2025 Was a busy year for me
The stats from my Summits on The Air activities, although not record breaking, were edging closer to my personal best.
* Elevation gain only counted for hiking or MTB.
<Click on photos for larger>
Made Quad-Goat
On 4/25/2025 I crossed 4,000 points while activating Escudilla Mountain (W7A/AE-006) in Arizona with Dale, a good friend who lives in Alpine AZ. There are only three operators in California that have over 4,000 points. 2025 should result in goat #5 and 1,000 summits.
Epic Road To Goat with W6TED
My friend Ted suggested I go with him to Arizona for some SOTA after he took his daughter to dinner for her birthday. The plan was to take his overlanding rig, a Toyota Landcruiser that he had just finished prepping for his Alaska trip and the overlanding trailer for a shakedown and do some summits up by Flagstaff. That would put Ted within striking distance of 1,000 activator points, mountain goat. I suggested we extend the trip by a few days and go over to my cabin in Alpine, AZ. Because I know the area well, I put together 12 more summits up there in a multi-day package that could work if we never stopped moving.
One of the hilights of this trip was working a station on a mountain top in New Zealand using the same radio and wire we were using (10w). As Ted would say, "Game Set Match". That is probably one of the most awesome summit-to-summits I've logged. I worked the same station on summits since but that was a huge surprise.
Mission accomplished! We hit 19 summits in 5 days. We had a lot of fun but it was hard work fighting spring winds almost every day and some horrid solar conditions, not to mention navigating around forest fires. I published an article about it HERE, and a three-part video series (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3).
Most Memorable Adventures
When I look back here are the top three adventures in 2025
19 summits in 5 days.
See notes above on this.Oregon SOTA Campout with 70+ other hams.
I was in Portland the month before this event at a wedding and stayed with my brother. He offered to let me borrow his car for the event along with all his camping gear which was awesome. It was so fun to be surrounded by so many people just having a blast.
I did a “super cut” from this trip and still need to finish some videos that are awaiting post-production.
SoCal SOTA campout with friends. It was awesome to see the SoCal peeps again and do a bunch of summit with them.
Yosemite trip where I tackled 5 summits that are not easy but bring some epic views. Clouds Rest probably had the best view of the park, looking down on Half Dome. I'd say the most epic summit was Tioga Crest, next to Saddlebag Lake. The arrival and hike around the lake was so moving it inspired me to write about it HERE. The summits there are spectacular but so is the climbing and altitude. I've done several inside and outside Yosemite and none of them are easy. If there is a summit inside the park I wouldn't pass up it's Indian Rock. After an all morning hike to Tioga Pass, I did Tioga Peak, which was very tough on tired legs.
I went to San Ramon, CA with Ted to attend Pacificon, a Ham Convention. Ted and I setup and manned the SOTA booth and I presented at the conference as well. It's always fun the spread the gospel of SOTA, meet new people, and talk to the vendors at the conference.
Became “Amateur Extra”
In 2025, I took my test for the “Amateure Extra” exam. What this means is that I studied for a ham radio test for a few months from a book and took the test.
Funny story, I took the test online and you can’t use a calculator so I asked them what I could use. The reply was sort of “why bother” in their answer to use the windows calc app in sci mode. I found out why. There was maybe one question where you needed to use the calc. If you just ignore it or guess at the answer it just doesn’t matter... easy to pass with a 74% on a 50 question test. LOL
The license allows me to use additional frequencies, which doesn’t really motivate me. What I really wanted was to be able to do ham radio on mountains in Europe for countries where the US has an agreement. Oh, and yes, I learned a bit more about radio, so it’s less black magic now, but it’s still black magic. 🙂 Now on to Italy to hike with my friend Igor.
New To Me Icom IC-7610 Radio
I picked up a used Icom radio from a friend that upgraded and I’m using his Elecraft 500w tuner and amp in a lend/lease arrangement. 🙂 The biggest difference regarding radio change at home is its ability to hear weak signals in CW (morse code).
Safety Articles, Presentation
After an online meeting of SOTA operators discussed that we should do something to improve safety of the hobby, I wrote 11 safety tip articles over as many weeks and published them to the SoCal, NorCal, and other mailing lists. I was able to write, edit and publish one a week. You can find all the safety tips HERE. I also presented the tips to the Long Island CW club. You can find the slides at HamNinja.com/safetypresentation.
Assumed W6 Association Manager Position
In 2025, Rex, KE6MT asked me to take over as the W6 Association manager. I was happy to do so as it gives me a chance to give back to the community that has brought so much joy and has helped me over the past several years in this awesome hobby.
Built W6 Association Website
The W6 Association covers all of California, and has more activators and more summits than any other association in the US. Our existing website was dated and became static and was ready for a refresh. I put together a requirements document and then circulated that among anyone that I could find to get input, then built it.
The new site has the expected News and Events capabilities but one of the key technical features of the site that I felt would provide the most value is the “Trip Reports” page. Unlike sotl.as and other sources, w6sota.org allows users to search for summits by “area” and sort on things like distance or type. The site does all of this and provides a modern look to display news and events for W6. As of 12/31/2025, total Trip Reports from multiple W6 members are now at 157 posts. It was fun setting this up and trying out some custom Python code. BTW, I got a lot of help from another ham, Carol (KE6SRO) who provided ideas, content and a lot of editing of my goofs.
Custom Code
I wrote some custom code for w6sota.org and I experimented with AI and Python development to write a custom file editor for ham radio. I wanted to modify ADIF files, a data interchange format for amateur radio logging. I use ADIF to move my logs around from portable logging to my home master log. It’s come in handy for SOTA and when I’ve done some contests this year. I wrote about my research and my opinions on AI HERE. Later in the year, it was interesting to see AI make some shit up for a followup letter that I wrote to a friend. It invented a conversation that never happened, a hard fail. (don’t forget to check your AI bot, sometimes they dream). You’ll find my ADIF editor HERE.
Radio Contesting
I participated in the 2024 10m contest to improve my place in the SOTA 10m challenge which lasts for the whole year. I submitted a photo and decided to do a bit of the contest again from the same mountain but with some tweaks to my station. It was fun to do this again but I don’t come close to placing in the top 100 (it’s a world-wide contest). A picture of my antenna showed up in QST magazine from a picture that I uploaded in 2024 so we’ll see if the new pictures show up this year. Contests are fun to do, and that one has a pretty simple exchange. A lot of the stations running morse code are way too fast for me, but I do what I can. Contesting from a mountaintop with 100w is a lot of fun. I also participated in the CQ World-Wide CW contest, which was a real challenge given the speed they run at.
Ham Ninja Youtube Is Still Alive
I’ve done a few videos this year including a supercut from the Oregon campout, a multi-series “Road To Goat”, and more. Check it out HERE and a Radio Review series HERE.
But Wait... There's More
In 2025 I attended two weddings, made new friends and bonded with old friends. I got to see my cousin, which I hadn’t seen in years. I worked on the family summer home in Arizona and did a bunch of awesome hikes with AA7OY, Dale in Arizona. During all this we also had a new roof put on the house and probably other stuff that I’m forgetting, like painting projects and gutter projects.
What’s Next?
In 2026 I’m looking forward to improving my morse code capabilities, attending the SoCal and Oregon campouts, passing 1,000 summits activated and just killing it in general. Also, there is a year long SOTA challenge to try to get as many 2 meter contacts on side-band and CW on unique peeks and maximize miles.... (in summary). It should be a fun year.
73,
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