This site is dedicated to my pursuits in Amateur Radio, Cooking, Travel, Fishing, Firearms, National Parks, Engineering and Coding, with the occasional explosion thrown in. It's a bit all over the place, but enjoy the stories.
I've been so swamped with school and work, and playing with the rapidly growing kiddo, I have let my radio pursuits slide a bit this summer. I've read on Twitter there's been some great new ops showing up on SO50, in rare grids. I've really been meaning to get out and work more of them, it just hasn't happened. Yesterday though, I resolved to chase some DX.
Esteban, HC1JB, has shown up from time to time on SO50 recently, and he's worked some folks in the southern part of the US. It's always late in the pass, but after running the numbers I figured we should have a window. Emails exchanged, we settled on a descending SO50 pass with TCA's of around 50° for both of us. We'd have a 3 minute window as SO50 set for me, and was rising for him. He warned me though that from his QTH in Quito, Ecuador, he would be fighting mountains and volcanos for a clear view. I assured him that I could go all the way to the horizon, so I'd try and spot him as much elevation as I could. For this particular angle, I chose a hill in West Little Rock about 10 minutes from the house.. it's not as high as my 'mountain' is, but it gives me a wide angle to work with, and has a great uninterrupted horizon from about 150° to about 270°
The pass just happened to be a few minutes before sunset too, so while the bird streaked across the sky from AOS at 340° to LOS at about 160° I was treated to a great picture of the sun sinking over the distant sky. Esteban called me right on que with about 45 seconds to go, when I was down to 4° of elevation left. We quickly exchanged reports and said our 73s. The voices on the transponder all switched from English to Spanish, as US operators went LOS, and Latin American hams took over.
Satellite DXCC Entity #38, Oscar Century #95, and grid #422 in the log. Thanks my friend.. hope your view was as good as mine.
I have always taken a unique approach to powering my radios, compared to the rest of the hobby. I have never *once* made a QSO with my own gear on anything that wasn't battery powered. I simply don't own any power supplies, and have never had the need or desire to get one. Now obviously I use AC power to charge my batteries, and I have tapped into the big battery on my Jeep (even going to so far as to run powerpoles to two different place in it) but the fact remains that when it's time to actually turn electricity into RF, it has always been a battery that is providing the juice to do it.
I've got several different versions, for depending on what I'm up to. For 'normal' everyday usage on HF with my 857 I've got a pair of Werker 35AH Deep Cycle lead batteries (left most in the picture). They work well, and I can use the 857 at the full 100W on one or both of these for a day's worth of contacts. Next I've got a smaller Werker Deep Cycle, rated at 12AH (furthest to the right) that I use for slightly smaller jobs. It doesn't quite have the capacity to handle a full 100W HF load (on especially something like 6m) on the 857, but at lower levels < 50W it works well. This battery is nice for quick "hamming in the park" or NPOTA application where I'll only be on the air for a few hours, and don't necessarily need full power. The SLABs (Sealed Lead Acid) are my workhorses, and do most of the heavy lifting when it comes to powering my different rigs.
Finally, I've got the sports car of the bunch - my Zippy 8.4AH LiFePo4 Battery Pack (The blue battery in the middle). This thing is stripped down with no fanciness, but weighs about 1/4 of what the SLABs do for equal power, and the Lithium chemistry will hold full voltage even under the full load of 100W 6M FM from the 857. It is what I find myself using more and more of these days, because it's just so light and powerful. When it goes dead though, you REALLY have to watch it, cause voltage will fall from 13.2V to < 12V in a matter of minutes - and when it does, the battery is dead and it's time for a recharge.
Downside of the LiFePo4 pack, is while it's stripped down and efficient, it's made up of multiple cells that have to be kept relatively close in voltage or else bad things will happen. This requires a special charger. Luckily they're pretty cheap, and are adaptable. Here I've got it hooked up to the powerpoles in the Jeep, so it's slurping juice from the alternator and the starting battery. The LiFePo4 chemistry in addition to dumping it's juice quickly, will also accept a charge very quickly as well. My particular charger will do up to 7A of DC charging ability (while keeping the cells balanced) which means I can get the battery back up to full power from near dead in just over an hour. When on the road and navigating summit to summit, this is a huge bonus.
