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  
* My Equipment Loadout    * DMR Tips    * My Youtube Channel

I monitor 146.520 and DMR SOTA (973), track me on the trail HERE.  Donate HERE.

Check out the latest videos by the Ham Ninja

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How I Manage My Contact Logs

When I’m out activating a SOTA summit, which is where is where most of my logged contacts come from, I put them into Outd logging software on my iPhone.  It makes it super easy to upload to the SOTA database.  (I’ve done a review of outd HERE if you are interested.)  When I’m at home, I use N3JFP’s Amateur Contact Log (ACLOG) on my PC.  I’ve also been known to use a paper log when things get wet on a summit.  More importantly, no matter how I log contacts, all of them are uploaded into ACLOG.   This article is about N3JFP’s Amateur Contact Log, and how I configure it and use it to centralize all of the logged contacts that I make from home or on the road.   Think of ACLOG as the clearing house for all of my amateur radio logging.

The Ninja eBike

Some of you may have seen my custom e-bike that I use on SOTA activations in my videos.  I also use it for commuting, and some general MTB fun in the forest.  It's a great addition to my SOTA kit.  I have over 8,000 miles on the bike commuting to work and have done several fun MTB rides, some of which were for SOTA.  I love it for that.  

I'm mainly a road worrier (commuting on roads on this bike for over 8,000 miles) and I have been all my life but I've done a little MTB.  The problem is, I don't have a lot of MTB technical skills so rocky single tracks have me walking a bit.  I load the bike on the car for specific SOTA missions when I know the terrain will work out for me (mainly an old road that is closed).  At other times, I'll take it when going into an area that I'm not sure about, in case the road is blocked or ends sooner than expected.  The Forest Service does this at times but still allows bike travel (I don't use it to get into closed areas).  

A 2021 Ham / SOTA Recap

 2021 was a busy year for me, “hike mountain, work radio”, also known as Summit On The Air (SOTA).  I generally start out the year with some goals in mind.  For 2021, my goal was to NOT exceed my 2020 stats for summits and points.  I felt trying to do that would take some of the joy out of the SOTA for me since 2020 was a huge year.  In 2020 I was working to get to 1,000 points and the associated mountain goat award, so I had “goat fever”.  This year I just wanted to stay above the 2019 stats for summits, points, miles, elevation gain and first activations.  I also wanted to build at-least one radio and an antenna, play with JS8call and improve my CW copy speed.  So how did I do? 

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Let’s start with the stats:

Improve Your Chances Of SOTA Activating

Want to have the best chance of getting the minimum of 4 contacts on a summit to be awarded the SOTA points? The secret is to get spotted.

A spot tells people that you have been “spotted on a summit”, and are on a frequency NOW. Chasers load either sotawatch or sotl.as in their browser and wait for activators to show up.  Some, like me, also put your call-sign or region into Hamalert so they are notified as soon as you appear on sotawatch or RBN. More on that later.

 

An April 2021 SOTA UPDATE

I realize it’s been a while since I’ve posted here.  No, ham’n on mountaintops has NOT come to a halt, but unfortunately my writing did.  I’ve tried to focus more on my VLOG because that’s where all the cool kids hang.  So today, I’ll zip through my activations so far in 2021 and maybe add a little color to some of the new summits I’ve checked off during my adventures.  You’ll also see the embedded YouTube link to some of them as well.  

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2020 & 2021 New Year's Summit Fest

The Summits On the Air (SOTA) amateur radio hobby is a gamified affair.  Radio operators, geeks like me, summit various designated peaks (all have at least 500’ of prominence) and depending on the elevation of the summit, receive the alloted points for the summit if they make  four contacts and have not logged that summit more than once during the calendar year.  Some of my fellow SOTA operators had plans to use the rules to get double points on one trip to the summit of a designated peak by being there as the calendar year crosses over from 2020 to 2021 on new years eve.  Because the UTC day changes at 4PM local time in the winter where I live, it’s still daylight, making it easy to get points twice on a summit in one go.