-STAR group for this interesting resource.

For me, and I’m sure I’ve said this before, one of the fascinations of radio is how how signals travel from one place to another; how signals can be strong one day and almost inaudible another. I find this true at both VHF and HF.

One of the pleasures I find on HF is to listen to a band that you think should be closed and see what’s coming through. That’s what happened the other night. I’d had a quick spin around 28MHz which wasn’t doing anything at all (it was well after sunset) so I went down onto the bottom end of 14MHz.

The band was pretty quiet – but the great thing was that the only signals coming through were from several thousand miles away. First heard was a chirpy weak one, which turned out to be from Honduras, working into the USA. I listened to him for a while and tuned up and down the band a bit, only to find a Venezuelan station at good strength. He was also working into the USA.

Though I didn’t get a chance to call, I’ll bet a contact would have been possible and it’s often fun to surprise people with a call from far away.

Even when you think the band is closed – have a listen!

This is PROBABLY the only time you’ll see QSL cards mentioned on this blog. It’s really not my thing. BUT, I know it’s important to a lot of radio amateurs and, as long as you don’t force me to send bits of cardboard around the globe, then that’s ok with me….

Over at amateurRadio.com where Matt, W1MST kindly syndicates my blog, you can win 1000 QSL cards from KB3IFH QSL cards. The cards look great!

So, why not enter the competition and try and win the QSLs? If you do, and you’ve worked me, you don’t need to send me one, though. Thanks all the same. Good luck!