Activating two parks, one day (US-3168 & US-3169)
Oct 30, 2024
amateur radio & POTA
One of my goals is to activate more different parks. I’ve been eyeing the cluster of parks on Whidbey Island for some time, contemplating a two day
Optimizing POTA
Oct 29, 2024
amateur radio & POTA & musings
I’m an inveterate optimizer. I’m not suggesting that I optimize for what other people expect - in fact, often the opposite. But it’s a peculiar
Thoughts on Fun and US-3216 (Lake Sammamish SP) Activation
Oct 19, 2024
amateur radio & POTA
As we head deeper into autumn here in the PNW the weather can only get colder and rainier until spring. If I want to keep doing activations, I need
Yet Another Activation of Lake Sammamish State Park (US-3216)
Oct 16, 2024
amateur radio & POTA
On Oct 14, I was champing at the bit to do an activation, despite a sort of wet weather forecast. Figuring I’d start figuring out how to work in
Another fun activation of US-3216 (Lake Sammamish State Park)
Oct 12, 2024
amateur radio & POTA
Despite the dour outlook of various propagation prediction tools and reports of cruddy band conditions I was eager to get back to doing activations
More Relaxed Activation of Lake Sammamish State Park (US-3216)
Jul 12, 2024
POTA & amateur radio
Presented with the possibility of a clear schedule in the afternoon I cleverly packed the day’s vital tasks into the AM with a goal of sloping off
Thinking about QRP POTA activations
Jul 5, 2024
amateur radio & POTA
My recent struggles during POTA activations have had me thinking hard about QRP, activations, and antennas, specifically antennas for POTA park
POTA activation of Olallie State Park (US-3239)
Jul 3, 2024
POTA & amateur radio
The weather has been wonderful and with pleasant temps and a day free I resolved to head out for a POTA activation or two. Propagation forecasts
CW first activation of Lake Easton State Park (US-3214)
Jun 27, 2024
amateur radio & POTA
Propagation conditions continue to be crummy but I am resolved to continue to do activations anyway. I am not using the ‘number of QSOs’ metric, I
Bad Condx at Lake Sammamish State Park (US-3216)
Jun 20, 2024
amateur radio & POTA
Notwithstanding crappy band condx, today was POTA day. Off I trundled to Lake Sammamish State Park, US-3216. I had a cunning plan: do enough (ten)
An Exciting activation of Lake Sammamish State Park (US-3216)
Jun 14, 2024
amateur radio & POTA
Today I did a very exciting (well, exciting to me) POTA activation at Lake Sammamish State Park (US-3216). This activation was exciting for several
Important New Ham Radio Equipment
Jun 10, 2024
amateur radio & POTA
I’ve just added a new, critically important piece of equipment to my field operating kit for POTA: Introducing the fun-o-meter, which is used to
Thin Radio
Jun 9, 2024
amateur radio & POTA
My participation in Parks on the Air, both hunting and activating, has increasingly been pushing me toward operating in ways where more and more of
A challenging activation at US-3216 Lake Sammamish State Park
Jun 8, 2024
amateur radio & POTA
Good weather and a day of rest from training were calling me into doing a POTA activation, but when I checked propagation, it was in the dumps,
Resonant versus Non-resonant Antennas
May 27, 2024
amateur radio
One of the things I hear is that, especially for QRP operating, resonant antennas are greatly preferred. Some of this seems to stem from some
Two Activations - Bridle Trails SP (US-3166) & St. Edward SP (US-3261)
May 24, 2024
amateur radio & POTA
We had to go pick up Paula’s car at the shop yesterday, mid-morning, and so I loaded up my car with the radios/antennas, &c, and planned on
Xiegu G90 More Thoughts
May 24, 2024
amateur radio
With a little more time operating with the G90 I have some further thoughts/observations. I think the supplied power cable is awful. I think the
Kanaskat-Palmer State Park (US-32090, US-3236 (Nolte State Park) Activation, Flaming Geyser State Park (US-3187)
May 21, 2024
amateur radio & POTA
With an appointment at 3:30pm, I was hoping to squeeze in three POTA activations: Kanaskat-Palmer State Park, Noltle State Park, and Flaming Geyser
