AmateurRadio.com • Ham Radio Blog

Three Summits in the Wichita Mountains

14 January 2014 | by Mike AD5A | Leave a Comment (0)

This trip to the Wichita Mountains in SW Oklahoma was not a firm plan. Unlike many of my SOTA expeditions, I only carried my radio gear in case I was able to use. Unfortunately, I was in Ft. Worth, Texas to attend the funeral of my Aunt and as always, at funerals and weddings, there are always lots of family and friends to catch up with. I figured that the reunion might last through the weekend. However, after the funeral on Friday most of my relatives dispersed back to their busy lives. I suggested to Cris, my XYL, that we sneak off to the Wichita Mountains for a SOTA date. She agreed, so we set out for Lawton, Oklahoma, which is a 2.5 hour drive from where we were. Upon arriving in Lawton around 10:00p.m., I opened up my iPad and put together a plan.

I had lived in Duncan, Oklahoma for eight years in the '80's and early '90's and had visited the Wichita Mountains multiple times with my family and our Boy Scout Troop, but never with summits in mind. So the must do summits in the Wichitas are Mt. Scott and Elk Mountain. Mt. Scott is a drive up and Elk Mountain is a nice 1.1 mile hike, one way. I knew if I started early, three summits were doable, maybe even four. But which one would be the third? I remembered KC5CW and KD5ZZK operating from a four point summit not far from Mt. Scott, so after a little research, Mount Cummins was added to the list. Below is a report on the trip.

For this trip I used an MTR 20/40, 500 mah Lipo battery, 21 foot collapsible carbon fiber pole and a LNR 10-20-40 "trail friendly" End Fed Half Wave antenna.

Mount Scott W5O/WI-002

This is an easy summit. The weather was on the chilly side with temps in the mid-30's when we started out. Upon arriving on the base of the mountain, there was a squad of army soldiers getting ready for a run up the mountain, something that would appeal to Fred, KT5X, but I was happy to drive up this one. At the summit, there was only one other car, so I had a pick of operating sites. I elected to get out of the wind and down a ways from the summit.

Operating Site on Mt. Scott

The views from Mt. Scott are fantastic, mainly because the mountain rises above the relative flat plain of grasslands. Lake Lawtonka is part of the backdrop. But it was a little chilly. The tree in the foreground of the picture is what I used to support the end of my antenna which I then brought to the operating position down my carbon fiber fishing pole.

Operating on Mt. Scott with MTR

Signals were good and I made 18 QSO's on 20 meters. When I QSY'ed to 40m I didn't get spotted by RBN so I self spotted. Nothing. I wrote it off to poor propagation. However, as I figured out on the next summit, changing bands on the MTR requires changing three switches, I had only switched two and wasn't putting out a signal, so my apologies to the 40m chasers.

View From Mt. Scott

While I was operating I heard some cadence based singing. I thought my wife was listening to something on her iPhone, but it was the army squad. Not looking as fresh as when we saw them at the bottom, but the worst was over.

Elk Mountain W5O/WI-007

Elk Mountain 8 or 9 miles west of Mt. Scott and it is a great SOTA summit. It has an easy to follow trail that isn't too long (1.1 miles one way) and great views at the top. This would be a great summit to practice on to get prepared for higher elevation, longer climbs. My wife and I made the climb in 30 minutes.

The trail head is at the Sunset Picnic Area and begins where the bridge crosses the creek. By the time we got on the trail the temps had warmed to the upper 40's and the sky was clear, a beautiful day. The climb is straight forward and the summit is large so you have a lot of room to set up. However there no substantial trees on the summit, so this necessitated a different set-up for the antenna. I set up a little below the summit and used an inverted L configuration, running the wire up the pole and then letting it slope down from the top of the pole.

Operating on Elk Mountain

Propagation was good and signals were strong. I received several reports greater than 559 and several 599, so everything was working. I made 22 QSO's on 20m and 4 QSO's on 40m. Included in the log was S58AL.

