300!

I’ve been hitting the POTA activations pretty hard lately, and finally made it to 300 confirmations with unique parks. It’s definitely a challenge, but attainable by anyone, no matter the skill or equipment level.

Steve, K5ATA, has just uploaded an interview with Jason Johnston, W3AAX, with a great overview of the Parks on the Air program.

Goodgame Ham Radio & Outdoors YouTube Channel

This was a good overview of the POTA program. Steve has a great channel with lots of videos about various aspects of ham radio. Check it out here.

As I’ve said many times, YouTube is your friend. I don’t care what I’m doing … building an antenna, wiring a switch, buying a new phone, or changing a washer in a faucet … there’s most likely a video showing how to do it.

73 de Dick N4BC

Repeater Progress Report

There’s been progress on the W4MT repeater installation. As you may recall, the antennas went onto the tower a few weeks ago. Yesterday, we were able to check the feedlines and both the main and backup antennas were well within tolerance. Later this week, we’re going to clean the equipment room at the site, move in the equipment, and get everything connected up and on the air.

Maybe by next week both repeaters will be on the air (fingers crossed)!!

W4MT repeater site
Our antennas on right side of tower

Red Sun …

I noticed that the rising sun in the east was an unnatural deep reddish-orange color this morning. The weatherman says that it’s due to the smoke being blown eastward from the west coast wildfires. WOW! Three thousand miles away … small world!

Not much luck this morning on the radio. The bands have been pretty uncooperative the past few days, and this morning was no exception. The Europeans were coming in, but way down in signal strength. Time to read a book or something 😀 !

73 de Dick N4BC

Fickleness

The propagation gods giveth and the propagation gods taketh away … . Saturday was a good day for radio for me. I had over twenty POTA contacts and too many digital contacts to count. Then came Sunday!

There were plenty of spots for POTA activators, but I could not hear any of them well enough to make a solid contact. My noise levels were up and signal strengths were down. I was even having difficulties making digital contacts. The bandscope was pretty much flat for most of the day. Bummer!

Well, tomorrow is another day!

73 de Dick N4BC

It’s the Weekend Again!

I got up earlier again this Saturday and fired up the rig. I worked six POTA stations in less than an hour … pretty good mix of CW and SSB. I even worked AC8RG on 40 and 60 Meter CW. A quick check shows that that’s my first CW contact on the 60 Meter band … 5.405 MHz marks the spot!

Before that, I worked a bunch of stations on 80, 60, 40, 30, and 20 Meter FT4/8. Mostly USA and Canada, as you would expect on the lower bands, but an occasional European there too. There’s always contacts to be made on digital. Just throw your call out there and somebody will answer … almost guaranteed!

73 de Dick N4BC