Amateur Radio · VHF/UHF · Summits On The Air · Colorado Mountains · Adventure
The SOTA Management Team launched a special challenge for 2026: a distance-based scoring challenge using CW and SSB on the 2m and 70cm bands. The announcement is here on the SOTA reflector. The basic idea is to encourage SOTA contacts using CW or SSB on these two bands. Because the scoring is based on distance, … Read more
Closing out 2025, here are the top five blog posts at k0nr.com during the year. Some people may see this as a lazy way to create one more blog post this year without much effort, and they would be right. These posts are the top five most viewed this year, but may have been written … Read more
On December 1, most SOTA summits in Colorado gain an additional 3 points due to the Seasonal (Winter) Bonus. Joyce/K0JJW and I were looking for a summit not too far away that was still accessible for us to activate. This time of year, many US Forest Service roads are gated shut. Other roads remain open … Read more
When I get asked why I only use VHF/UHF frequencies for my Summits On The Air (SOTA) activations, I usually reply with: Height Above Average Terrain More specifically, I mean that using VHF for SOTA is fun because Height Above Average Terrain (HAAT) has a dramatic effect on the propagation of my radio signal. HAAT … Read more
Here are three affordable accessories that can help round out your VHF/UHF handheld transceiver (HT) kit. These items can significantly improve the performance of your radio and make it more useful. 1. A Halfwave Antenna for 2m I’ve already written about the RH660 antenna, which is a huge improvement over a typical rubber duck antenna. … Read more
I came across this new antenna, the TWAYRDIO RH 660S, mentioned in this Ham Radio Crash Course video. I have previously been recommending the TWAYRDIO TH770 antenna via this post. The RH 660S is a newer dual-band 2m/70cm telescoping antenna from the same company. For Summits On The Air (SOTA), I generally take along such … Read more