Judy and I went to the beach today. Holy cow! It was so perfect… 85F and sunny. The propagation was pretty good too. I worked Colombia, a bunch of the 13 Colonies Special Event stations and had a great QSO with Jim N3JT.

While Judy was swimming, I set up at a bench overlooking Rye Harbor. I used the KX3 and a 33 foot mast with a half wave wire, strapped to the bench.

I used a 9:1 unun between the rig and the wire. It tuned perfectly
on both 20 and 40 meters.

Right away after tuning up on 20 meters, I heard Frank HK1/DL5PV calling CQ. I was surprised that he was so strong. We completed the exchange easily. Then I worked five of the 13 Colonies stations. They were all very strong and I received quick replies.

From the bench I could gaze out at the expanse of the ocean beyond the harbor entrance. In the foreground was a hedge of wild roses (Rosa Rugosa).

The fragrance of the roses enveloped the whole area.

I operated about a half an hour. Here’s my log:

2 Jul-19 1940 14.008 HK1/DL5PV CW 599 599 Colombia
2 Jul-19 1944 14.039 K2L CW 599 599 SC
2 Jul-19 1952 14.023 K2B CW 599 599 VA
2 Jul-19 1958 7028 K2M CW 599 599 PA
2 Jul-19 2000 7034 K2H CW 599 599 MA
2 Jul-19 2010 14.031 K2F CW 599 599 MD
2 Jul-19 2011 14.028 N3JT CW 599 599 VA

Certainly the most fun QSO was the last. Jim N3JT was operating from Virginia with 15W. We had a great path. At one point Jim turned on the amp and ran a KW. His signal jumped several S units. But it still sounded great when he returned to low power. After a few minutes the QSB hit us and we signed.

While I was still at the beach, I received a nice email from Jim.

“Fun QSO for as long as it lasted, Jim! You were honestly S9 at the very beginning, then settled to about S7. But at the end your signal went into the noise.”

No matter. It was a perfect day for an adventure at the beach…. and a perfect spot to play radio for a while.

Jim Cluett, W1PID, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Hampshire, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Judy and I rode our bikes down to the Pemi today. It was an incredible summer day… perfect. I operated the Canada Day contest and made a dozen nice QSOs including Panama.

We headed north along the old road and stopped at a bend in the river about a mile upstream. A nice breeze kept the mosquitoes at bay. The edge of the road was strewn with wildflowers. Here’s a yarrow plant that grew next to me as I operated.

The river was unusually full from recent rains.

I tossed a 30 foot wire over a pine branch and sat down at the edge of the road. I set up the KX3 and operated exclusively on 20 meters.

The band was surprisingly good given the recent conditions. There was a lot of activity in the Canada Day contest. Here’s my log. I only operated for 15 minutes:

1 Jul-19 2042 14.019 VE1AYY CW 599 599 NS
1 Jul-19 2044 14.024 W7F CW 599 599 AZ
1 Jul-19 0247 14.029 VE3CX CW 599 599 Ont
1 Jul-19 2048 14.037 K8JQ CW 599 599 WV
1 Jul-19 2050 14.038 N8AA CW 599 599 OH
1 Jul-19 2051 14.041 W4PM CW 599 599 VA
1 Jul-19 2052 14.049 WA0MHJ CW 599 599 MN
1 Jul-19 2054 14.043 K2J CW 599 599 NC
1 Jul-19 2055 14.034 VE5MX CW 599 599 SK
1 Jul-19 2057 14.021 K3KU CW 599 599 MD
1 Jul-19 2058 14.014 HP3SS W 599 599 Panama

K2J wasn’t in the contest. This is a designated station in the 13 colonies event.

It’s hard to believe it’s already July. Tomorrow Judy and I are heading to the seashore. I’ll bring the rig.

Jim Cluett, W1PID, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Hampshire, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Here is this week’s space weather and geophysical report, issued 2019 Jul 01 0141 UTC.

