KB1HQS Arrow Antenna Mods

I am a big fan of the Arrow II style antennas for VHF SOTA. Initially, I used the dualband 2m/70cm antenna for satellite work as well as mountaintop activity. This started before SOTA was even a thing, as I hiked in the Colorado mountains and made radio contacts just for fun. These days, we normally … Read more

Top Five K0NR Blog Posts for 2021

Closing out 2021, here are the top five blog posts at k0nr.com during the year. Some people may see this as a lazy way of creating one more blog post for the year without much work. This is definitely true. I hope you enjoy it anyway. Leading the list is this blog post…a perennial favorite … Read more

Checking Out The KT-WP12 Transceiver

I’ve been interested in the idea of a microphone-centric radio and wrote about it here: How About a Mic-Centric Mobile Transceiver? Shortly thereafter, I discovered that QYT has introduced a VHF/UHF ham rig that has the display and controls in the microphone (Model KT-WP12). You may want to watch the video by Tech Minds, which … Read more

Power Box for Bioenno Battery

When operating portable, I use Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries from Bioenno. Most of my portable operating is for Summits On The Air (SOTA) and I wrote about it here: My SOTA Battery Journey For POTA activations, I purchased a larger, 20 Ah Bioenno battery and use it to power a Yaesu FT-991 (and other radios). … Read more

Working Phone Sweepstakes

This is a report on my single-operator contest effort during the ARRL November Sweepstakes (Phone) HF Contest. Some other potential titles for this article are: A Slacker’s Guide to Working the Sweepstakes How To Almost Work 50 States On a Weekend A Simple Way to Get On the HF Bands Contests on the HF bands … Read more

Combined SOTA / POTA Activations

Joyce/K0JJW and I have been doing combined Summits On The Air (SOTA) and Parks On The Air (POTA) activations. Most of the SOTA summits we activate are inside parks as defined by POTA. Our primary focus is using VHF/UHF from SOTA summits with POTA is being a nice addition. Although the two programs have a … Read more