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North America SOTA Activity Weekend is a casual event involving tiny battery-powered radios on mountain summits. It is not a contest but is intended to introduce "Summits on the Air" to newcomers with home stations who try to work summit operators during one or two days. There are no rules regarding power levels, modes or number of bands worked, but please be courteous when more than one station is trying to talk to a SOTA operator on a summit. The SOTA operators have just climbed mountains as high as 14,000 feet; they use low power; and they don't receive on split frequencies. Check SOTAWATCH.org to spot who is on which mountain. Summits are numbered, and you can hover your cursor over the number to see the name and point value for each summit. Expect the website to show activity near 7.032, 7.185, 10.110, 14.342, 18.095, 18.155, 21.350, 24.905, 24.955, 28.420, 146.52, 446.00, and 61 Khz up from the bottom of 20, 15 and 10 meters CW. Don't be deceived by the QRP power levels, these guys have some nice antenna supports.

 Participants are invited to collect points toward certificates and trophies offered by the eleven-year-old international SOTA group (SOTA.org.UK). As we learned in past years, this is a barrel of fun for both hill climbers and home operators. See you then.

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

Interference caused my AOC monitor

Nothing from the LG monitor.

This has been the longest stretch I have gone without posting something up on the blog. Have really not been on the radio all that much as the conditions have not been all that great....BUT... there have been some happenings around the shack. Back in February I posted on the blog the problem I was having with my new monitor. It was affecting my Elecraft P3 with all kinds of interference. I tried all kinds of fixes but it just brought about frustration. Last week I went out and purchased a new monitor and this time I did not go for the cheapest! This time I did some reading online of monitors other hams have and worked well for them. One of the monitors mentioned was the LG line of monitors, so I purchased a 24 inch one and gave it a go. It's working just find and does not affect the P3 at all.
At one time but sold the LP Pan and the Creative Labs E MU 0202 USB external sound card. This combo worked great and gave me a super pan-adapter. I was able to with the click of a mouse (using PowerSDR software) control my K3 and also click on signals on the bands scope and the rig would go there. Well I
purchased a used LP Pan and E MU 0202 device. I have not as of yet hooked it up I have gotten as far as
to download the software I am going to use with it which is NaP3 software. At this point when I tried to install the software (or any other SDR software) I get an error message entitled 2908. This error message and what I have tried to cure it is a whole blog post on it's own. This is still a work in progress and I hope I don't have to resort to reformatting my hard drive!
 The final happenings here have been....working on my Elecraft K2 kit and the accompanying blog where the progress is being shown.


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

I recently read an excellent post by W2LJ on non-QRPers’ perceptions of “the frustration of QRP.”  While I’m in 100% agreement with what he writes—essentially to “act loud” when you’re operating QRP—I’m guilty of the very first sin he calls out at the beginning:  advising new hams not to start on HF with [a] QRP [rig].

I stand by this advice.  Here’s why.  The advice is often solicited in the context of saving money by buying a QRP radio (e.g., FT-817, IC-703, KX3, etc) versus a full-power unit (e.g., FT-857, IC-706/IC-7000, KX3+KXPA3, respectively).  Everybody wants to save money, not everyone wants to operate QRP, whether they realize it or not.  It’s a whole heck of a lot easier to crank a 100-watt radio down to 5 watts than it is to crank a 5-watt radio up to 100 watts.  So why does that matter since we’re talking about why people should or shouldn’t start with QRP?  If you operate QRP, look at your log.  You should see a pattern.  Most of your QSOs are on CW or digital and on the “core” HF bands, 40/30/20/17/15 meters.

QRP is not frustrating at all, as long as you operate CW (or digital) into decent antennas on certain bands.  Knowledge and skill indeed trump power.  But, if you are just acquiring knowledge and skill for the first time, a little reserve power doesn’t hurt.  Just my thoughts.

Ethan Miller, K8GU, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Maryland, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

It have been a very busy couple of weeks. For the two or three of you that follow my blog, you have probably noticed the recent silent period. Worry not, I haven't been slacking on radio adventure. As some of you may have noticed, I have been activating a few summits around New Mexico. Well my wife an I have looking for a vacation home in Santa Fe. We weren't in any hurry and wanted to find just the right spot. Well, we found it and spent last week buying it and furnishing it. It is in a non-ham friendly neighborhood, but that makes for more of a challenge. My plan is to do most of my radioing outside anyway. There are summits galore. While I was there tending to moving-in activities I did find time to activate a couple of summits. Below are some brief summaries.

