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I monitor 146.520 and DMR SOTA (973), track me on the trail HERE. Donate HERE.
Amateur Radio / HAM BLOG for N1CLC
I wanted to run a Winlink Express app (email
application) and use HF radio to send and receive email messages. The Amateur Radio Emergency Services (ARES)
team that I’m on uses Winlink along with its built in standard FEMA forms. It helps ARES accomplish their mission to
support local hospitals, clinics and associated agencies during an
emergency. Using HF setup for sending
email during an emergency is appropriate if the affected area is large (no
internet for 100 miles). This is because
you can move messages into and out of the affected area using relay stations
that have internet service that are 100s or over 1,000 miles away. For instance, if there was an earthquake in
my area, I’m better off trying to get a message to a hub station that is
outside of the affected area which could be all of Southern California. Because of it’s range, HF is perfect for this
scenario. Station to station
transmission could be achieved using the lower HF bands as well, or using VHF
modes like VARA FM or packet. I’ve been
successful using packet radio from my 5w FT-817 but packet stations are slowly
disappearing.
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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).
(Click on images for larger)
Let’s start with the stats:
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 they see their favorite activators appear on sotawatch or RBN. Do you have me on your Hamalert list? More on that later.