Amateur Radio · VHF/UHF · Summits On The Air · Colorado Mountains · Adventure
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.
While looking for our next SOTA adventure, I noticed a never-been-activated, unnamed 13er (W0C/SP-020) to the west of Mount Princeton. I checked various maps and it looked like there was a 4WD forest service road that went up to the adjacent saddle. So Joyce/K0JJW and I decided to give it a try. We took County … Read more
It has been quite a while since I’ve done an “internet spew” post, so here’s a bunch of exciting stuff flowing forth from the interwebz. Mt Herman is the Most Radio Active (SOTA) Mountain in Colorado. I noticed there wasn’t a good writeup with how to hike and activate it, so I wrote this one … Read more
Mount Herman (W0C/FR-063) is a popular Summits On The Air (SOTA) peak near Monument, CO. It is The Most Radio-Active Mountain in Colorado and recently popped onto the worldwide 50 Most Popular Summits. The summit elevation is 9063 feet (2762m) and the grid locator is DM79mb. Access to the summit is not difficult and most of … Read more
Back in 2014, Joyce/K0JJW and I did the first activation of W0C/SP-089 (also known by its elevation: 10525). See the trip report here. As noted in that trip report, we never did find much of a trail so we had to do some serious offtrail bushwacking. Being on the summit was great but bushwacking up … Read more
When planning for the next Summits On The Air (SOTA) hike, I want to understand the difficulty of the climb. The main things to evaluate are the length of the hike (horizontal distance), the vertical (elevation) gain and other contributing factors. Most of the SOTA summits in Colorado have a simple profile: pretty much uphill … Read more