Copasetic Flow

 We talked to Japan using the little RockMite 20! It was our first SOTA on Mt. Davidson here in San Francisco, and it was almost a total wash until I heard JG0AWE! and here's the video from the outing: Summit: Mt. Davidson  W6/NC-423 We wanted to get there really early, (the park opens at 5), so we took the 43 from Geneva and Madrid. We got off at Juanita, walked through the neighborhood to the northwest side of the mountain, and began our hike. And then, our hike was over. Terminated by the closed trail ahead of us. The city is still catching up with all the trees that were downed by the rainfall last month. A brief walk up Dalewood Way—that felt like it was almost straight up—brought us to the southwest trailhead. About ten minutes later, we were at the summit with the cross made famous by Dirty Harry. The cross was built as a WPA style project during the Great Depression. Pro tip: If you can wait to depart until a little bit after 6 AM, take the 36 from Glen Park BART st...

 I continued my recent trend of ham radio in atomospheric rivers at the San Bruno Mountain summit. It was my first SOTA. Park: San Bruno Mountain State Park W6/CC-072 , K-1196 I climbed the mountain from the South San Francisco Side. I took BART to South San Francisco station, and then took the free blue circulator bus from there to the Chestnut and Hillside stop. The climb was very reasonable. There was a well worn trail the entire way. It would have been a bit more pleasant without the rain, but then in March and early April here in San Francisco, I wouldn't have done much of anything if I'd waited for the rain to stop. Radio Details: The antenna setup worked amazingly well! With the lack of trees, and the driving, nonstop rain storm going on, I just laid the antenna across two bushes, held the radio in my hand, and hoped for the best. And it worked!!!    QSO/ RBN spot map: Happenings of Interest   It was wet! I didn't expect to make any QSOs with the bush-bor...

More on this later, but on the kids and my first SOTA activation of Mt. Davidson here in San Francisco, we made only one QSO... To Japan!!!!! The Rockmite was operating on 14058.4 MHz as always, powered by 8 AA batteries. The view from the radio:

The 12 year-old and I built a QRP Labs QCX+ 20 meter ham radio tranciever over the weekend, and then we destroyed the ATMega328p controller chip. Which is a bummer since we can't ue the radio without it. Key takeway really, really, really check super-careful for possible solder bridges. I ordered a replacement controller, but here's the really cool things. We have Arduino's sitting around the house, and per  N5BGZ's blog you can use them to program ATMega328 p controller chips! Even cooler, our (multiple) Arduino's contain ATMega328ps! So, we're going to canablaize one, and use another one to hopefully program it! Finger's crossed! The Once and Future??? QCX+ Controller References: QCX+ Tranciever Kit Mikes' Blog Post

 There's a beach on the Bay just south of Oakland in Alameda. I wouldn't have known if not for ham radio and parks on the air POTA. Headed to the beach. The San Francisco skyline Park: Robert W. Crown Memorial State Beach K-3550 . Getting there I took the Alameda Seaplane Ferry ! It's a really nice ride with plenty of things to look at like the San Francisco Skyline above, the Bay Bridge, and the USS Hornet, (after the transit map below.) Other Things To See On The Way USS Hornet The museum ship, the USS Hornet , is a short walk from the ferry terminal. I didn't get to stop in the day of the POTA, but I'd like to soon. Furniture If you're in need of a couch, the Pottery Barn clearance store is on the walk from the ferry terminal to the beach. Sooo many discounted white couches. Lake Chalet I met part of my extended family in Oakland for dinner. Making the bus connection was a little intense thanks to my planning skills, but I was able to catch the 20 about a mil...

I heard VK7ROY from Tasmania, Australia on the Rockmite ham radio up at Pantoll Campground over the weekend! Of course, the station didn't hear the Rockmite's quarter watt. Costa Rica and lots of other places did though.  And still, I hadn't realized up until that day that 'ham radios talk to stations all over the world' included places like Australia on 20 meters. Here's the sloping dipole with radio-at-feedpoint I heard the station on at 11:30 GMT that day.

 I needed a data set to try out the new ham radio QSO/spot mapping features I built today so I loaded in the Mt. Tamalpais POTA data. I was busy that week, so this is the first chance I've had to look at it, and wow! Park: Mt. Tamalpais State Park, K-1178   Our station was located at the highest camping site in Pantoll Campground. To get there, we headed to the ferry building early that morning, caught the first ferry to Sausalito , and from there caught the Marin Stagecoach 61 up the hill to the campground . On our return trip, we try to synch back up with the ferry, but we're not at all above just catching the GGT 130 in Sausalito near their ferry terminal, and taking the ride back into town over the bridge. Radio Details:    We made perhaps one of our highest tree mounted antennas to date. If you look at the first picture of the post you'll see the radio up in the antenna as usual. I was able to bring the keyer into the tent for night station operations.We made ...