SOTA, POTA, CW and some antenna experiments

2026-01-11

So far all my QSOs have been on digital modes, more specifically FT8. This was not by choice, but by "necessity". My CW skills are non-existent (working on it, more on that later) and I did not have a way to use SSB till now. I wanted to try SSB as a new experience until I can talk "ditditdah" language.

As I mentioned before, my "rig" is just a QRP Labs QMX and whatever wire antenna I bodge together. The QMX can do SSB, but I did not have a suitable microphone for it. I tried building one with an elecret mic I had in my parts bin, but it did not work at all, so I ended up ordering the one that is recommended on the QRP Labs website (by the way, I got it from Mouser Electronics which has historically given me less problems with customs and stuff than DigiKey). I built the wee microphone and printed a small case for it. The design is not mine, I got the one Adam Kimmerly (K6ARK) put on printables.

I tested it on a couple of occasions while I was doing some antenna work and managed to get 2 contacts on SSB. A very quick QSO on 20m with ON4LAN. I'm not sure if he could not hear me very well or I was so bad at it that I confused him hehehe. On my defense, I'll say I just threw my call sign (I was listening to him make contacts for a solid 10 minutes) and I did not expect to be heard, so I was kind of unprepared when I heard my call sign back. Anyway, it's in the log. A couple of days later, I was doing antenna shenanigans again, and tried 15m. I checked Sotawatch and saw somebody activating in Italy on that band. I dialed that frequency and gave it a try. To my surprise, it was a brief but pretty clear (on both sides) QSO with IU8MNI.

After those 2 tests and my new antenna almost ready, I decided to do a double activation (POTA and SOTA) at a local summit.

I cannot test and tune antennas at home. I don't have a garden or anything remotely open where I can deploy the wires and have a reliable SWR reading. So I have to go out and set up in a park or in the mountains. That complicates things a bit when one wants to build a linked dipole for 4 bands ... The process is pretty slow. Tune the higher band (maybe use it that day), go home, solder connectors cut the next segment, go out another day, tune that band (use that band and the previous if you have time), rinse and repeat. You get the picture.

Anyway, today I had the 10m and 15m segments tuned, and the 17m ready to tune. I went to a close summit with an easy access. The idea is to make one thing difficult for me at a time, but somehow I manage to fail at that hahahaha.

I set up the linked dipole on an inverted V and took my time to tune the 17m segment. When I was happy with it, I connected the QMX and tried to get some summit to summit contacts on the 3 bands I had available. Alas, no luck. I could not even hear any station that I saw spotted on the SOTA or POTA pages.

I found a clear frequency (which was not easy today), spotted myself and started to call CQ. Nothing happened at the beginning. I was thinking that I would not make any contact because I had a patchy internet connection at the summit and I could not reliable spot myself (sometimes it worked and sometimes it did not). It did not help that, suddenly, I had somebody over me (well, not exactly over me, more like splatter, they were 1 or 2 KHz away) calling CQ with what felt like a bazillion Watts and being answered by a mob. It happened to me twice today and of course I had to give up and move frequencies as there was no way they would hear me complain that I was there with my tiny 4W and wire antenna on a fishing pole. Nor that I would have tried to argue. People say "life is too short for QRP". I say "life is too short for arguing with wattage bullies" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't really know what happened. I followed the etiquette, checked that the frequency was not in use. Waited and heard nothing and then started to call. Then suddenly this kind of distorted voice appeared and then the madness. I could do nothing about it. If there was somebody shouting their call sign to me and read this, I'm sorry. I did not ignore you, the front end of my tiny radio was overwhelmed. I guess they could not hear me when they started to call. I'm not sure they checked if the frequency was in use, but I cannot really tell. It is what it is.

After that, I managed to spot myself and the QSOs started to roll in. In 5 or 6 minutes the summit was activated. I think I did an OK(ish) job taking into account that this is my first time calling CQ on phone and having to communicate with more than one person in quick succession. In total 8 QSOs on the 17m band. Not bad for the newbie.

Counting that as a success, I decided to go to 20m, as I wanted to test SOTAmāt which could come in handy for situations like today where the mobile coverage was spotty. I had prepared a predefined email for myself and wanted to try to trigger it with just pointing my phone at the microphone. It did work, but the email arrived 1h later. I hope the spotting process is quicker hehehe.

I had to switch antennas because I still don't have the 20m segment soldered on the linked dipole and, on the SOTAmāt instructions, they recommend using 20m as this gives you better chances of being heard.

So, down with the dipole, up with the EFHW. It was already deployed, I just had to bring it up. Did the SOTAmāt experiment and, after that, found a clear frequency and started calling again. 20m was super crowded today, but I managed to squeeze 5 more QSOs. From those, my first repeating chaser SA4BLM. Thank you Lars ! Looking at his QRZ.com profile, no wonder I could hear him like he was sitting next to me hahahaha. He gave me a 33, which I'll take. One could say he did all the work really.

After that it was getting late for lunch, so I packed all my stuff and went back home.

All and all, a nice activity. More successful than I was expecting, as I managed to activate both the summit and the park it is in (for Parks on the Air).

Next time I think the whole process will be easier, as the linked dipole will be complete (after I tune the 20m segment) and I'll be able to operate on 10m, 15m, 17m and 20m with minimal fuss.

Also, I plan to make a small script so I don't fumble so much while on the mic.

Oh ! and regarding CW. I signed up for the course at CW Academy, as my self-learning process was going nowhere.

The course just started, but I think it will be a great experience and I hope I can make some QSOs on CW at the end of the course. We'll see. I'll put everything from my part :-)

And that's all for now.

Keep the bands busy ! (but not so busy you step over this poor QRP guy !! hahahaha)

EA3JGQ

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