Since power is a consumable quantity in my trade, knowing how much you've used, and how much you have left is huge... especially on the little lithium. That's why these inline power meters are practically essential. They give you current voltage, amperage use, and how many AH you've used since you plugged in. It's a great way to watch how much juice different modes and styles of operating pull as well. I highly recommend them when you're a battery only ham like I am.
I am lucky to live in a state like Arkansas. It's one of the few places in the US where cost of living is cheap, the people are great, geography is varied, and we have State Parks that rival the best in the country. One such State Park is Pinnacle Mountain, and only being 15 minutes from the house, I consider it (along with Shinall, which I can drive up) *my* mountain.
This particular Sunday, I was in a mood to go run up my mountain, and I realized that I hadn't done a SOTA activation in nearly a month. I will sometimes just grab my HT and head to the top of the peak and call out on simplex, but it seems as if it's been getting tougher all the time to find customers there.. so, with the impending CM93 trip coming up - I decided it might be time for a dry run with some gear I don't normally use for the birds. I grabbed my 857d and my FT60, 2 pieces of LMR240, my trusty LiFePo4 battery pack, adapters for everything, and my arrow. I checked to make sure there was a pass coming - and indeed SO50 would be overhead in about 2 hours. That was all I needed.. I tossed everything in my backpack, made sure my camel-back bladder was full of water, and hit the road. 15 minutes later I was in the parking lot, and on my way up to the top.
As you can probably tell from pictures, Pinnacle is basically just a big hill rising straight up out of the Arkansas River Valley. There's very little approach, you just get on the trail, and start climbing. I made pretty good time getting to the top, especially considering I was hauling 30 pounds of radio gear, first aid, and water with me. I'll have to do at least one hike roughly double the elevation of this out on Santa Rosa with a similar amount of gear.. and we've allowed 2 hours for that hike, so I think I'm on pace to where I should be.
Once I got on top I went out to the 'West Summit' which is just a few foot lower than the 'East Summit' but a bit more isolated by 50 yards or so of scrambling over some boulders. It's also a bit further away from the trees, and has a better 360° view of the horizon, which is always important for Satellites. I set my gear up and called CQ on 146.520 for a bit, hoping to find some local folks before the pass at 2016UTC. To my surprise, I had quite a few takers. A little bit of power and a 3 element beam makes things much much better than a 5W HT and a whip.
After I made a bunch of simplex contacts, I got setup for SO50. I would transmit with 10W on the 857 and receive on my FT60. I'd used this combination before, but it had a while. This is where I ran into some issues.
First - you have to set a 67hz PL tone to get into SO50's transponder. This is no biggie on an 857, you go into the menu, scroll down with the coarse adjustment knob til you find the PL tone setting, then use the big knob to select the PL tone setting.. save this, go back to the VFO, and then enable the tone on the frequency. Everything went fine until I tried to scroll with the big knob... no such luck.. I could scroll UP - but whenever I'd spin the wheel counter-clockwise.. nothing happened. This seemed to be happening on all menus and all bands. The more coarse step knob worked to scroll down, but the big dial simply wasn't responding. Well this sucks.. especially since this is the ONLY way to get the proper PL tone assigned, and unfortunately the menu doesn't start over at the bottom when you go to the top. I had run into this before, when my 857 is sitting in the sun, and it gets hot - and for some crazy reason the big knob doesn't scroll down anymore... No idea why, just does. It usually calms down in a few minutes after getting it back in the shade, but here I was at AOS for a pass lasting 12 minutes, on a frigging mountain with no shade. I covered the rig with my backpack to get it cooling off and went to improvising.
