M0JCQ's Ham Blog ← Adventures in Ham Radio ← Page 4

Did I Achieve My Amateur Radio Targets for 2015? 1

Dec

22

2015

It’s that time of year again when I assess how I got on with my Amateur Radio Targets that I set at the start of the year. I did this at the end of last year and found it good for recapping on my achievements and assessing my level of procrastination! It also actively spurs ...

Winter SOTA Activation of Drosgol (during Storm Desmond)

Dec

12

2015

Drosgol was my second Mid-Wales SOTA summit of the day. I had activated Plynlimon-Pen Pumlumon Fawr (GW/MW-001) earlier so I knew conditions were going to be wet, wild and darn windy! It took me about 10 minutes to drive around the Nant-y-Moch reservoir from my last activation parking spot. I arrived with the rain continuing to hammer down really ...

SOTA Activation of Plynlimon During Storm Desmond 1

Dec

12

2015

Have you ever activated a SOTA summit during a storm? No , me neither, until today! Turns out the storm even had a name, unknown to me then, Storm Desmond! I had a day’s annual leave to use up at work so I decided to visit Mid-Wales, booked some time ago so I didn’t really ...

Extreme QRPp SSB SOTA Activations using my Elecraft KX3 10

Nov

29

2015

One fateful day on the 10th of January 2015 I activated two SOTA summits on the island of Lanzarote (just off the north coast of Africa). The summits themselves weren’t overly special, being only worth 1 and 2 points… but band conditions that day were. Since I arrived on the island conditions had been pretty decent, ...

SOTA Activation of Pico Jano (EA1/CT-036)

Nov

23

2015

Pico Jano! What a lovely summit! It’s nestled on the outskirts of the Pico De Europa mountains and as a result you can see all three of the major massifs that make up this lovely mountain range. It qualifies for Summits On The Air (SOTA) and as a result was very much on my radar ...

Tough SOTA Activation of Wentwood (GW/SW-033) 1

Nov

10

2015

This was a harder activation than I had anticipated. I chose to activate Wentwood (GW/SW-033) on my way home from the Brecon Beacons. I had done 4 major summits in the last two days so I was looking forward to an easy one pointer to round things off. Summit Details GW/SW-033 – Wentwood – 309m, 1 point Latitude: 51 38 39 N, Longitude: 2 51 9 W Grid Reference: ST 411943, QTH Locator: IO81NP Parking: Park in the car park (within activation zone – ...

SOTA-on-Sea (Ogoño EA2/BI-068) 1

Nov

7

2015

On A lazy Sunday we decided to go to Playa Laga beach which was near our accommodation in the Basque sea-side village of Mundaka. The weather was glorious and I knew our restless nature would mean that in the mid-afternoon we’d want to do something else, not to worry, there’s Ogoño a SOTA summit located high ...

Activating a Virgin SOTA Summit (EA1/CT-021 Casanzo) 3

Nov

6

2015

We spent a week in Northern Spain up in the Picos de Europa mountains, of course it would be sacrilege to not activate one or two of these magnificent peaks that rise up to over 2500m! The place is literally littered with SOTA summits and most of which are unactivated, but for a very good ...

SOTA Activation of Oiz (EA2/BI-009) 2

Nov

4

2015

While staying in the Basque region of Northern Spain we decided to take a drive/walk into the mountains, this coincided with a visit to the SOTA summit of Oiz (pronounced Oith). This summit is just over 1000m ASL (we were staying at sea level, in the small fishing village of Mundaka) and is worth just 4 ...

SOTA on Lanzarote – 3 Summits in 1 Day

Nov

2

2015

During my visit to the Canary Islands back in January I spent some time on the volcanic island of Lanzarote. While here I activated all the possible SOTA summits. On one of these days I tackled 3 summits and here’s the report. Equipment for the day was my Elecraft KX3, SuperStick vertical antenna, iPad for ...