2019-05 Six Summits in 3 Days

We went to the summer cabin home for Memorial Day and activated 6 summits during the three days that I hiked.  I was planning on only 1 on a couple of days but I had the time since a couple of them were pretty easy.  I’m been trying to get more summit-to-summit contacts, but this weekend didn’t seem to yield that many.

South Mountain 24-May-2019

For my first activation, I decided to drive up to drive up to South Mountain.  I needed to test an update to my vertical.  I bent the top section of the Chameleon MPAS antenna and decided to pick up their version 2 of just the top section, which is smaller and lighter.   I brought my 20/40 linked dipole just in case and the external antenna tuner. 

N1CLC CW

Listen up for my call sign while you are out and about.

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Learn CW Online - LCWO.net - Text to Morse Converter

SOTA Presentation

Here is a link to the slides the presentation on Summits On The Air (SOTA) that was given to the San Diego ARES team on 5/11/2019 in San Diego, CA.  Thanks to the other SOTA operators that contributed to this presentation, KE6MT, K6ARK, and other SOTA operators that helped me.

Enjoy & 73,
N1CLC
Christian Claborne
(aka Chris Claborne)

2019-05-04 Monserate Mountain and my first CW chase

Today I headed up to Monserate Mountain (W6/CT-235 - Monserate Mountain) to do a little hiking and play radio.  It’s been several weeks since I’ve been able to get out and I haven’t been riding my bike so it felt good to hit the trail.  I was originally planning on a hike in the same area to W6/SC-445.  I did 445 last year and remembered it to be a real thigh burner as well as having a couple of spots where the weeds were so thick across the road it was a real bear... I did a search after sleeping in this morning and found Monserate very close to that one.  It has been activated quite a few times and has a published trail so I figured it would be a better choice given my current fitness. 

DMR Tip 02 - What Time Slot Should I Use?

I’ve had a few people ask me what “time slot” (TS) they should use when setting up a talkgroup on a particular repeater.  For DMR Tip 02, I'll focus on answering this and give you links for more information on finding repeaters and configuring your radio correctly.

Here is a good description of what a time slot is by  NEDECN:

With a TDMA (time division multiple access) system like DMR, the mobile or portable radios are synchronized typically by a repeater and assigned a time slot. In DMR Tier 2, there are two time slots, i.e. 2-slot TDMA. A mobile radio transmits for 30 milliseconds and then receives for 30 milliseconds. It listens for a permission to transmit and then begins a call to all other talk group members who will also receive on that same time slot, e.g., Time Slot 1. Meanwhile, a different group of users on another talk group could be using Time Slot 2 simultaneously. Well almost simultaneously, offset by 30 ms., but you would never know the difference, because two voices can come out of two radios simultaneously from the same repeater.

SoCal Spring SOTAFest 2019

This is a recap of my adventures at Socal Spring SOTAFest 2019.  My friend Adam, K6ARK, organized a trip for ham radio operators that enjoy doing “summits on the air”, (SOTA).  We planned to meet at a campground, hike up to bunch of nearby summits to “activate” them, getting contacts in the US and beyond, and then do the next peak.  There will also be a lot of stories about past epic conquests, radio and antenna gear, and techniques.  Hams also build a lot of different pieces of their own gear, from custom radios to antennas, and other gizmos. 

The original destination was near Big Bear, CA but the weather called for a chance of rain so we went out to the southern desert region to Sawtooth Campground, which is surrounded by SOTA summits.  Although Adam announce the meetup on a few different mailing lists, we only had two other hams that were going to be able to join us, Scott (N0OI), and his wife, Corrine (N2ZIP).  I’ll take some of the burden and help with the marketing campaign next time.      (Click on photos for larger)

MTB SOTA

Mountain Biking + SOTA

 On this page you will find links to mountain bike accessible SOTA summits.  This was created for the e-bike equipped activator but if you have the full-power legs, you could do it.

Links to Resources:

• Spreadsheet that lists MTB accessible summits. <<Updated 4/8/21>>
  May include some hiking
  If you would like edit access, please contact N1CLC
  
  
• Luna Cycle - They provide kits to convert your bike to e-bike

Ham Ninja, N1CLC, Chris Claborne