Everyday Ham Podcast: Amateur Radio Conversations
Welcome to the Everyday Ham Podcast, where three friends dive into the world of amateur (ham) radio with a casual, lighthearted twist. (Visit www.everydayham.com)
From discussing what we're working on, current events, and lessons learned to sharing our gripes and off-topic banter, we bring a mix of fun, relatable conversations and radio expertise.
Whether you’re a seasoned operator or new to the hobby, join us for engaging chats that celebrate the quirks, challenges, and joys of being on the air.
Everyday Ham Podcast: Amateur Radio Conversations
From Parks to Peaks: How SOTA Differs from POTA
Ever wondered what happens when you combine hiking, mountaineering, and ham radio? That's exactly what Summits on the Air (SOTA) is all about! In this episode, we step away from our usual Parks on the Air discussions to explore the thrilling world of mountaintop radio operations with two accomplished SOTA enthusiasts.
Meet Matt W7MDN, a pilot from Spokane who combines trail running and snowshoeing with radio, and Tim N7KOM, a mountaineer and YouTube creator from Bend who's known for his ultralight setups. Both have achieved the prestigious Mountain Goat award, representing 1,000 activation points earned by operating from mountain summits.
We unpack the fundamental differences between POTA and SOTA – while parks often allow drive-up operations with 100-watt rigs, SOTA requires reaching designated activation zones near peaks with equipment disconnected from vehicles. The equipment philosophy shifts dramatically too, with most SOTA operators using 5-10 watt radios like the MTR3 or Elecraft KX2, paired with lightweight wire antennas that can be quickly deployed.
The conversation dives into the meticulous planning required for SOTA activations, from researching access permissions to preparing for safety contingencies. Matt and Tim share their favorite activation stories, including Matt's Mountain Goat qualification during a January snowshoe expedition and Tim's sunrise celebration atop Mount McLaughlin complete with ceremonial goat horns.
Whether you're an experienced operator looking for a new challenge or simply curious about combining outdoor adventure with radio, this episode provides a comprehensive introduction to SOTA. You'll learn about the points system, equipment recommendations, online resources, and the thriving community that makes this radio sport so rewarding.
Ready to climb a mountain with your radio? This might just be the inspiration you need to earn those summit points and breathtaking views!
Short show intro audio clip
Short outro audio clip
The Everyday Ham Podcast is hosted by James Mills (K8JKU), Jim Davis (N8JRD), and Rory Locke (W8KNX) – three friends who dive into the world of amateur radio with a casual, lighthearted twist.
Follow us at: Website: https://www.everydayham.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everydayhampodcast/
All right, everyone, welcome to the Everyday Ham. I am James, joined by Rory and Jim. Today we're diving into something a little bit different than our normal Parks on the Air or POTA discussions. We're kind of heading to the mountains to explore summits on the air or soda, which, for Jim, rory and myself, is something new. So you'll notice we are joined by two new guests. Today we have Matt W7MDN from Spokane, washington. Matt is both a military and commercial pilot who picked up ham radio during the COVID years, much like myself, and since has combined his love of trail running, mountain biking and even snowshoeing with the hobby. Earlier this year Matt reached a major milestone by earning a Mountain Goat Award, which we'll probably learn is a really big deal here shortly. We're also joined by Tim and7KOM from Bend, oregon. Tim is a mountaineer, skier and cyclist and shares his adventures with thousands of YouTubers on his YouTube channel. So, tim, tell me if I get this wrong. It's N7KOM Mountaintop Portable Radio.
Speaker 3:Hopefully that's correct, that's right. All right, good All right.
Speaker 1:You're known for your ultralight setups I saw in some of your bios summit to summit contacts and a big advocate for soda Also I confirmed this before we started recording. You also have a Mountain Goat Award that you earned last year at the Oregon Campout as well. So thank you, tim and Matt, for coming in and joining us to kind of learn about soda. Yeah, thanks for having us. So why don't you guys talk a little bit about? Why did you start? So what's your? What's your backgrounds? We talked to you were both COVID hams. I believe that's when you started to get your license. So what brought you to the, this great hobby?
