New SOTA Mountain Goat: Joyce/K0JJW

Congratulations to my wonderful spouse and favorite hiking partner, Joyce/K0JJW, for achieving Mountain Goat status for Summits On The Air (SOTA). On August 10th, she reached 1000 activator points while activating Pikes Peak (W0C/FR-004).  She had quite the pileup on 146.55 MHz.  Her best DX for the day was WY7ATH near Cheyenne, WY at a … Read more

McQuaid Butte SOTA

McQuaid Butte (W0C/SP-019) is a 9043-foot mountain near our cabin in Park County. Joyce/K0JJW and I activated it for Summits On The Air (SOTA) way back in 2013 but for some reason, we had not been back to it. The access road (Salt Creek Road, FS 435) is gated closed from January 1 to June … Read more

Return to Dakota SOTA

In 2018, Joyce/K0JJW and I did a trip to the Black Hills area of South Dakota to do some SOTA activations:  Dakota SOTA Adventure.   We really enjoyed that part of South Dakota and figured we would be back. The Black Hills top out at ~7200 feet and the climbs are usually interesting but not very … Read more

2020 Colorado 14er Event

August 1 & 2, 2020 Saturday and Sunday www.ham14er.org Amateur Radio operators from around Colorado will be climbing many of Colorado’s 14,000-foot mountains and Summits On The Air (SOTA) peaks to set up amateur radio stations in an effort to communicate with other radio amateurs across the state and around the world. Join in on … Read more

New Book: VHF, Summits and More

This book is about having fun with ham radio, primarily on the VHF/UHF bands. It covers the basics of VHF, with practical tips for getting on the air and “messing around with radios.”  Topics include FM, SSB, repeaters, equipment, band plans, phonetics, portable operating, Summits On The Air (SOTA) activations and more.