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In this episode, we join Martin Butler M1MRB, Caryn Eve Murray KD2GUT and Edmund Spicer M0MNG to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin Butler (M6BOY) rounds up the news in brief, and the episode's feature is Krampus event and Yaseu UK

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• Opinion: futureGEO is the Most Important Amateur Radio Initiative of this Decade. Why is no one Talking About it?
• Yasme Grant Supports Hams' Initiatives at Bangladesh Universities
• Santa Net Returns for 20th Consecutive Year
• The RSGB Accessibility Champion
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Here’s an update on the most activated SOTA summits in Colorado. See my previous report here. Mount Herman (W0C/FR-063) still leads the pack by a wide margin, with many activations by Steve/WG0AT.

Genesee Mountain has passed up Pikes Peak to take second place in the running. Genessee is in a park just outside of greater Denver and is easy to access. I notice many out-of-town SOTA enthusiasts going up there to get on the air and make some contacts. Pikes Peak is a 14er but has a road to the top, and most of those activations are probably aided by a vehicle. Chief Mountain is in fourth place. Mount Blue Sky (formerly Mount Evans) is also a 14er with a road to the top. However, it dropped off the list, due to the reduced access caused by recent road construction in the area.

Thorodin Mountain comes in at number five and seems to be gaining in popularity, with Carey/KX0R as a frequent activator.

The summit formerly known as Squaw Mountain, now Mestaa’ehehe Mountain (W0C/PR-082), comes in at sixth place. There is a gated road to the top, so most activators hike that road.

Most of these summits are in the Front Range section of W0C, close to the major cities, which aids their popularity. The other two are listed in the Sawatch and Park Ranges, but they are also not far from the large urban areas.

First in North America

In North America, Mount Herman is second only to Mount Davidson (W6/NC-423), which currently has 846 activations, many of them by Ellliot/K6EL. Davidson is a small 1-point summit in the middle of San Francisco, so it is easily accessible to a large population. This video by W6DFM provides a tour of that summit. Another notable summit is Vollmer Peak (W6/NC-298), an easy-to-access peak with 551 activations.

So that’s your update on SOTA activations in Colorado.

73 Bob K0NR

Most Active SOTA Summits in Colorado

The post Most Active SOTA Summits in Colorado -Nov 2025 appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Hello and welcome to the 602nd installment of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this short topics episode, the hosts discuss intercepting "secure" satellite traffic, an Australian band plan audit, the future of Arduino, a hack on Xubuntu, new features in DXLook and much more. Thanks for listening and have a great week.

73 de The LHS Crew

When I get asked why I only use VHF/UHF frequencies for my Summits On The Air (SOTA) activations, I usually reply with:

Height Above Average Terrain

More specifically, I mean that using VHF for SOTA is fun because Height Above Average Terrain (HAAT) has a dramatic effect on the propagation of my radio signal.

HAAT has a specific definition, found in the FCC regulations. HAAT basically describes the height of a transmitter relative to the surrounding terrain in all directions at distances of 3 to 16 km. This HAAT calculator tool provides the HAAT of a site based on its latitude and longitude. Note that the FCC definition of HAAT compares against the terrain relatively close to the transmitter, 16 km (10 miles). For SOTA purposes, we are more concerned with distances further away.

In a recent presentation on mountaintop VHF operating (Hamcon Colorado), I provided these two contrasting examples to drive home the importance of HAAT.

Punkin Center

Punkin Center is a small town located on the eastern plains of Colorado. The elevation is 5364 feet, and its HAAT is roughly zero feet. That is, the terrain is flat. Punkin Center is a fine place to be, but it is not a very good VHF location. The radio range using a 5-watt VHF handheld radio is about 4 miles.

Pikes Peak

Compare this to America’s Mountain, Pikes Peak, which has an elevation of 14,115 feet and a HAAT of 4,445 feet. That is, it rises more than 4,000 feet above the surrounding terrain. (The height advantage is even more pronounced when looking further east towards Kansas, where the highest elevation is ~4,000 feet.) Based on my experience operating from there, the VHF handheld range is over 100 miles.