 Glorieta Mesa W5N/PW-032 August 16, 2013

This was my first solo summit. I've done summits with other activators and my wife often does the hike with me, however this time I was on my own. Glorieta Mesa is an 8 point summit whose elevation is just over 8,000 ft. Finding the route required a little research but the SOTA website is very valuable in finding routes if previous activators have uploaded their activation notes. Such was the case here and I was able to get two sets of coordinates, the first directed me where to park and the second pinpointed the previous operating location of another activator. Given those two points the hike was fairly straight forward. Only about 300 feet elevation gain over 1.5 mile climb isn't too bad.

I used my GPS unit with it's TOPO map to navigate to the activation zone. There is no trail per se on this climb. I would classify it as a minor bushwhack. While there are no trails the forest is very walk-able with a few brushy areas that you have to walk through, but not bad.

On The Way Up

There were some very nice views on the way to the top as evidenced by the picture to the left.

Once on the top I used my ATS-4 and my modified Buddi-Stick vertical. Conditions were decent and after couple of CQ's I had a nice SOTA Chaser pile-up. I managed to work 18 stations in a 20 minute span working stations Coast to Coast.

A Chaser pile-up is the ultimate QRP thrill in my opinion. You are operating a station that you carried up the hill on your back, using a portable antenna and other stations are actually chasing you. The signals were loud and I was getting some 569 and 579 reports.


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

After parking at my usual lunch time portable operating position, and not hearing much on the bands, I decided to do something I had been wanting to do for awhile now.

I have been wanting to play around with the Reverse Beacon Network using my portable QRP antenna.  When not hearing much on the bands, I wanted to see if there was just not many operators, or if the band was actually dead.  The other thing is that many times when I call CQ I call at less than 15 wpm because that is where I am most comfortable.  I have never seen many reports on RBN in the past when calling CQ so I wanted to see if speed made a difference.

So I started off with 20 WPM and called CQ for about 3 minutes on 20 meters.  You can see the spots on the photo, but I was heard mainly to the East coast and West part of the country – and one Canadian station.

Then I went down to 14 WPM and called CQ again – as you can see on the photo.  At 14 WPM, my signal was still decoded and I got spotted by 5 stations.  Where at 20 WPM I was spotted by 6 stations.  So not really much difference.  I did change frequency so that it would show the new spots.

I didn’t call as long at 14 WPM because I heard someone answering!

KO4OP – Rick was answering my CQ and had a nice sounding signal.  He was in King William, VA.  He was 599 and he gave me a 559.  We went on to have a nice 15 minute exchange – really nice QSO Rick!  Thanks for giving me a call!

As you can see in the picture I then went to 17 meters and put out a CQ at 14 WPM and was spotted by 4 stations (3 on the east coast and one out west).  I did hear someone call ..__.. (?) after one of my CQ calls but I never could reach him, and they never gave a call.

After this I did hear NE1SJ very, very weakly calling from a SOTA summit on 20 meters.  I gave him a call and he heard me, but when he came back he got weaker and I just could not pick him out of the noise.  Sorry we couldn’t make it today – I would have liked to pick up some more points!

It seems my SOTA chasing has stalled a bit.  Lately 20 meters seems to be skipping right over me here in Kansas!

So the RBN site was fun to play around with.  It just tells me that even when you don’t hear anything, it doesn’t mean that you aren’t getting out!  Put out some CQ’s and have some fun!

Burke Jones, NØHYD, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Kansas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

 

The HyEndFed antenna is momentarily my only HF antenna. Just 11,85 meters long (38.878 ft), very stealth, and a great performer. It was much better than my dipole. And it absolutely outperformed all my verticals I've had. The antenna is made for 40-20 and 10 meter. A high quality Dutch product. Of course when someone is handy you can made it yourself. But I know my restrictions and capabilities for technical skills. I tune this antenna with a MFJ-925 for all other HF bands. On 40, 20 and 10 meter I don't need a tuner. I know, a perfect SWR says nothing about the effectiveness of the antenna. Nevertheless, here are my SWR readings on the other HF bands with the HyEndFed.

You can not hear me complain about these results. Yesterday I mentioned how my results were on 80 meter with JT65A. 1221 km on 80 meter with 30 watts. So I will check the effectiveness of my antenna in the coming weeks.

Maybe I replace the 6 meter antenna, after the Es season, for a ground plane antenna for 30 meters.

Useful links: http://www.hyendfedantenna.nl/joomla/ and http://www.hyendcompany.nl/

Paul Stam, PC4T, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from the Netherlands. Contact him at [email protected].