KM1NDY
A Secret Little Adventure Ham Radio Blog
There is a lot of lore and legend surrounding the Blue Hills Reservation when it comes to amateur radio. Back in the olden days (November 2019 to be exact), New England Sci-Tech (parent company of the Sci-Tech Amateur Radio Society aka STARS) partnered with the Blue Hills Observatory to install the W1UQ 146.985MHz repeater on …
(Want to jump right to the video? Click here!) It is no secret that we do not like to share our radios. Not so much in the “don’t touch my radio” sort of way, but in the “I want to play radio, too” sort of way. So when KB1REQ, AA1F, and I decided to get …
It’s a well known fact that sneaking off and activating a park behind your spouse’s back is grounds for divorce in some cultures. But AA1F’s POTA activation of Usher’s Road State Forest in Upstate New York (K-5355) produced such neat results that I can’t help but keep him! The 20M band had been getting him …
In the Parks-On-The-AIr program, you get awards for everything. Don’t believe me? Check out the “Warthog” award on AA1F’s qrz page. Summits-On-The-Air is a different ballgame. Us hikers-stroke-radio operators all want the “Mountain Goat” award. This means we need to acquire 1000 points as activators of summits. And nearly every peak in Massachusetts is a …
Look, it didn’t stop me from buying one, but I resent the IC-705 for not having an internal antenna tuner. The KX2 has one. The Xiegu has one. Heck, the 7300 has one. Its not like its some weird foreign concept to Icom. Three compatible “small” external tuners are – or will be – available: …
I am never satisfied anymore. I remember not long ago when simply walking up a hill was enough for me. “To get to the top!” blah, blah, blah… Then I discovered amateur radio and SOTA, and then it was “to get the top, BUT! Just with 15 extra pounds of radio gear, the pressure to …
The best I can tell, Purgatory Chasm State Reserve and Sutton State Forest are the same place. Or, maybe it would be better to say that Purgatory Chasm is a subsection of Sutton State Forest in Sutton Massachusetts. As many portable ham radio operators bemoan though, sometimes half of a Parks-On-The-Air challenge is figuring out …
A dozen or so hams went to play radio at the Dennison Lake Recreation Area of Otter River State Forest in Winchendon, MA. We took advantage of a Parks-On-The-Air activation (POTA K-4745) as well as the CQ Worldwide WPX contest to make some QSOs. The perfectly spring weather could almost make one forget the existence …
We did it! Three Summits-On-The-Air activations in a single day! Now, don’t get me wrong. We did not pick Everest, K2, and Denali as our destination peaks. In total, we hiked about 6.5 miles, with the hills all within a half hour drive from one another. But our February 13, 2021 RaDAR (Rapid Deployment Amateur …
A snowy hike in mild temperatures toward the end of winter while playing radio? Does it get any more New England than this? Watch WX1MAR and I on our Summits-On-The-Air journey on this classic loop hike of Mt. Watatic W1/CR-009 in Ashburnham MA on February 28, 2021.