The improved HAAT of Pikes Peak provides a VHF radio range that is 25 times better than Punkin Center. Again, nothing wrong with Punkin Center, but if I want to make VHF contacts, I’ll choose Pikes Peak.

Let’s compare this to using the High Frequency (HF) bands. The normal propagation mode on HF is skywave propagation via the F layer, which supports radio propagation across North America and around the world (depending on frequency, time of day, solar conditions, blah blah blah). The radio signal refracts off the ionosphere and can go very long distances. From Pikes Peak, I can work the world. From Punkin Center, I can work the world. Not much difference, except the views from Pikes are generally better, and the oxygen is less plentiful.

So when I hike up a mountain, I am excited to get out the VHF gear and see what contacts I can make due to the improved HAAT. I don’t get as excited about working HF, because I can do that from home…or Punkin Center, or other places, with similar results.

Other SOTA activators see it differently, and that is just fine. (VHF contacts represent only ~20% of all SOTA contacts.) There are many ways to enjoy SOTA and ham radio. Just make sure you have fun messing around with radios.

73 Bob K0NR

The post Height Above Average Terrain appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

When I get asked why I only use VHF/UHF frequencies for my Summits On The Air (SOTA) activations, I usually reply with:

Height Above Average Terrain

More specifically, I mean that using VHF for SOTA is fun because Height Above Average Terrain (HAAT) has a dramatic effect on the propagation of my radio signal.

HAAT has a specific definition, found in the FCC regulations. HAAT basically describes the height of a transmitter relative to the surrounding terrain in all directions at distances of 3 to 16 km. This HAAT calculator tool provides the HAAT of a site based on its latitude and longitude. Note that the FCC definition of HAAT compares against the terrain relatively close to the transmitter, 16 km (10 miles). For SOTA purposes, we are more concerned with distances further away.

In a recent presentation on mountaintop VHF operating (Hamcon Colorado), I provided these two contrasting examples to drive home the importance of HAAT.

Punkin Center

Punkin Center is a small town located on the eastern plains of Colorado. The elevation is 5364 feet, and its HAAT is roughly zero feet. That is, the terrain is flat. Punkin Center is a fine place to be, but it is not a very good VHF location. The radio range using a 5-watt VHF handheld radio is about 4 miles.

Pikes Peak

Compare this to America’s Mountain, Pikes Peak, which has an elevation of 14,115 feet and a HAAT of 4,445 feet. That is, it rises more than 4,000 feet above the surrounding terrain. (The height advantage is even more pronounced when looking further east towards Kansas, where the highest elevation is ~4,000 feet.) Based on my experience operating from there, the VHF handheld range is over 100 miles.

The improved HAAT of Pikes Peak provides a VHF radio range that is 25 times better than Punkin Center. Again, nothing wrong with Punkin Center, but if I want to make VHF contacts, I’ll choose Pikes Peak.

Let’s compare this to using the High Frequency (HF) bands. The normal propagation mode on HF is skywave propagation via the F layer, which supports radio propagation across North America and around the world (depending on frequency, time of day, solar conditions, blah blah blah). The radio signal refracts off the ionosphere and can go very long distances. From Pikes Peak, I can work the world. From Punkin Center, I can work the world. Not much difference, except the views from Pikes are generally better, and the oxygen is less plentiful.

So when I hike up a mountain, I am excited to get out the VHF gear and see what contacts I can make due to the improved HAAT. I don’t get as excited about working HF, because I can do that from home…or Punkin Center, or other places, with similar results.

Other SOTA activators see it differently, and that is just fine. (VHF contacts represent only ~20% of all SOTA contacts.) There are many ways to enjoy SOTA and ham radio. Just make sure you have fun messing around with radios.

73 Bob K0NR

The post Height Above Average Terrain appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Hello and welcome to Episode 601 of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this episode, the hosts discuss the RFC2136 for remote, authenticated DNS updates and how it can be used to automate an SSL certificate infrastructure with Let's Encrypt. We hope you enjoy this episode and have a great week coming up!