I quickly reconfigured... I'll use my FT60 to TX and my 857 to receive.. 5W uplink on a sunday afternoon is not optimal on SO50, but I'll give it a shot. I was able to work W5PFG/P in DM66 quickly - but after that I couldn't get in. To further complicate matters since I was now receiving with the 857, I had to adjust doppler there by, you guessed it, dialing DOWN - which I couldn't do. No problem, I can use the coarse control for this. Oh but wait, there's more! By default the 857 does 25khz steps on the coarse dial on 70cm, you have to change it to 5khz step in the menu by <drumroll> scrolling down with the big knob. If there is any problem with the 857's design, it's the extremely menu based options that requires every single setting to be controlled from there as a dial option. When something happens to your dial, you're basically hosed.
Around TCA of SO50 I got the 857 cool enough in the shade, that the down dial finally started responding, so I reconfigured back to my initial setup - TX on 857, RX on FT60. I got PL tone set, got TX freq set, and now I should be in business. However, this is where I ran into issue 2.
When I keyed up on the 857 I noticed I wasn't hearing myself (or ANYTHING) on the downlink. Once again, something wasn't right.. One of the more interesting phenomenon Satellite operators experience, that isn't that common the other parts of ham radio, is the concept of 'de-sense'. Since we're almost always cross-banded, you have to keep all of your TX power out of the front-end of your RX box. When you don't, it wipes out what you're receiving, and you lose your ability to be full duplex. This was now happening to me. Keep in mind that I normally am working Satellites with my Icom 821. It's a great rig, dual independent VFOs, extremely sensitive and good power levels. It also seems to be extremely resistant to desensing. I can't really explain why - perhaps the two independent VFOs are shielded a bit better, who knows, but with the 857 and ft60 combo though, some serious desense was happening.
In the past when I've had issues with desense, it's typically because something is not tuned right. The arrow is a nice hardy antenna that has a well built gamma matching device and I've always tuned all of my antennae as best as I can out of the box. I hadn't checked the tuning on my arrow in a while though, but it's been working well, so I haven't bothered.. well, until now. One of the other differences between my 821 and my 857, is that the 857 has a built in SWR meter, while my 821 doesn't. So even if it was getting out of tune, I was using a rig that is resistant to desense, and I'd have no built in methods for checking - unless I felt like putting a meter in line. So, at this point I keyed up, glanced at the SWR meter on the face of the 857, and saw it about halfway up - indicating an SWR in the range of 3:1. That's no bueno.
Lacking the time (and a Phillips screwdriver) to do anything about it, I just decided to finish the pass as is, and transmitted in the blind when I thought I had an opening. Half-Duplex is not how I like to operate, but it will get the job done. I managed 3 more contacts in the last 10 degrees of the pass, and had enough to call the activation complete. Phew.
I grabbed some video before packing my stuff up:
And headed back down the peak. I had come dangerously to borking the activation, but got it done. I was glad, but I had to some work to do in the shack later on. That said, still a great afternoon on my mountain.
On behalf of Wyatt Dirks (AC0RA) and myself, we are am proud to announce that plans for the K6R Santa Rosa Island Satellite Expedition to CM93 have been finalized, and we are ready to share the good news with the community.
On September 16th, 2016 at 8:00AM PDT we will board a boat that will take us on the 3 hour ride to Santa Rosa Island, in the Channel Islands National Park. After arriving on the Island we will hike the mile and half to the back-packer campground, just inside grid square CM93xx. Over the next 48 hours we will operate on a number of Satellite, HF, and Terrestrial VHF/UHF passes and frequencies attempting to hand out the exceptionally rare grid square, the IOTA entity, and the Channel Islands National Park to as many fellow hams as we can.
We'll be posting an FAQ in the coming weeks, that will hopefully cover the questions people may have. The things we can tell you right now though, are that we have secured permission to spend 2 nights on the Island and operate with small battery powered radios in Grid Square CM93. The primary focus of the expedition will be to hand out the very rare grid square on Amateur Radio Satellites, however we will also take some time to make terrestrial VHF/UHF contacts with those in range, and spend some time QRP on HF to activate the Island for the 2016 National Parks on the Air program.