US-5744 (Tiger Mountain State Forest) Activation
May 14, 2024
amateur radio & POTA
This morning I was hopeful that I’d be able to slope off and do a four park POTA activation at a cluster of four parks not far from my home: Tiger
Xiegu G90 First Thoughts
May 11, 2024
amateur radio & POTA
I’ve been wanting to do more POTA park activations but the overhead of pulling either the IC-7300 or the KX3 out of the station setup, and then
Random Wire Antennas
Apr 27, 2024
amateur radio
The conceit that goes with random wire antennas is that they amount to taking a random chunk of wire, stringing it up in the air, and using it as an
POTA rove lessons
Mar 28, 2024
amateur radio & POTA
One of the problems I encountered about halfway through the multi-day expedition was an intermittent problem with the coax connection to the three
The N3JCJ(sk) Memorial POTA rove
Mar 18, 2024
amateur radio & musings & POTA
My dad died on Jan 30, 2024. I spent half of January whammied while I recovered from Across the Years, and the other half on the East Coast helping
K-1732 Brandywine Creek State Park Activation
Mar 4, 2024
amateur radio & POTA
While my Dad was in the hospital I went back east to help my Mom. I took along a field kit of radio gear (described below) vaguely thinking that I’d
Learning CW
Dec 24, 2023
amateur radio & POTA
I’ve been working on learning CW/Morse Code for some time, now - essentially for as long as I’ve had an amateur radio license. That works out to,
POTA Activation #1 K-3216
Oct 30, 2023
amateur radio & POTA
I’ve been making a lot of QSO’s hunting POTA activations, which is hella good fun. One of my goals was to do an activation before the end of
Parks on the air
Oct 23, 2023
amateur radio & POTA
I made a bunch of FT8 and FT4 QSOs recently, and they highlighted a problem I have with modes like FT8 - they’re utterly impersonal. A good example:
Antenna Lessons Part Three - Antenna Rigging
Aug 10, 2023
amateur radio
My home is smack in the middle of a forest, a mix of conifer (Douglas Fir, Western Red Cedar, Western Hemlock) and deciduous (Red Alder, Cottonwood,
Lessons from Antenna Hanging Part Two - Hardware
Aug 5, 2023
amateur radio
I live in a forest, and I’ve hung a fair number of antennas from the trees that surround my home. I’ve learned a thing or two along the way. In this
Lessons from Antenna Hanging Part One
Aug 4, 2023
amateur radio
One of the lessons I learned from my recent maintenance effort on my main HF antenna (an 80m-6m OCFD) was that rope differences matter a great deal,
Antenna Suspension Maintenance
Aug 1, 2023
amateur radio
My main HF antenna is a Buckmaster 80-6m OCFD. Two of my friends put it up for me just after my leg was broken in 2015. At the time none of the 3 of
Improving NMO antenna magmount
Jul 31, 2023
amateur radio
I use a mag mount for the antenna on my car. I’ve run through a number of mounts, though, because I just route the coax through the rear hatch and
Get Home Bag/EDC Bag
May 15, 2023
musings & amateur radio
I got a good start on an EDC backpack/bag. This has prompted some thinking about what belongs in an EDC bag, and how much such a bag can weigh. So
Batteries and Preparedness
Jan 25, 2023
amateur radio
Long ago I settled on non-rechargeable AA cells as the battery standard for various packs/kits for both preparedness purposes and also recreational
SpaceX Starlink
Jan 20, 2023
life in the forest & amateur radio
(While not strictly Life in the Forest nor Amateur Radio I’ve tagged this with those tags for want of some better classification.) For something
Statistics and Preparedness
Jan 6, 2023
amateur radio & musings
Being part of the amateur radio world, and being predisposed to preparedness on my own anyway, I rub shoulders with a lot of people for whom
Minimal Winlink VHF RMS Station
Nov 3, 2022
amateur radio
Since sometime in 2019 I’ve run a VHF Winlink RMS that serves the Seattle Eastside/Snoqualmie Valley area. Originally I had a VHF station and a UHF
Skills are better than stuff
Oct 2, 2022
musings & amateur radio
