M0JCQ's Ham Blog ← Adventures in Ham Radio ← Page 5

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 2

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 ...

SOTA Activation in the Middle of a Lava Field (Señalo)

Oct

31

2015

This SOTA activation demanded some dedication, Señalo (EA8/LA-011) is inconveniently located in the middle of a lava field about 3km from the nearest road on the island of Lanzarote. What, only 3km? Yep, the distance is no issue, but the terrain here is something else. Imagine a flowing river of lava that suddenly stopped and was ...

6m Antenna Options for Portable Use 11

Oct

30

2015

I’m a fan of the 6m band. It fascinates and frustrates me in equal measures, which is part of its appeal. It’s unpredictable, you can be working local stations within 50km of your QTH for some time and then all of a sudden a Portugese station will call you and they’re 59+40dB drowning out anything ...

Birthday SOTA Activation of Kinder Scout (G/SP-001) 2

Oct

26

2015

Me and The YL went up to the Peak District to celebrate my birthday. Inevitably I ended up doing two activations on the Saturday (this one and Shining Tor), while mostly out for a nice long walk. I only took a 2m FM equipment, utilising my trusty Yaesu FT-270 with the SOTABeams MFD dipole, making ...

A Raid on 5 Welsh SOTA Summits in One Day

Oct

24

2015

On Saturday 17th of October I drove from my home QTH in Hertfordshire to the south of Wales for some Summits On The Air fun. This year I’ve been to GW/SW quite a bit and have activated all the large summits in the Brecon Beacons. This trip was focused on the smaller 1 point summits ...

My First HF SSB Field Day 4

Sep

15

2015

My local club C&DARS (Chesham & District Amateur Radio Society) recently took part in the RSGB HF SSB Field Day and worked a total of 434 stations in 33 DXCC’s across the 24 hours. Band conditions weren’t great but we did get Saudi Arabia (HZ1FI/P) in the log and heard some VK’s early morning on ...

One of the Best – SOTA Activation of Shining Tor 1

Sep

1

2015

This was my second and final summit of the day (15th August) in the Peak District after activating Kinder Scout (G/SP-001) earlier in the day. Me and the YL arrived at the Cat & Fiddle pub car park at about 7pm, with the intention of a short walk and activation on Shining Tor before grabbing ...

Yaesu FT-270 vs Baofeng UV5R on Butser Hill 2

Aug

31

2015

Butser Hill (G/SE-004) was to be my 3rd and final SOTA activation of this day’s tour of Southern English summits. After the HF issues on Black Down (G/SE-003) previously, I decided to activate this summit on 2m FM only. Summit Factfile G/SE-004 – Butser Hill – 270m Latitude: 50 58 40 N, Longitude: 0 58 49 W Grid Reference: SU 716203, QTH Locator: IO90MX Parking: SU7117 2001 (N50:58:31, W0:59:15) – £3 pay & display! Trig: TP0316 – Butser WAB: SU72 ...