Amateur Radio · VHF/UHF · Summits On The Air · Colorado Mountains · Adventure
On Sunday, I noticed that Brad WA6MM posted that he planned to activate Dakota Hill (W0C/SR-051) for Summits On The Air (SOTA). Dakota is not a good VHF shot from my house but I was planning to be mobile out east towards Black Forest that morning, so it was worth a try. I texted Brad … Read more
Earlier this year, I was talking ham radio stuff with Brian Hutchison, AI6GH. Brian mentioned that his father was a Prisoner of War (POW) in World War II and built a radio while in a Japanese prison camp. I’ve read articles about vintage and spy radios from WWII, but I’ve never been that interested in … Read more
You’ve heard it a million times: our kids are the future. That statement gets applied to almost everything, including amateur radio. How can you argue with an obvious fact like that? But I am starting to think it is incorrect. We’ve had really good success on creating new hams of all ages in our Technician … Read more
We just wrapped up our Technician license class sponsored by the Tri-Lakes Monument Radio Association. Thirty people took the Technician exam with 27 passing (90%). Four people went on to pass the General exam. We offer the class twice per year and it always fills to capacity. Invariably, we wonder “where are these new hams … Read more
The CQ Worldwide DX SSB contest was last weekend and I applied my signature HF Slacker™ operating methodology to this event. Most of the HF gear I have is kept at our cabin in the mountains but I had to be at the house this weekend due to some commitments. I decided to apply Field … Read more
Wouldn’t it be cool if we had one digital communications format for the VHF/UHF amateur bands with all equipment manufacturers offering compatible products? The basic modulation and transport protocol would be standard with manufacturers and experimenters able to innovate on top of that basic capability. There would be plenty of room to compete based on … Read more