Toward the end of the activation, a group of boy scouts gathered to watch. I gave them an impromptu lecture on ham radio in general and SOTA in particular. They were very attentive. I told them that the internet was hard wired, but ham radio was magic.

Cris captured my impromptu talk with the Scouts

View from Elk Mountain

Mount Cummins W5O/WI-031

Mount Cummins is also a relatively easy summit, however finding the way to the top was a little more of challenge than I expected. My GPS took me to the wrong side of the mountain. The cell phone tower is the landmark, so I kept driving until I found the road to the tower. The cell tower site is in the activation zone, however, I wanted to get up on the summit to get the antenna deployed, so I did a little bushwhacking.

On my way up Mount Cummins

There is a lot of scrub oak on the mountain that makes getting to the top a little more challenging than you would think. In the picture above, the cell tower fence can be seen in the right. The antenna above me in the picture must be a repeater antenna. The summit is relatively large, I set up on the summit ridge.

Operating Position on Cummins

You can see the beautiful day, with clear skies, temps now in the lower 60's. I made a total of 27 QSO's with all but four on 20 meters.

Running the Pile with the MTR

This was a fantastic day of SOTA fun. I earned 22 Activator points, enjoyed a beautiful day outdoors and enjoyed a SOTA date with my wife Cris. She loves photography, so this trip gave her some material and a good excuse to use her camera.

This is the first time I've done three summits in a day. My equipment performed well and I received better than average signal reports. I don't know if it was simply propagation or the inverted L/sloper configuration was better. At any rate, it was fun.

I had planned on maybe doing a fourth summit or maybe getting up early Sunday to do one more before driving home to San Antonio. However we received news that our daughter-in-law, who is six months pregnant, was having an emergency appendectomy, so we made the 7.5 hour drive home instead. Both mom and baby are fine.

Thanks to all the chasers. This SOTA stuff is fun.

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

» Leave a Comment (0)

Just checking!

14 January 2014 | by Larry W2LJ | Leave a Comment (1)

I got curious and sent an e-mail to Elecraft asking them when I might expect my KXPA100 kit, that I ordered in October.

Good news! Only about another month or so!

To be honest with you, I wasn’t expecting such a quick response. I got my e-mail answer in less than 24 hours. Kudos to Dean and the Elecraft Sales Team.

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].

» Leave a Comment (1)

QRP Kit News

14 January 2014 | by Larry W2LJ | Leave a Comment (2)

As announced by the Four States QRP Group today:

The Four State QRP Group is very pleased to announce that Dave Benson’s, Freq-Mite kit has been added to the lineup of Four State kits. Upon retirement, Dave, K1SWL, graciously offered the kit to us to continue production. Along with his SW+ transceiver series, the Freq-Mite is one of his signature designs. The Freq-Mite provides audio frequency annunciation, and is intended to be installed as a frequency counter inside a rig. Thus providing an inexpensive alternative to an LCD display. It is easily installed in new or existing rigs and easy to understand installation notes for many rigs are included on the web site.

The kit sells for only $22 US, which includes shipping, and may be ordered from it’s home page http://www.4sqrp.com/freq-mite.php All of the Four State kit offerings may be found on this page http://www.4sqrp.com/kitIndex.php Additional kits are in the pipeline and will be made available as soon as possible.

As always, thank you for supporting Four State. All proceeds go to funding OzarkCon, the largest and best QRP conference in the Central Time Zone. Hope to cu in Branson on April 4t and 5th.

de Terry WAØITP

Between the Four States Group and QRPMe, it’s good to see Dave Benson’s designs not being lost to oblivion. On a side note, K1SWL posted on QRP-L that he participated in the North American QSO Party this weekend – first time he’s been on the air in about 10 years. Good for him! Personally, I am glad to see Dave enjoying Amateur Radio and QRPing again – he deserves as much for all his dedicated service to the QRP community over the years.

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].