(I’m giving this an amateur radio tag although it is only tangentially related to radio. So many hams are into emergency preparedness, it makes
Compactenna 2m/440+
Sep 5, 2022
amateur radio
Date 9/5/2022 YouTube decided I needed to watch a video about the COMPACTenna line of antennas. The inventor, Jack Nilsson N8NDL, states that the
Diversity and Inclusion
Jul 19, 2022
musings & amateur radio
I’m still thinking about Dan Romanchik KB6NU’s post about inclusion and amateur radio regarding one club having a chaplain and starting meetings
My Bridgecom BCR-220 story
Jul 19, 2022
amateur radio
In November, 2019 I bought a Bridgecom BCR-220 repeater and duplexer to set up at my home. I wanted to learn about repeaters, and owning one and
More NVIS Thinking
Jul 19, 2022
amateur radio & NVIS
I think the idea of different NVIS antenna designs for different situations is pretty solid, so I have been thinking about parameter ranges for
Inclusion
Jul 11, 2022
amateur radio & musings
Dan KB6NU opines on this reddit post about an amateur radio club that starts meetings with the group chaplain offering an invocation: Hello, newbie
An Excellent NVIS presentation video
Jun 23, 2022
amateur radio
I’m a big believer in learning from mistakes. My preference is to learn from other people’s mistakes. This saves me the time, effort, and
NVIS antenna thinking
Jun 22, 2022
amateur radio
After giving my newly revised presentation on NVIS propagation and NVIS antennas last night I was left unsatisfied with the last part of the
Marathon Support
Jun 13, 2022
amateur radio
Yesterday I spent about half my day doing communications support for the Tunnel Marathon. Race support seems like a fine alignment between my
NVIS presentation
Jun 8, 2022
amateur radio & NVIS
I’ve been asked to do a presentation on NVIS and NVIS antennas for the Microhams club. Since I’ve had further thoughts on how to improve my
Mobile VHF/UHF Installation
May 27, 2022
amateur radio
My goals for a mobile radio installation are: 100% reversible - no holes, nothing permanently mounted. Easily removable, so that it’s simple to
Portable Repeater Project - Shelf Weights
May 17, 2022
portable repeater & amateur radio
I’m in the process of putting all the bits into the SKB roto-molded 4U rack case I’ve got. Mostly that has consisted of arranging things on the two
Portable Repeater Project - Receiver & Transmitter
May 14, 2022
amateur radio & portable repeater
A lot of hams have picked Motorola Maxtrac radios for VHF or UHF repeater projects. But programming the radios is a pain, because Motorola are rigid
Portable Repeater Project - Duplexers
May 11, 2022
portable repeater & amateur radio
A repeater is basically just a receiver with the audio output routed to the input of a transmitter. Whatever it receives (modulo things like CTCSS
The Portable Repeater Project - Controller Choices
May 11, 2022
Amateur Radio & Portable Repeater
Repeater controllers have gone through a significant evolution. The club I’m a member of (SNOVARC) uses ARCOM RC210 controllers. They’re very
Portable Repeater Project - Power
May 10, 2022
amateur radio & portable repeater
In the past I’ve built go box style setups which included internal batteries. The goal, in my view, was to have a setup where you bring it to the
The Portable Repeater Project - Case
May 10, 2022
amateur radio & portable repeater
Since the Portable Repeater will be, well, portable, it will need to be in a case of some sort that will protect it from the heartache and thousand
Ultramarathon Go Bags for Hams
May 8, 2022
amateur radio & ultrarunning
Some little while ago I was discussing supporting ultramarathon races with some of my ham radio friends. The specific scenario discussed was
Towards A Modern Mobile VHF/UHF (part 1)
Apr 8, 2022
amateur radio
The current crop of mobile vhf/uhf radios is, er, disappointing. It’s like they were designed in the 1980’s and have been preserved in amber all
The Portable Repeater Project
Apr 5, 2022
amateur radio & portable repeater
One of my amateur radio projects I’ve got underway in a low intensity background sort of way is building a repeater that is portable - not intended