KM1NDY
A Secret Little Adventure Ham Radio Blog
New Year’s Resolution? ARRL Straight Key Night
Me, the restored Ameco K-4 straight key, a bowl of popcorn, and exactly 1.5 cw qsos…Victory!
Gaming The Ham Radio System: Summits-On-The-Air (SOTA) Winter Bonus Points
SOTA ain’t easy. Summits-On-The-Air is a game with essentially one prize for radio hikers: The Mountain Goat. In order to become a Mountain Goat, you need to “activate” (the term used for hiking up a mountain and operating an amateur radio from its summit) enough mountains to get 1000 points. Based on elevation, the shortest …
W1E Special Event Station: The 2nd Annual Hams All-Holidays On-Air Celebration
[Special thanks to my dear friend Barbara KC1KGS for providing me with photos for this; all of the good pics are hers!] When I chose “W1E” as a special event call sign for the First Annual Hams All-Holidays On-Air Celebration during the height of the pandemic in December 2020, it was no accident. W1E, or …
I Hunted CW POTA For The First Time!
Fldigi decode of AB1II’s 10wpm CW: “AB1II K E CQ POTADE AB1II K AMINDW TU U R *5 NH NN K JU K 8 4 25 T M U 73I” KM1NDY’s head copy decode of Fldigi “AB1II CQ Parks-On-The-Air from AB1II. KM1NDY Thank you. You are 5 9 9. POTA site K-8425 (Quincy Shores Reservation). …
Night Hikes And Tarp Shelters: Winter Summits-On-The-Air Is Here!
Mount Norwottuck (W1/CR-004) in the Mount Holyoke Range State Park (K-2449) is a baby mountain. It is just over 1100 feet in elevation and less than 4 miles out-and-back. So AA1F and I each brought our summer overnight packs complete with our own radio stations (including 20M, 40M, and 80M band pass filters so we …
SOTA, A Grilled Cheese Sandwich, & Morse Code: The AMECO K-4 Japanese Ball Bearings Straight Key
Look, let’s not be mistaken here. I just wanted a bite to eat when I stopped in the Freight House on Route 2 in Erving Massachusetts. I had seen the shop before, and it looked like a good place to get a quick meal. A bit of a country attraction for the leaf peepers and …
How We Flew An End-Fed Half Wave (EFHW) Ham Radio Antenna On A Kite (VIDEO)
I’ve developed a bit of a kite fetish. Some time back in July I learned that people flew antennas on kites. One of those people was Guglielmo Marconi whose kite antenna enabled the first transatlantic wireless communication. As someone who tends to always gaze toward the future, my interest however was decidedly not inspired by …
There Are Few Greater Pleasures…
…than sneaking off to play radio with AA1F, KB1REQ, and Nellie. (Salisbury Beach State Reservation, Salisbury MA, ARRL November SSB Sweepstakes 2021)