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...

Marsh Hill is a very different kind of SOTA site than the ones I’ve been working recently in the Shenandoah Valley — it’s a ski resort. It is at the extreme western edge of my range, working from my house...

The first half of the day was W4V/SH-013, Pass Mountain, which was followed by a short drive to the south for this peak. I parked at Jewell Hollow Overlook. The map shows the Appalachian Trail running just north of this...

I activated Pass Mountain (W4V/SH-013) and The Pinnacle (W4V/SH-005, not to be confused with just plain Pinnacle, W4V/SH-019, a never-visited peak) in the same day, and I have one pointer: don’t park in the obvious spot, neither Pass Overlook nor...

I found myself up in New York on the occasion of QRP TTF day and asked Tom, N2YTF for some suggestions about peaks in the area that would be relatively quick activations and/or provide some cover for expected rainy weather....

The Vienna Wireless Society will be conducting on the evening of April 20 and morning of April 21. Those dates coincide with the onset of the Lyrid meteor shower. I am soliciting SKEDs up to the day of the event...

We saved the easiest peak for last during this visit to Shenandoah National Park, and tackled Hogback after Compton Peak and North Marshall. Park at Hogback overlook (38.762N, 78.2742W) and walk back northward along Skyline Drive about 500m to a...

North Marshall was the second peak of the day, wedged between Compton Peak and Hogback Mountain. The Appalachian Trail rises right from the parking area (38.775104N, 78.210851W) and it’s about a 900m walk in from there with 80m rise —...

Back to Shenandoah National Park for this 6 point peak that lies alongside the Appalachian Trail. I entered the park from the Front Royal entrance to the north and drove down to the Compton Gap parking lot at 38.823907N, 78.170463W....

As you might intuit from the picture above, SOTA activators are not at all welcome on High Knob, which is locked down like a state penitentiary. Here’s the aerial view of the summit, a four-point peak with elevation 728m, near...

This was the first of a series of summits I am hoping to activate within Shenandoah National Park, and proved to be very straightforward. The only twist was avoiding operating next to the government installation at the end of a...

Last weekend was one of the highlights of my ham radio experience even though I spent most of it shivering and hunched over a pair of paddles on a frigid mountaintop. Mike, KA4CDN, and I decided to mount an expedition...

I visited one of the tallest mountains in Virginia yesterday with Mike, KA4CDN. Our goal was to scope out potential sites to activate as an expedition during the upcoming Virginia QSO Party, and while up there, to work some SOTA...

I’m jotting down some notes about this year’s ARRL DX CW, with the hope that I’ll remember them next time I operate the contest (although that will probably be from the other end, as DX from Cyprus next year). First...

This is as drive-up a SOTA site as every there was one; the only thing that would make it easier would be if it were in my backyard. This site is west and south of Washington DC, a drive out...

I am only back in the Washington DC area for a few months, so I am triaging sites based on range from the house and ease of activation. I had thought that this site was more or less drive up,...

This year, five games were entered in the French IF Competition. In the past, the comp has leaned towards parser-based works, but I think for the first time, Twine games predominated. The games are found on the main site for...

The plan This weekend was the January edition of the ARRL VHF contest and I thought I had an unbeatable plan: to find a summit in a less-worked grid square and make both SOTA and VHF contest contacts. I set...

I was based in Madagascar from 2014 to 2018 and made a habit of posting short status updates on my QRZ page. To keep the page to reasonable length, I would occasionally move those entries over to this blog when...