We *will* be publishing Satellite pass schedules (probably a few weeks in advance of the op) and taking VHF/UHF terrestrial sked requests, but hold off emailing us until we asks for the requests. Once our operating windows and island movement plans are finalized, we will solicit input from folks.
QSLs will be direct with a SASE or via LOTW. We haven't decided who will be filling them out yet, or if we're doing a special card, or anything like that, but we'll be sure to let everyone know the path before we launch.
As far as a little bit about us, Wyatt (right) has activated over 150 satellite grids while /P and /R and is widely regarded as one of the most prolific and skilled grid hunters in the hobby. He's also a perennial champion in the different VHF contests as a Rover. I (left) have activated over 50 satellite grids while /P, and specialize in ultra-lightweight operation in the Summits on the Air program, and using handheld equipment to work Satellite operators at very low elevations. We're also both former Eagle Scouts, and have extensive experience backpacking, hiking, and camping in the wilderness. This expedition will put all of our skills to the test, but we feel that our team will be able to meet the challenges, and put one of the most sought after grids out there on the air.
Also want to send a big Thanks to the Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club, and the Channel Island National Park Service for their assistance in planning this op.
There will be much more news in the coming months, but the expedition is a go! Stay tuned!
On May 14th, 2016 the annual Arkansas QSO Party was held. I missed last year due to prior commitments, so I made it a point to go out this year. I got everything packed in the jeep the night before and surprisingly was able to bring darn near everything with.
My destination was a spot known as 'Crystal Mountain' which was within 3 miles of the Saline / Perry county lines, which per the QSO party rules, counted a 'county line' operation.
The weather was a little iffy looking at the day started, a big cloud bank moved across the sky.. but the temperature was nice, the view was great, and the rain managed to hold off.
I put my 40m dipole up first and called CQ for a while. The bands were not in great shape though, and with my 50W I only netted about 10 qsos in the first hour.
My mighty shack did OK though, and any day in the mountains is better than any other day somewhere else.
After a couple hours of HF, I got my Satellite station out. UT1FG/MM was sailing on the high seas in the Gulf of Mexico, and my view to the Southeast was second to none. Worked him easily, and actually caught N4UFO/P towards the end of the pass in some rare grids in Nevada too... score!
After the Satellite pass I decided to try a little /P psk31. I'd never actually done this before, but I had the equipment, and I figured 'why not'. This was actually the most fun I had. I made 17 QSOs, including some other QSO partiers, using 10W and my dipole. You can hear everything out in the mountains, so it was easy for the computer to pick out the faintest of signals.
Finally as the day wore on, I relocated to the other side of the mountain, shimmied up a little cliff, and setup my station hoping to catch Alaska on SO-50. I didn't hear them, but I did work a few others other out on the west coast, which is always a good time.
Sunday morning didn't start quite as early as Saturday had.. I had gotten 6 of the 10 peaks that were my goal for the weekend (not including Friday) so I was already ahead of schedule. That said, some family was going to drive out and meet me in the mountains for a late lunch picnic, so I had to pretty well wrapped up by midday. I departed Mena and headed for Winding Stair Mountain (W5O/OU-002) near the scenic byway, and about a mile and a half up a fairly steep portion of the Ouachita Trail.
After a few hundred yards in the wrong direction (The sign that says 'mountain-top' doesn't really go to the top of the mountain..) I got re-oriented and proceeded up the trail. A short 45 minutes later I was on top and setup my station:
It was a great temperature that morning, but I was slightly concerned by the clouds to the west. The wind was howling more and more all the time, and the clouds were getting darker. I setup my dipole and went to work on 20m, hoping to find some New England QSO partiers to get me started... Once again, early in the morning I found the bands to be slim pickings, but there was something else... signals were all over the place, tremendously up and down.. I checked all my equipment and everything looked good, I couldn't figure out what was going on. Finally I got thru to one of the contesters and he promptly informed me I was one of the only people he had heard that morning. Apparently there was a G3 magnetic storm going on, and the bands were garbage.
