KG6YJ ham radio blog

  My First SKCC WES (Weekend Sprintathon) - March 11, 2023, Saturday. I'm a new CW op, recently became a SKCC member (#27223), this is the first time to do SKCC WES. On Saturday I was tuning my DIY trail EFHW antenna in the backyard: Finished trail EFHW antenna Half wavelength stealth antenna wire pulled up by a fishing pole, forming an inverted V RG316 coaxial cable -- 1:49 UNUN transformer -- half wavelength stealth antenna wire I used my DIY paddle key as a straight key to hunt a few POTA and SOTA, and then did 2 SKCC WES QSO's, nice! DIY iambic paddle key used as a straight key My 1st QSO was with K7GUD (23806s), after sending his name "PAT" he mentioned "b" which means a bug key he was using. My 2nd QSO was with KS1KCC (20550s), he sent his name "SKCC", I thought "What? Is this a human name?" Then I asked him to re-send his name, he sent "SKCC" again... Later I realized it was the KS1KCC club callsign! HI HI. This week'...

  My First CW Ragchew March 9, 2023   I started to do CW QSO from January 2023, but only limited to short ones, mainly POTA/SOTA hunting and activation and SST (Slow Speed Test). In these QSO’s, the exchanges are simple and barebone. For POTA/SOTA, only callsign is necessary to exchange, even RST report is not that important, QTH (state/province abbreviation) and other information are optional. For SST, callsign, name and QTH are needed. Usually these QSO’s only cost about less than a minute. A new op doing S&P can listen the runner’s QSO’s with other hams for a while to copy his/her callsign and other information before calling the runner, this will reduce the new op’s copying workload during QSO quite a lot. Ragchew, on the other hand, is a longer QSO in a casual and friendly manner, usually longer than 30 minutes. More information are exchanged in a ragchew, for example: actual RST report, name, QTH (city/town name), RIG, power, ANT, height, weather, temperature...

- activated by KG6YJ on Feb.16 and Feb.17, 2023, UTC. Campbell Mountain is in the Central Valley of California, the closest big city is Fresno. I’m so happy to be the first activator of this mountain. It’s a private property, a permit is needed to access, hike and do SOTA activation there. For those who just want to know how to get there and get permit, you may skip the "Research and Planning" section and jump to Drive to Campbell Mountain .