I drove down to San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge on October 8, 2026 to activate my sixth POTA park. I made 73 QSOs on all bands from 20M through 10M. That was the most QSOs for any of my previous activations. It was pure luck to have stopped at such a significant number. All […]
The Valley of the Moon Amateur Radio Club (VOMARC) held its annual picnic at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park on September 19, 2026. In addition to get our fill of hamburgers, hotdogs and sides, we also activated the park as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA) program. It was the fourth straight year of […]
A large collection of QSL cards from the W5 QSL Bureau started to arrive this month. There are lots more to come later. I let my account lapse a bit and things piled up. Hopefully, I’ll keep a closer eye on things going forward. I worked ZL7/LZ1GC during his DXpedition to Chatham Island in 2025. […]
I’ve activated a few parks around the area as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA) program. But while browsing around on their maps I noticed one state entity that was not present. I’d hiked at a couple of the Napa-Sonoma Marshes Wildlife Area sections before. But I could not find it on the […]
On September 1st, 2026 I activated the Petaluma Adobe State Historic Park as part of the Parks on the Air (POTA) program. I logged 48 contacts using FT8 on 20M, 17M and 15M using a small end fed long wire antenna strung up between two trees. It was not a bad little outing based on those […]
Guglielmo Marconi is widely considered to be the “father of radio”. The Italian inventor shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1909 and built a large multinational company to develop and exploit his inventions. He even helped set up Vatican Radio for the Pope. As my wife and I started to clear out some things […]
The Activity Group of Belarus (AGB) offers a large number of Amateur Radio operating awards. Several of their awards are based on the zones of the world created as part of CQ Magazine’s Worked All Zones program. Zone 7 covers countries within Central America. AGB offers up the Zone 7 Award for working Ham Radio stations just within that zone. The […]
The longest “normal” callsign in Amateur Radio consists of 6 characters. My callsign of KA5WSS is such an example. But there are special event stations that often utilize longer callsigns that include a word or acronym indicating the event or place being highlighted. You can obtain the Long Call Award by working at least 10 […]
I helped out the Valley of the Moon Amateur Radio Club‘s Field Day effort in 2026. Once again we mounted a 3A entry here in the San Francisco section. Two transmitters were connected to triband beams and the third utilized either a dipole or an R7 vertical. Despite not burning the midnight oil while operating […]
I just discovered recently that I had 75 cards at the W5 incoming QSL bureau and no envelopes on file! I’ve sent a payment in for more envelopes and anxiously await what they will bring in the future. For now, here are a few cards that have trickled in over the last couple of months. […]