I briefly considered what to do... I normally operate SOTA using between 15-20W, but since I have the 857, I *can* go QRO if I so desire, all the way to 100W if need be. My LiFePo4 battery will easily handle the voltage pull, but it will suck the amps out FAST at full bore, and I really don't like doing it. I compromised and turned the power up to 50W.. that helped.. I grabbed 3 more QSOs from contesters and got enough for my activation... phew.. I managed to get a spot out on the cell phone too (which was also acting wonky) and had a brief pileup of SOTA chasers. After everything subsided, I looked west again... clouds still not good, and now that my phone was working, I was able to see some hits on the radar too. I was planning on hiking out to Rough Mountain from here, but it would likely be 2-3 hours before I got back to the Jeep if I did, and I just wasn't in the mood to get rained on... I decided to postpone Rough Mountain for another time.
Before I left though, I did grab some quick video from the top:
After the hike back down, I jumped in the jeep and decided what to do next... I still had a few hours before I had to meet my family for lunch, but I had pretty well exhausted the peaks in the area. There was one more off to the west that I had missed the day before, Lenox Ridge (W5O/OU-021), and it looked like it was close to the road, so I could run for cover if the rain started. I headed west to the turnoff, and down a surprisingly pleasant forest service road until I reached the spot.
It did rain on me a bit just as I got on site, but not enough to be a problem.. I setup my dipole and waited for the rain to completely clear, before getting out my radio. Once it did I managed to get a spot out and started calling CQ. I actually had a pretty good little pile going there for a bit, and picked up a very respectable 27 QSOs over the course of about 30 minutes. By this time it was approaching noon, and I had a meeting with the family a couple mountains back to the east to attend too. I cleaned up my gear, jumped in the jeep, and updated my APRS message to state my weekend was over.
All in all I made 120 QSOs over 10 different summits, and pulled in 76 points. Not a bad weekend at all for SOTA. Thanks to all the chasers that stuck with me - it was a blast :)
Saturday morning started early... even earlier than I had planned. I was on the road from Mena at 1030UTC, and my destination was Polecat Peak (W5O/OU-003). After a grueling 2 hours drive, over some very gnarly forest service roads, I arrived at the foot of the mountain.
I promptly scurried the 100 or so yards thru the brush to the top, got the 40m dipole up, threw out a spot, called CQ... and nothing.... hmm... that's not good.. I spun the dial a bit, didn't hear much, finally came across some people lower in the band. I think I was too early for everyone to be awake. It was 730AM CDT on a saturday morning, everyone must have been sleeping in. After a few minutes of calling CQ, I finally picked up AC7P, and that was it. Worried about getting my 4, I switched to 20m... it was still pretty dead too.. I did manage to scare up 3 more QSOs though after another 15 minutes calling.. phew... Packed up and jumped back in the jeep, headed to the next one.
Next stop was Lynn Mountain (W5O/OU-001) which unfortunately was back down the horrendous road I had just driven up, across the 50 yards of decent road, and then straight back up a different nasty rock road to approach from the West. I made it to the top after some time, and found a pull-off near the high point. While I was unloading the Jeep I heard XE2JS calling CQ on 50.125, so I promptly answered him and picked up another 6m contact on the mobile, woohoo! After setting up, I made 4 quick 40m qsos, and 8 20m qsos, and headed back to the jeep.. and ran into a minor snag as the right rear tire was obviously low on air. A quick check found a small hole, luckily I keep a full plug kit and air compressor in the back when I'm off-roading, so 20 minutes later I was aired back up, and on the trail towards Pigeon Benchmark.
