Portable Operation ← M0JCQ's Ham Blog ← Page 2

Becoming a Half SOTA Goat – The First 500 Activator Points

May

19

2017

Reaching 500 activator points was my target for 2017 and I’ve peaked early! The tipping point was an unexpected trip to Snowdonia in Wales in April, where I activated 11 summits for 75 points. This took me beyond 500 points but officially marked me reaching the half way point to becoming a full mountain goat (1000 ...

SOTA Activation of Pen Y Garn (during Storm Desmond)

May

8

2017

This was the second day of my Storm Desmond SOTA activations in Mid-Wales (see Plynlimon and Drosgol activation reports) back in December 2015. Unfortunately the weather was looking even worse than the day before from the B&B! After a full English (or should that be Welsh?) breakfast I set off towards the summit of Pen Y Garn (GW/MW-004) ...

VHF SOTA Expedition in the Snowdonia National Park 6

Apr

28

2017

In April I finally finished a big project at work and had some time off to relax – the perfect break would be some walking in the Snowdonia National Park in North Wales. Of course the first thing that usually happens when I start to relax is that I get a cold, annoyingly this happened ...

How to Undertake a SOTA Activation – Step by Step Guide 1

Sep

17

2016

Recently I’ve been shooting a number of videos for YouTube outlining the kit I use for SOTA and now I’ve done one showing how I go about activating a SOTA summit. It’s a step by step guide to carrying out a SOTA activation in the great outdoors. It covers the set-up, spotting, operating procedure ...

QRPp Experiments on the 60m Band Using the Elecraft KX3

Sep

15

2016

On Sunday I went out portable with my Elecraft KX3 to see if I could make some inter-G contacts on the 60m band. 40m wasn’t supporting NVIS and the Worked All Europe (WAE) contest was dominating 20m, so my QRP station was struggling to be heard with only Cyprus and Asiatic Russia worked on 10w, ...

My Kit for SOTA & Portable Amateur Radio 4

Sep

14

2016

I’ve thought about doing a YouTube film (you can Subscribe to my channel here) of the kit I use for my SOTA and Portable amateur radio operations for some time now. Yesterday I finally got around to it and made the most of calm and sunny conditions (quite rare here in England!). The selected equipment ...

Receiving Long Path Asian DX on the Elecraft KX3 1

Sep

12

2016

While out portable yesterday I tuned around 20m, keen to see if I could hear any DX during the Worked All Europe (WAE) SSB contest. What I experienced, is I can only assume, Long Path (LP) Asian DX. Essentially the Short Path (SP) would have been within a path of darkness from East to West. ...

Batteries for Portable Amateur Radio Use 56

Aug

30

2016

One very common question I get about portable Amateur Radio operation is what do I use as a battery? I have answered this question individually more times than I can mention so I thought I’d write it up as a post to help others. I’ve used everything from car batteries, Sealed Lead Acid Batteries (SLAB), ...

Portable Logging for iPad & iPhone 5

Aug

21

2016

I’ve had a lot of questions about the portable logging App I use when out on the hills. Most of the time people can see in photos and videos that I’m using an Apple iPad or iPhone but they can’t make out the App. Since 2014 I’ve been using RumLog2Go (developed by Thomas Lindner DL2RUM) on both my ...

Top 10 Reasons to Take Ham Radio Portable 56

Feb

1

2016

Update 12/07/16: This blog post has been published as an article in the August 2016 Practical Wireless magazine here in the UK. Check it out, looks better in print! Portable amateur radio operation is the reason I’m still in the hobby. There you go, I said it! Since getting licensed I’ve not lived in a ...