73 de The LHS Crew

A snippet of the shutdown python script as actions are taken.

Python and what I’ve been up to… well, let me tell you!
I’ve honestly surprised myself with the automation I’ve built for starting up and shutting down my contesting setup. Before Python, the startup routine was a long chain of manual steps: launching VSPE and waiting, then clicking on Win4Icom Suite and waiting again, then starting N1MM+ and waiting some more, then opening Firefox, navigating to the Reverse Beacon Network, entering my call, checking that I was spotted, and refreshing it every 10 minutes.

Now? Thanks to Python, all of that happens with a single mouse click. I LOVE IT!

 With one mouse click my Kasa plug turns on, powers on my Astron power supply and Pi4B and it begins its startup. Then VSPE starts, then Win4icom starts, N1MM+ starts and finally Firefox opens to Reverse beacon network were it logs in and then enters my call sign to show who is hearing my CQ contest calling and will refresh every 10 minutes. 

Now If you’re curious about the hiccups and challenges I ran into along the way, keep reading. Or, if you’d rather skip ahead, feel free to jump to the end where I share some of my upcoming Python-and-amateur-radio project—you might be surprised!

Let’s start with the Wi-Fi plug that kicks off the entire startup process. I needed a Python library to communicate with my Kasa plug—easy enough. Then I needed to find the plug’s IP address—again, no problem. But one day, my Python terminal that handles the whole start-and-stop sequence suddenly threw an error related to the Wi-Fi plug. After some investigating, I realized our router had restarted and reassigned the plug a new IP address. That completely broke my script.

More research led me to a great solution: I could assign a name to the plug and have Python search for the device by name, then automatically discover whatever IP address the router had given it. Problem solved—elegantly.

With the Wi-Fi plug sorted out, I moved on to scripting the rest of the startup sequence. I added every program I needed, in the exact order they had to launch, and it worked beautifully… until I noticed that some programs loaded slower than others. That meant certain tasks weren’t finished before the next program in the chain started, and everything just froze. The fix turned out to be simple: insert time delays between launches to give each program the breathing room it needs.

Next came Win4Icom. Tom, VE2FSQ, does an incredible job keeping his software updated—there’s a new version roughly every month with improvements and bug fixes. But once a new version came out, my Python script kept opening the old one. To fix that, I wrote code that automatically checks for the latest installed version every time and launches that one instead.

Then I ran into another issue: occasionally Python wasn’t shutting down my Icom 7610 correctly through the Win4Icom software. That meant the radio was being abruptly disconnected when the Wi-Fi plug powered off my power supply. NOT GOOD. So instead of relying on Win4Icom for shutdown, I added the Icom CI-V shutdown command directly into my Python script. That ensured the 7610 powered down properly every single time.

My Pi4B is also tied into the Wi-Fi plug, but that part is simple—when the plug turns on, the Pi boots normally, no Python needed. Shutting the Pi down, however, is a different adventure involving Windows and Python… and I’ll save that story for the next post.

As promised, here’s a preview of what I’m working on next. When a contest is over, I normally have to:

1. Go to the 3830 scoring site and manually enter my score.

2. Generate a CAB file and submit it to the contest sponsor.

3. Generate an ADIF file within N1MM+.

4. Submit that ADIF to my logging program Amateur Radio Contest Log then do the same for LOTW, Club Log, CWops, and QRZ.com. 

I’m developing a Python program that will do all of that automatically:
• Login to 3830, fill in the band breakdowns, multipliers, total contacts and multipliers and final score.
• Generate a CAB file from within N1MM+.
• Generate an ADIF file from N1MM+ and load it into Amateur Radio Contest Log.
• From within Amateur Contest Log program, automatically open Club Log and LOTW and submit the logs.
• Then log into QRZ.com and CWops and submit the score there as well.

All with one mouse click—while I sit back and watch it happen.

My next post will be dealing with the contest shutdown process. At this point I am just starting the new project I mentioned above.