Highlights of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 24 – 30 June 2019

Solar activity was at very low levels. Regions 2742 (N04, L=092, class/area Axx/010 on 24 Jun) and 2743 (N03, L=111. class/area Axx/010 on 24 Jun) were quiet and stable. No Earth-directed CMEs were observed in available imagery.

No proton events were observed at geosynchronous orbit.

The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit was at normal levels.

Geomagnetic field activity was at quiet levels with an isolated unsettled period observed early on 30 Jun. Solar wind parameters were at mostly nominal levels throughout the period. A peak wind speed of 418 km/s was observed at 26/1805 UTC. Bt and Bz parameters were at mostly nominal levels.

Forecast of Solar and Geomagnetic Activity 01 July – 27 July 2019

Solar activity is expected to be at very low levels throughout the outlook period.

No proton events are expected at geosynchronous orbit.

The greater than 2 MeV electron flux at geosynchronous orbit is expected to be at normal to isolated moderate levels throughout the period.

Geomagnetic field activity is expected to reach isolated unsettled levels on 06 Jul and 10-11 Jul due to recurrent CH HSS influence. Mostly quiet conditions are expected for the remainder of the outlook period.

Don’t forget to visit our live space weather and radio propagation web site, at: http://SunSpotWatch.com/

Live Aurora mapping is at http://aurora.sunspotwatch.com/

If you are on Twitter, please follow these two users: 1. https://Twitter.com/NW7US 2. https://Twitter.com/hfradiospacewx

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Be sure to subscribe to our space weather and propagation email group, on Groups.io

https://groups.io/g/propagation-and-space-weather

Spread the word!

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Links of interest:

+ Amazon space weather books: http://g.nw7us.us/fbssw-aSWSC
+ https://Twitter.com/NW7US
+ https://Twitter.com/hfradiospacewx

Space Weather and Ham Radio YouTube Channel News:

I am working on launching a YouTube channel overhaul, that includes series of videos about space weather, radio signal propagation, and more.

Additionally, I am working on improving the educational efforts via the email, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, and other activities.

You can help!

Please consider becoming a Patron of these space weather and radio communications services, beginning with the YouTube channel:

https://www.patreon.com/NW7US

The YouTube channel:
https://YouTube.com/NW7US

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Visit, subscribe: NW7US Radio Communications and Propagation YouTube Channel

When I completed my ‘Jones 6L6 Push-Pull Oscillator’ project in the spring, I made a start on a new ‘spring-summer radio project’ which was to be based on some 1937 RK-39 tubes that had been gathering dust here for many years.

With an unusually sunny and warm spring, I soon found that my radio-bench time was being hi-jacked with a lot of outside yard work and getting all of next winter’s firewood split and stacked away before the really hot weather arrived.

I found myself working on the project in tiny bites, sometimes not making any progress at all during the passage of a week. Headway was also tempered by the fact that I’ll often deliberate for several days over the placement of a single component or the selection of one component over another. I find this slow pace and decision ‘pondering’ during the design phase of any project to be most enjoyable as it gets my old brain working more than normal, on things that really interest me.

I’m happy to report that my latest project is now complete and fully operational and ready for operation!

As usual, I have written and published a web page fully describing the project and some of the background details of the building process.

My ‘Building A ‘37-Style ‘RK-39’ Crystal Power-Oscillator' page can be found here.

Hopefully we can have a CW QSO with it in the near future!
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

My Summits On The Air (SOTA) activation of Pikes Peak (W0C/FR-004) on June 20th qualified me for Mountain Goat, using only the VHF/UHF bands. Mountain Goat requires 1000 activation points using the SOTA activation point system.

I’ve been working toward this goal for quite a while. I was doing mountaintop VHF activations before SOTA was even a thing. The first contact in my SOTA log is from Mount Antero in August 2011 but I started cranking up the SOTA activations in 2013 and later. I chose Pikes Peak for my qualifying Mountain Goat activation because its always been a special summit for me: I see it almost every morning (weather permitting) from my house in Monument. It is America’s Mountain, reaching to over 14k feet in elevation, standing tall west of Colorado Springs.

