Dan AI6XG has been doing SOTA for a couple years, and we were in CWOps Level 2 class together in 2018. He graciously offered to go on a SOTA hike with me, and picked this great spot mapped out by Jeff AA6XA around the Lake Berryessa area. Enjoy watching my struggle as I get into this new facet of ham radio. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkUUWyhsI4k

I received an Arrow II antenna from N9BAV today, a very generous gift after I tweeted that I needed to buy said antenna. After I put it together, I looked on GoSatWatch app to see the next pass of well-known amateur satellites. I immediately recognized that AO-92 was going to pass very well overhead in about 2½ hours. So I prepped my Kenwood TH-D74A with the VHF downlink frequency (145.880MHz) on sub band A, and the UHF uplink (435.340MHz) on sub band B. My previous attempts at satellite with a HT whip antenna and my HVU-8 vertical have met with no success, so I was half expecting this Arrow to also be a failure where I wouldn’t get in. Much to my surprise, the RX side started quieting, and I was hearing solid full-quieting voices! I tried popping in my callsign and no one answered, I had doubled. Then I tried again and WB7VUF came back to me crystal clear. AWESOME. I finished that QSO, trembling with excitement and rambling a bit that this was my first satellite contact, then right after he closed KB6LTY called for me. TWO AO-92 contacts! One thing I learned is the TH-D74A, while having a very convenient recording feature, only records one of the two bands. Luckily I had it preset to sub band A, because I totally forgot about that. So I didn’t record myself, but only the RX. I need to learn how to program the different satellites into memories.

One of the few things I actually took home from Pacificon 2018 in San Ramon was an Ed Fong “DBJ-2” Dual-band Roll-up J-Pole for 2m/440. A vendor was asking me if I needed a cool base-station 2m antenna (DBJ-1), and I said I already had one set up. I recognized the seller’s nametag and said, “But I do know your name… Do you happen to have any of your famous Roll-up J-pole antennas?” He had only a couple more. I knew about this antenna from SOTA YouTubers KG6HQD Jerry and W6RIP Kevin, and wanted to try one since seeing Jerry throw one over a tree and blanket the whole Los Angeles basin with his VHF reach. In this video below, I demo hitting a repeater 45 miles away on 0.05w (50 milliwatts). No one gave me a signal report on that attempt, but I was able to get someone to confirm readability on another repeater 20 miles away on 0.05w, and “much clearer” on 1w. https://youtu.be/sW40nKJk1qo So when you hear people with stock antennas on Baofengs complaining they cannot hit repeaters with their “HP” 8 watts, think about the antenna and its location, not on getting an amp or higher power mobile rig.

In the past month, I’ve finally unblocked my antenna issues and made great strides in the digital realm of ham radio. Using the PreciseRF HG-1 magnetic loop antenna along with my RigExpert AA-600 to get the lowest possible SWR, I have found that I can get out to virtually all over the country simply from putting the antenna on the street. The loop only supports max 45W PEP, so it is definitely a low-power antenna. But I can only imagine how it would function if I were in a flat field or on a peak.

In my quest to find the next portable rig (I already decided), I made a comparison sheet with stats about the various rigs I was considering. Here is my portable rig matrix (including handhelds). Hopefully this list could be of help to others.



Bear in mind, I had specific goals in this rig evaluation:

If you’re at all into antennas aside from your handheld rubber duck antenna, you should try to get an antenna analyzer. Here I am using a RigExpert AA-600: https://youtu.be/cNzKpTXH5Ak Before using this device, I would just go by the radio’s SWR reading (a poor display of SWR “bars”) to determine if I was close to resonance. The quad-band vertical antenna I have supposedly works with 10m, 6m, 2m, and 40cm. I never had much success with adjusting the end tip of the antenna for 10m until I started evaluating readings using the AA-600. My target frequency was 28.400 MHz for the LARC weekly 10m net, and 28.457 MHz for the SDARC weekly 10m net. Both frequencies had such high SWR that I could never get out very far. Turns out I was lengthening/shortening the adjustment the opposite way I thought, so no wonder I had no success. I also found that the counterpoise placement has a huge effect on SWR readings, it’s very finicky.

Senator Diane Feinstein wrote (or her auto responder wrote) me back:

Dear Dennis:

Thank you for writing to express your support for the “Amateur Radio Parity Act.” I appreciate hearing from you, and welcome the opportunity to respond. As you may know, current Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules require local governments to “reasonably accommodate” amateur radio installations. This requirement does not, however, apply to land use restrictions limiting the size and dimensions of installations on private land. This means that many amateur radio operators are unable to install functional outdoor antennas because they do need to be “reasonably accommodated.” You may be interested to know that Representative Adam Kinzinger introduced the “Amateur Radio Parity Act of 2017” (H.R. 555) on January 13, 2017. This bill passed the House of Representatives on January 23, 2017. On July 12, 2017, Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) introduced a Senate companion bill, the “Amateur Radio Parity Act (S. 1534),” which would direct the FCC to clarify that amateur radio stations may be installed regardless of any private land use restrictions. This would provide amateur radio operators with the ability to negotiate with homeowners associations to get their antennas installed. This bill is currently awaiting consideration by the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, of which I am not a member. Please know that I believe that the service that amateur radio volunteers provide to local, state and federal governments in times of emergency is invaluable. I agree that it is important to keep these airwaves accessible so that they can continue their good work. Be assured that I have made note of your comments, and I will be sure to keep them in mind should this, or related legislation, come before me for consideration. Once again, thank you for writing. Should you have any other questions or comments, please call my Washington, D.C., office at (202) 224-3841 or visit my website at feinstein.senate.gov. You can also follow me online at YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, and you can sign up for my email newsletter at feinstein.senate.gov/newsletter. Best regards. Sincerely yours, Dianne Feinstein United States Senator

This afternoon I went to my brother-in-law’s property about 8 miles from my house, where he has nice wide open lot, and I set up my N9SAB 40m-6m off-center fed dipole with a portable flagpole (20ft high). I figured the open space would do some good for the signal. I set up with an inverted V configuration, had my FT-857D with YT-100 tuner and 7ah battery, and even unfolded the 39w solar panel to help the battery.

Met with the club members of Stockton Delta Amateur Radio Club (SDARC) this evening at a classroom in the Bear Creek Community Church. The club elected (or re-elected, rather) the club board for 2018, and discussed upcoming club events. Then W6SXA Mark gave a presentation and demo of the Rigexpert AA-600 antenna analyzer. He reviewed other types of analyzers with their pros and cons, and settled upon the one he got, the AA-600.

I deployed my 40-6m OCF dipole in my back yard here in Stockton, CA (grid CM98hb), and tuned on 20m on Saturday afternoon, and for the first time on this band found a clear QSO in progress. https://youtu.be/PJB4J9hA0J8 W3BQG was transmitting initially with 1000w from near Pittsburgh, PA, and his CQ was answered by someone in Japan, whom I could also hear. He says he later bumped it down to 500w. A lot of the time on simplex conversations like this, it’s one-sided with only the nearer person audible, but this was an easy QSO to follow. I suspect the Japanese operator was sending high wattage as well. This was almost 3pm PDT, so that would have been close to 7am in Japan. 20m is amazing during the day. I wish I could get my antenna real high so I could start trying to contact the busy DX bands. I did try later, calling CQ from KF6UJS/AG, but no one could hear me. I’ll keep trying!