Pigeon Benchmark (W5O/OU-013) was my first real hike of the morning. It's about 1.5 miles from the road, so it required slightly more than just brief bushwhacking close to the road. There was a decent trail though, and it wasn't a whole lot of up and down, so even with the big pack, it was a fairly enjoyable out to the high point. Once there I setup just my 20m dipole (since I was having better luck with it this morning) and proceeded to call CQ. By this point in the day there were several other activators out there, so I managed one quick S2S, and then told the pile where I was going so I didn't have to put my own spot out. 20 minutes later I had 17 QSOs, and paused for a quick selfie.. cause why not..
I wrapped up the activation and hiked back to the Jeep. 30 minutes later I was back on the road, heading west. I knew the road would continue until I crossed highway 259, where I'd have a quick pavement break, and then begin the climb up the infamous 'K-Trail' to the top of Kiamchi mountain.
The 4x4 trail is 11 miles from start to finish. The first 7 or so is pretty typical for a forest service road in this part of the country, and most normal high clearance vehicles will do ok. Mile 7 thru 9.5 get rougher, but any SUV or truck should still be OK. The last 1.5 to the top is where things get sketchy. Most folks actually park here and hike the rest of the way... but with the Jeep? Hah! Forward! Several rock crawl sections, and at least 4 very long and deep mudpits still full of water later, I was up on top, and cruised the rest of the way to the summit.
Up until this point, I hadn't actually worked any Satellites on my trip. I was hoping Kiamchi (W5O/KI-001) would have a good view to the horizon in all directions, and I was coming up on AOS time for an SO-50 pass. Unfortunately there were little scrub trees that obscured the bottom few degrees of the horizon, but it still wasn't bad. I walked the requisite distance from the Jeep and setup my station, making sure to be using battery power and a completely self contained station to meet SOTA rules. SO50 popped into view and I quickly cranked out 8 QSOs in about 10 minutes, finishing off with K4T - in the Dry Tortugas.
There IS a fire tower on top of Kiamchi as well, but there was not enough room to operate from it, with missing (and in some case rotting) boards and steps. I went up most of the way and promptly decided it would not be safe to hang out in.. I did grab a quick video while I was up there though.
I knew Kiamchi would be the apex of my adventure, as everything else I had on my plan was accessible from much better roads, so it was good to be at this point. It was 3pm local, and I still had about 5 hours of daylight left, so I decided to buzz one mountain range north and try and get a few more of the 'easier' summits over there. I headed back down the 'K-Trail' - aired my tires back up at the highway, and jogged north thru the valley to the 'Winding Stair' mountain range. Once on top, I headed west for the unnamed Point 2290 (W5O/OU-006).
Even though I felt pretty good, the Adrenaline of the day, and the fact I had started nearly 11 hours before was starting to wear on me. I got to the pull-off for 2290, and the wind was absolutely HOWLING now, as I think a front must have come thru during the drive. Instead of the dipole, I grabbed my tripod, tossed up a 20m hamstick, put out a few radials, and started calling to see who I could raise. I was back in cell phone reception land again, so a quick spot netted me 8 contacts without a whole lot of effort. Content with the activation, I buzzed west to 'Sycamore Lookout' (W5O/OU-005). I was approaching exhaustion, so I check my Satellite tracker and saw there was an AO-85 pass coming up in about 20 minutes. I got on the site, setup my satellite gear, and had about 10 minutes before AOS. While hanging out I figured I'd blindly call CQ on 146.520 and see who I could find. To my surprise I managed two quick contacts from a husband and wife ham team only about 20 miles away. Awesome! This turned out to be a very good thing, cause once AO-85 came over, I only managed 3 QSOs on the bird... had I not has those simplex contacts, I wouldn't have had enough for the activation.
Since I was so far west, I drove down the mountain into the town of Talihina, OK for a snack before the trip back to Mena. On the way I passed the zero mile marker of the Ouachita trail in Talimena state park.
I thought this was a fitting end to the day, so I paid my respects to the trail, and headed back east for the night. Satisfied with my day.