» Leave a Comment (2)

Day Four

14 January 2014 | by John N8ZYA | Leave a Comment (5)

The little blue “dot” is how far we’ve come in four days.

Januarary 13, 2014 @ 6PM.

After four days without potable water in the neighborhood, it was worth every penny we spent to get a shower and do the laundry. Unfortunately, we had to drive eighty miles (round trip) to achieve the goal of cleanliness and civility. We spent the night in the closest town we could find with a hotel and a nearby laundry.

Today is the fourth day without water for nearly 300,000 people in the immediate area of Charleston.

Our dog traveled with us on this trip. To him it was like going to an amusement park but to us it was something quite different. When we arrived in the town of Barboursville, the 24 hour laundromat was “overwhelmed” with people from Charleston, who were doing like us, and making the best of a bad situation.

In addition to my dual band HT, I took my “tablet” with me which I found very useful. I keep an app (IARL) on it which shows all the ham repeaters which are centered on my “current” location. The map features were very useful too. I also carry a small SWL (Tecsun PL-380) radio with me which is really nice for hearing foreign broadcast and local AM and FM broadcasts.

We drove back early this morning, spent most of the day with friends, and this evening, happily, we got the “OK” to start flushing out the water lines in our home.

This amounted to depleting all the hot water from our water tank for 15 minutes, and running the cold water for an additional 5 minutes. Then we ran both the washing machine and the dishwasher for a complete cycle with clean water.

The water company is going to debit us for 1,000 gallons on the next billing cycle.

I can’t express how happy I am to again use something (H2O) most people in the world take so much for granted. Contamination levels are now tolerable in the small area where I live. We live the closest to the immediate spill. Three hospitals, the largest shopping mall, and the state capitol are in this area.

As you can see in the above picture, there’s still a large area which needs to be flushed with clean water. Only then can the process of household purging begin. For us this trial has finally ended; but it will take even longer for the entire area to finally be purged of this coal cleaning compound.

I’ve always been a strong advocate for clean water, clean air, and a clean environment in this state. I’ve known for years the dangers of depleting our natural resources. This state, and I might add, this entire tri-state area, has an ugly history of human and environmental catastrophes. I can’t imagine the amount of water than has been wasted in this event.

Fortunately this latest catastrophe only caused an inconvenience for most (not all) of these 300,000 people. We’re on the way to recovery now, but not entirely there yet!

John Smithson, Jr., N8ZYA, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from West Virginia, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

» Leave a Comment (5)

More WSPR with 20mW

13 January 2014 | by Juilian G4ILO | Leave a Comment (1)

I’ve been WSPRing on 30m today, still with a power of 0.2W. I think WSPR is more interesting when you use low power: it’s always interesting to see how far you can get.

20mW is not the lowest power you can use, though, it’s just the lowest power the K3 will comfortably produce. (You can set the output power to 0.0W but I’m not sure how accurately the rig will maintain the power at such a low level – something to check.

Today my 0,02W into the MFJ magnetic loop in my attic was received by 30 different stations. Here’s the list:

Timestamp	Call	MHz	SNR	Drift	Grid	Pwr	Reporter	RGrid	km	az
2014-01-13 11:52	G4ILO	10.140243	-11	0	IO84hp	0.02	ON7KO	JO21ce	637	124
2014-01-13 11:52	G4ILO	10.140209	-23	0	IO84hp	0.02	DL8HAF/P	JO53dm	899	92
2014-01-13 12:32	G4ILO	10.140206	-26	0	IO84hp	0.02	DK6UG	JN49cm	973	121
2014-01-13 12:54	G4ILO	10.140217	-22	0	IO84hp	0.02	DC5EO	JO31ed	760	117
2014-01-13 12:54	G4ILO	10.140210	-18	0	IO84hp	0.02	G8CRB	JO02bf	355	138
2014-01-13 13:18	G4ILO	10.140195	-19	1	IO84hp	0.02	G0GSJ	IO84jc	61	170
2014-01-13 14:20	G4ILO	10.140199	-19	0	IO84hp	0.02	G4ILR	JO02pp	379	124
2014-01-13 14:20	G4ILO	10.140224	-29	0	IO84hp	0.02	M0BLP	JO02ad	359	139
2014-01-13 14:30	G4ILO	10.140210	-20	0	IO84hp	0.02	OH8GKP	KP24rt	1945	43
2014-01-13 14:30	G4ILO	10.140203	-19	0	IO84hp	0.02	GM4SFW	IO77sn	331	349
2014-01-13 14:30	G4ILO	10.140199	-11	2	IO84hp	0.02	OH3HTI	KP21ag	1760	54
2014-01-13 14:30	G4ILO	10.140182	-13	0	IO84hp	0.02	LA5GOA	JO29oi	737	41
2014-01-13 14:38	G4ILO	10.140197	-23	0	IO84hp	0.02	OZ7IT	JO65df	1001	80
2014-01-13 14:38	G4ILO	10.140194	-13	0	IO84hp	0.02	SA6BSS	JO68	1084	60
2014-01-13 14:48	G4ILO	10.140189	-21	0	IO84hp	0.02	SM6WZI	JO67mp	1067	65
2014-01-13 14:56	G4ILO	10.140208	-21	0	IO84hp	0.02	DC8SE	JN48xi	1155	122
2014-01-13 14:56	G4ILO	10.140180	-7	0	IO84hp	0.02	ON7KB	JO21ei	634	122
2014-01-13 15:04	G4ILO	10.140204	-11	0	IO84hp	0.02	DK4TJ	JO31fc	768	117
2014-01-13 15:04	G4ILO	10.140236	-25	0	IO84hp	0.02	PA1GSJ	JO22da	586	117
2014-01-13 15:14	G4ILO	10.140238	-21	0	IO84hp	0.02	DL1WER	JN58dd	1189	122
2014-01-13 15:24	G4ILO	10.140195	-13	0	IO84hp	0.02	DL1KCQ	JO33uc	746	99
2014-01-13 15:36	G4ILO	10.140188	-25	-1	IO84hp	0.02	M5LMY	IO91oi	405	154
2014-01-13 15:36	G4ILO	10.140197	-12	0	IO84hp	0.02	PI4THT	JO32kf	729	107
2014-01-13 15:36	G4ILO	10.140196	-15	0	IO84hp	0.02	LA9JO	JP99gb	1949	26
2014-01-13 15:36	G4ILO	10.140191	-20	0	IO84hp	0.02	SM0FGT	JO89xg	1384	60
2014-01-13 15:36	G4ILO	10.140182	-12	0	IO84hp	0.02	LA5GOA/RX2	JO29oi	737	41
2014-01-13 15:46	G4ILO	10.140222	-12	0	IO84hp	0.02	DC0DX	JO31lk	776	113
2014-01-13 15:46	G4ILO	10.140215	-17	0	IO84hp	0.02	DC4LC	JN48np	1088	123
2014-01-13 16:22	G4ILO	10.140208	-17	0	IO84hp	0.02	DK4LA	JO54ae	868	88
2014-01-13 16:48	G4ILO	10.140196	-23	0	IO84hp	0.02	HB9FGQ	JN36kk	1163	137

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

» Leave a Comment (1)

A new batch of QSLs

13 January 2014 | by Juilian G4ILO | Leave a Comment (2)

A batch of QSL cards arrived from the bureau today (thanks, Ian.) Here are just a few of them.

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

» Leave a Comment (2)

News for kit builders

13 January 2014 | by Juilian G4ILO | Leave a Comment (0)

Javier Solans, EA2GCY, maker of the Iler 20 and 40 kits is now selling a range of kits from YouKits. The new kits are already listed on his very impressive-looking web site. If this means that the Chinese-made kits will now have building instructions to the same high standard as Javier’s own kitsit is very good news for kit-builders.

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

» Leave a Comment (0)