WELCOME

Welcome to my amateur radio BLOG. Here at N1CLC.com (aka HamNinja.com), I hope to cover my exploration of ham radio, summits on the air (SOTA) and general RF geek stuff.  My other BLOGS focus on technology (cloudrant.com), photography (cameraninja.com/blog), and life (thethroboflife.com). QSL via QRZ, LOTW, cards.

* Reference Links Page    * SOTA Specific Links  
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I monitor 146.520 and DMR SOTA (973), track me on the trail HERE or APRS.

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SOTA Gear Survey Results

 This is a placeholder for the results of our SOTA gear survey.  Stay Tuned...

2020-10-17 A Washington Double

I traveled up to Seattle to visit my son who just moved there.  Juan’s got an awesome little place and getting in the Seattle city groove.  I had given Josh, WU7H, a heads up that I was coming and was hoping to join him on an activation.  I met Josh via the hobby and he’s a member of the SOTA slack group that I hang out at.  He lives in the Seattle area and has been doing SOTA for a long time and very familiar with the area.  He’s chased me a ton this year and we’ve gotten a lot of summit to summit (S2S) contacts.  Josh activates a lot with Darryl, another prolific activator and S2S junkie. Normally, if Josh or Darryl works you S2S, the other will be right behind him.  I’m hoping that Darryl will be able to join as well.  Josh originally chose a peak that would have some awesome views but the road into the area was closed so he chose a summit North East of Seattle, about 2 hours from where I was.  I was really looking forward to it. 

2020-09-20 Pipestem Mtn

Today’s summit of Pipestem is in lue of doing Red Mountain.  Dale and I had planned on doing Red Mountain but the trail was closed.  Pipestem is a good alternate summit and is in the same general area but further south down the Mogollon Rim.  The summit is lower than all of the peaks farther north, it’s about 7,244 feet at the summit.  I met Dale at his cabin in Alpine at about 6AM and we headed out. 

On the drive down we saw several small groups of deer and some baby deer as well.  In addition, we came across some large wild turkey hens and further down the road there were some tom turkey.  We stopped pretty close to the toms and watched them for a moment. Dale was running my camera most of the time.  We got pictures of all the wildlife except for the toms, I think they were too close.

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2020-09-28 Escudilla Fall Colors

Sometimes I do summits on the air SOTA just for the hike and today was one of them.  I’ve done Escudilla this year so I don’t get any more SOTA points but I did get some awesome views.  I just got back from Flagstaff, doing three summits with Charlie, NJ7V and was planning on relaxing today.  When I saw the fall colors as I walked the dog in the forest behind the villa, I decided I really needed to take advantage of the Sunday and do something fall color related so up to Escudilla it was.

I took my usual radio loadout but the trek was really to look at the fall colors and WOW, WOW, WOW, it didn’t disappoint.  Fall came a bit early this year and it’s a good thing because I’m leaving this weekend.  It’s almost like they popped overnight.  The first two miles of the trail are lined with oak and aspen that are changing color.  I snapped a lot of pictures and I’ll put the best in here.
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2020-09-19 Blue Peak

Today’s summit is W7A/AE-016 (Blue Peak).  It’s located south of Hanagan’s meddow off of highway 191 (previously known as 666).  The road to the actual tailhead is a little over 4 miles.  There’s a parking area at the trailhead and the road was pretty rocky.  

The trail brings you up the north side ofa small mountain just to the west of the destination and it provided some nice views.  It’s fairly easy hike of ~1.3 miles with a total gain of 486 feet. 

2020-09-12 Ortega Mtn

Today was a quick summit to Ortega Mtn, W7A/NA-008.  It’s off the highway between Show Low and Concho, AZ.  I’ve been saving this one for when it was a bit cooler in the area and was hard up for a quick summit, and also combine it with a trip to the Home Depot (about 75 miles from my summer villa).  After yesterday’s long hike around Mt. Baldy, I didn’t get up too early, then had breakfast and headed out. 
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