Amateur Radio

[2xAGM114]

ETA: Did you ever work K1LIZ? She passed away this year, but chased me a few times in the past and we even have a S2S. I didn't know until she passed that she was blind and still activating summits.

Chris

Don't have her in my log. But I seem to recall reading her story on the Reflector.

Many cool, unique people in SOTA.

Are you a member of the SOTA-NA Slack channel? It's neat and I'm not a Slack fan. Antenna ideas, dudes doing all kinds of stuff to TruSDX, HTs, etc.

[mtnbkr]

Don't have her in my log. But I seem to recall reading her story on the Reflector.

Many cool, unique people in SOTA.

Are you a member of the SOTA-NA Slack channel? It's neat and I'm not a Slack fan. Antenna ideas, dudes doing all kinds of stuff to TruSDX, HTs, etc.

I'm not a member. I've only used Slack once before and I'm not even sure how to find the channel. Got a link?

Chris

[RoyGBiv]

A friend and fellow HAM operator sent me this story yesterday... Happy reading.

Ham, AmRRON Operators Save Another Life, Idaho Mountain Rollover Crash

A new ham radio operator who had her radio with her in the remote Idaho mountains, and an AmRRON Operator at home monitoring his radio save a life during roll-over truck crash on Saturday, Labor Day weekend.

[Shotgun]

A friend and fellow HAM operator sent me this story yesterday... Happy reading.

Ham, AmRRON Operators Save Another Life, Idaho Mountain Rollover Crash

Good story RGB, and thank you for posting.

[JohnO]

A conversation this past weekend reminded me of the following.

In college a friend was into Amateur Radio. I saw him make an Autopatch phone call with a 2M HT before bag phones even existed. That got me interested. Then the technical side started to interest me as I was in the electrical engineering department. I asked my friend how I can get involved and he gave me the rundown including how I would have to learn Morse Code. 2 weeks later I was in NY city at the FCC building sitting for a test. I passed and had to wait weeks before my license arrived via the mail before I had a call sign and could get on the air. My sole involvement in Amateur Radio was 2M FM with the ICOM IC2-AT I bought after passing the test.

Upon graduation I was recruited by a three letter government agency. I was invited to the D.C. area for multiple days of interviews and vetting. Psychologists, aptitude tests, polygraphs and more were part of the process as well as actual interviews with potential bosses.

Shortly thereafter agents from the Defensive Investigative Service were knocking on doors in my home neighborhood, contacting friends and professors. My parents were getting calls from neighbors telling them Feds were at their house asking about me. Friends were contacting me. One question stood out and everyone mentioned it, paraphrasing "Do you have any knowledge of John contacting communist countries on the radio"?

I always wondered what would have happened if I had gotten on a national traffic net and passed, "The blue bird is on the fence. Mary has red hair."

[2xAGM114]

P-F Hammers:

Interested in buying a MTR3B - LCD from a reputable source. I own a MTR4B but think I'd like a 3B in good or like new condition. If you know of one in your area, I'd appreciate a head's up.

Thanks.

[HeavyDuty]

Interesting new QRP rig: https://www.wa3rnc.com/store/penntek...rp-transceiver

[mtnbkr]

A guy on QRZ has been working up an antenna system using the a stainless steel golf ball retriever available on Amazon for $21:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09QD512Q2

It's 16' long fully extended, which is very close to halfwave on 20m. He has been endeavoring to build a resonant system that relies on collapsing sections or adding tuning coils. He's had good success. Me, I'm lazy. I replicated some of his work and used the KX2's ATU to bridge the gap. It worked, but I felt it could be better. Then I realized I had an LDG 9:1 unun. Why not make it a random wire pole antenna. I tried that today and it worked great. Lots of contacts and even a lengthy (for me) QSO with a ham in the UK.

This will be perfect for camping or those treeless summits.

Antenna in all its glory with capacity hat:


Antenna before I tried the unun, set up for SOTA:


Unun attached (capacity hat removed, though you can't see it):


Chris

[HeavyDuty]

I found a hamfest today. It was late enough that many people were already packing or gone, but I did take a look around. I don’t have a frequency agile FM handheld that’s not packed away (most of my HTs are Motorola, and my programming gear is packed) so I picked up a cheap Yaesu FD-4XR - for $70 NIB it was a no-brainer. I’d like to see what’s happening on the local club repeaters.

[RoyGBiv]

Several of our local antennas and our weather station are mounted on the roof of the local PD. We're soon to have the roof replaced /repaired and we'll have to move the gear around to make way for that to happen. I was up on the roof taking video and photos to document the current situation and it's clearly time to refurb our antenna mounts and cabling. Mounts are pulling out of the siding and the guys for the independently mounted gear could be "reimagined" in more robust ways. I'm grateful for not being the person tasked to work with the City to get permission (or funding) for things. Good news is that the City folks have seen the benefits of having the gear up there. And the timing is very good for the work that needs to be done. And the weather was perfect for doing that recon.

The guy I was working with had come from a ham fest and reported making HF contacts from Europe and New Zealand this morning....