I am emerging briefly from my IF cave to post some quick reviews of games from this year’s Francophone IF competition. The competition is open for judging through 1 March for anyone who is willing to rate at least three...

I flew out of the UK back to Cyprus on Saturday evening, which gave me the day to see how many G/SE peaks I could activate between sunrise and sunset on that Saturday. On my last trip to the UK,...

This is as high as you can go with SOTA peaks in Cyprus, not due to altitude, but just because there are forty-eight peaks here and this is number forty-eight. It is only 382 meters in height and worth a...

On this trip, I activated two sites near Limassol, 5B/CY-017 and 5B/CY-048. The latter is only about 15 minutes from Limassol, and the former about a half hour in terms of driving. From Nicosia, the 5B/CY-017 is closer, about 70...

This was my second activation on a quick trip out towards the east coast of Cyprus above the city of Paphos. The first activation (5B/CY-042) was intentionally quick to allow for some time to explore this peak, which is more...

Poor 5B/CY-042, it has no name, just its SOTA designation. However, that’s kind of fitting since it really isn’t much of a “mountain” — it is more somebody’s backyard, adjacent to a water tower. It is the very definition of...

Nearly everything went wrong on this activation, but it was also one of my best SOTA experiences. This peak is right above a defunct copper mine that was last operated commercially in the 1970s. The blue-green water that fills the...

This summit is about 40 minutes from Nicosia by road. GoogleMaps will plot the directions to the base of the northern most trailhead, although a better trailhead is visible on OpenStreetMaps a little further along the same road (at 34.918473N,...

I replaced the stock dynamic microphone element in my MH-31 microphone with an electret element, as described originally by M0UKD. As far as I can tell, it works at least as well as the original microphone. The stock mike never...

Every few weeks, business takes me to the UK. This trip, I arrived a day early to play radio and activated SOTA sites G/SE-015 (Cheriton Hill), G/SE-013 (Detling Hill), G/SE-007 (Crowborough), and G/SE-005 (Botley Hill). The days are short in...

This peak is about a half hour south of Nicosia, mostly along the same roads that I took recently to get to 5B/CY-043, Kreatos, recently. I had thought that I might just eek out two activations today, but it took...

I tried something new this week: recording a video of the activation (see below). This peak is the closest one to the capital city; it was less than a half-hour away for me. The approach is along a winding dirt...

This is a state-of-the-shack update. I’ve finally got a few temporary antennas up and am beginning to make contacts from the home station including a tiny bit of contesting. The first antenna I tried from home was the Buddipole. Before...

This activation followed hot on the heels of 5B/CY-046 (Pipis). It is also a relatively low mountain, but near the capital city of Nicosia. Unfortunately, this site is not as picturesque as Pipis, since the top of the mountain is...

This peak is worth only one point in the SOTA scheme, but it is half an hour drive from Nicosia and there is a road right to the summit. The summit and the area around it are perfect for a...

I chose this site because I thought it would be a fairly easy approach by car and, lacking any trees, would be a good chance to try out my new Buddipole. All of that turned out to be true, and...

I got to Cyprus a few weeks ago, but just got on the air yesterday from SOTA peak 5B/CY-002, Madari. We’ll be here for another three years, so I would like to see how many SOTA peaks I can reach...

I haven’t participated in any contests recently as I’ve gotten busy with the move to Cyprus and at work, but a few contests were recently scored and I learned that I did pretty well in the Virginia and Delaware QSO...

Every year, a few QSO parties fall on the same day, some large ones including 7th Call Area QSO Party and the New England QSO Party, and some individual state ones like the Indiana QSO Party. And then there is...

I intentionally activated Cushetank Mountain in the late Spring: the Round Valley Recreation Area charges no admission before Memorial Day, it was not too hot, and most importantly, the number of bugs in the air was tolerable. The set up...

Hazeltop is another summit on the “not too hard” list within Shenandoah National Park. If you park at the Milam Gap parking lot (38.4784N, 78.4517W), it’s about a 3.3 km hike along the Mill Prong trail to the summit, with...

After activating Stony Man (W4V/SH-002), I hopped in the car and drove a bit more south on Skyline Drive to reach the Upper Hawksbill Trail parking area. The trail up is wide and well-maintain and joins up with a gravel...

I saved two ten-point peaks for a drizzly weekday, hoping that would cut down on the number of visitors I’d run into, but even on an off day, Stony Man and Hawksbill, two of the highest peaks in Shenandoah National...

This trail in West Virginia is closer to Washington, DC than yesterday’s trails (W3/WE-001 and W3/WE-002) in Maryland. It is a pleasant, easy trail, and one where I didn’t run into anyone else at all. Maps show the entrance to...

On the way back to my house from Marsh Hill (W3/WE-001), I stopped at Dan’s Rock. Google Maps got me there with no problem. The site is a graffiti-covered metal staircase to steel observation platform, which overlooks a valley. Driving...