Most people have to wait for the mail to receive their SOTA Mountain Goat certificate. However, Steve/WG0AT created a custom award certificate that Joyce presented to me on the summit of Pikes Peak.

Some statistics from my SOTA log: I made 1557 radio contacts during 164 activations. Some of these activations were repeats of the same summit and I activated 96 unique summits.  On 9 of those activations, I failed to complete the minimum of 4 radio contacts required to receive points; so I “got skunked” on those summits (zero points).

The majority of these summits were in Colorado, but I also did some operating from California, South Dakota, New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas, Texas and (last but not least) Switzerland. Almost all of them with my awesome wife and hiking partner, Joyce/K0JJW. Take a look at the various SOTA postings on my blog for trip reports and operating tips.

Chasers

Any SOTA activator will tell you that nothing happens without chasers being there to make radio contacts. Chasers are always important but even more important for VHF due to the limited range. The list below shows my top chasers. Some of these folks are active SOTA enthusiasts but many of them are just friendly folks on the radio helping me achieve this goal. You’ll see that my #1 chaser is Joyce/K0JJW, who usually worked me on multiple bands after leaving the summit.

Thank you, Chasers, for your support!

Many people underestimate what is possible on the VHF/UHF bands, even under normal conditions. I’ve been trying to educate folks on what is possible with VHF from high locations. See The Myth of VHF Line of Sight.  Beefing up your station with a directional antenna and a little bit of power can make a big difference, even when just using FM. My best DX using VHF on a SOTA activation is a 2m CW contact from Capulin Mountain with W9RM near Olathe, CO for a distance of 257 miles.

The Summits On The Air program is a fantastic way to enjoy the outdoors while having fun with ham radio. Thanks to everyone that helped me reach my goal of VHF Mountain Goat.

73 Bob K0NR

The post Summits On The Air VHF Mountain Goat appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

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

Ham College episode 54 is now available for download.

General Amateur Radio Exam part 25. Logic Gates, more Ohm’s Law, Connectors.
01:11:19

Download
YouTube

George Thomas, W5JDX, is co-host of AmateurLogic.TV, an original amateur radio video program hosted by George Thomas (W5JDX), Tommy Martin (N5ZNO), Peter Berrett (VK3PB), and Emile Diodene (KE5QKR). Contact him at [email protected].

It's the Canada Day long weekend out this way and I'm off until Monday! My plans are to get some radio time in, do some reading and learn a bit more of what my Icom 7610 has to offer me. To help me with the learning curve I usually wonder to Youtube and watch the videos that are available there. We all have different ways of learning and for me one that works is watching videos. I have found K0PIR has a great website and many helpful YouTube videos. If you are an Icom 7300 or 7610 owner check out his Youtube work and his website  When it's time to expand my skill with a piece of ham radio equipment like the 7610 I also find a well written book to be priceless! When the 7610 came out a short time later on the reflectors there was a buzz about a new book  "The radio today  guide to the Icom IC-7610". I went online to purchase the book and found it was not only available as a traditional paperback book  but also an ebook in Kindle formate. Today we have many Ebook formats available to us but I have found that Kindle seems to be the go too ebook. I opted for the Kindle and in 3 seconds it was available for me to read!
I have read many ebooks in the past and one great option is there can be links added that send you to a site for further detailed reading on a particular point. It's also nice to not have to remember the book when you are out and about an ebook can be viewed on your PC, Ipad and phone as well. For the first time I found a major limitation with my kindle ebook. The Icom guide book had many references where you were asked to return to a particular page. I had never noticed in the past but my kindle version of the book the page numbers were very odd. I guess the wording of page numbers is incorrect as kindle show a percent or a location. The location number is on the thousands! When the author asks you to return to page 55 it is next to impossible to find it and can get very frustrating. In this book in particular you are directed by page number to either move back or forward for further reading. It was really getting to me that I went back to Amazon and purchased the paperback and it was delivered the other day. It goes to show you that sometimes that technology has limitations and going back to the old school still works.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].