Speaker 4:I didn't have any formal electronics background but I think, like a lot of kids in the 80s, we have one or two guys on our street that had these weird looking antennas in their backyards with big, huge rotators. And I went and knocked on the door, you know, one day, and got to meet this guy and took me into his ham shack and, um, he eventually ended up giving me a loan of radio, just as a listing. It was kind of um, but it was immediately dissuaded at that age from the, the five word per minute code thing. I was like, oh boy, I'm, I'm, you know it. Just it wasn't going to happen, I wasn't wasn't ready for it. So, um, anyway, fast forward. I had always wanted to to get my amateur radio license. Um, I had heard they had dropped the code requirement but just never really had the time to pursue it.
Speaker 4:And then here, just in the last uh, five years or so, I was out with a buddy of mine who I was stationed with a mountain bike and he was telling me about this thing called someone's on the air and I thought, wow, that sounds right up my alley. So we're, it's stuff out, it's outdoor, kind of stuff going to the top of mountains and you take these little radios and communicate to people and just it was like wow, I had no idea that there was anything like that. So that that immediately was the impetus for technician, quickly followed by general and extra and and uh, it's been. It's been a blast. To this day I I don't have a home qth, I do a lot of um practice online with cw and things like that um, but it has, it's been a blast. It's opened a lot of doors and I've seen parts of the northwest I never would have would have seen otherwise yeah that's pretty cool tim tim, what about yourself?
Speaker 1:What got you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, similar entry in that it was a COVID hobby Picked it up figuring it would be good to have in the outdoors because I was doing a lot of mountaineering and especially during COVID solo hiking, because we just didn't know what the right precautions were at the time. It kind of checked into a few nets. Nets was like, okay, I might just leave this in my emergency kit like the earthquake kit and not really get into it. But I was on qrzcom and I saw one of Charlie Charlie's videos, nj7v, red Summit, rf, and the title of the video was something like I rack up soda points while you're sleeping or something, and it was like soda points, what's that.
Speaker 3:Sounds like a challenge as well. Just clicked and, yeah, I went and did my first soda activation shortly after that and and it was just a slippery slope and I was hooked and now it's my personality.
Speaker 2:The pictures that you guys post, I'll just say this uh are much more picturesque than the things that I see from the poda folks. There are some excellent poda pictures, but, uh, the soda, the soda pictures are second to none, gentlemen. So I'll tell you, if nothing else, you're getting out there and seeing some really cool spots up on the top of all of these summits out there. I just looked up Red Summit RF2, and if anybody's listening out there, that's worth a look. It looks like he's out and about quite frequently doing soda activations and traveling as well. So very, very cool as well.
Speaker 3:So very, very cool yeah and so kind of, as James mentioned, really like the lightweight portable setups. And after getting skunked a couple of times doing some two meter FM activations, starting to get out of the Portland metro area, then I realized I need to get my general license and then after that got the extra because it was COVID times and lots of free time on the hands Because why not?
Speaker 1:That's exactly what I did too. Yep, yeah.
Speaker 3:Then I don't have to worry about that pesky band plan Right, Exactly See maybe that's where.
Speaker 5:That's where I screwed up during COVID is I was busy studying for my real estate license. I should have been studying for my my extra class license during COVID. That that was my mistake. Now, now it's to be seen if I ever even do it.
Speaker 2:Oh, you'll do it, you'll get it eventually, yeah you'll do it.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's worth it, I will.
Speaker 3:But yeah, at this point I run a remote station from my QTH for the Cascadia Radio Discord. It's an inclusive ham community up in the Pacific Northwest and I'm all about like this is, let's be honest, this is kind of an expensive hobby to get into. So I'm really trying to increase accessibility to this and we're a club that's not a club sort of thing, but I want people who don't have a QTH to be able to get on the air.
Speaker 2:If they would like to. It's really cool. Is it cascadiaradioorg? Am I looking at the correct site there?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right, very cool and people outside the PNW can join as well. It's just kind of focused there.
Speaker 2:Tell me a little bit about. I'm going to sidetrack this already, James. I'm so sorry. You brought up remote radio.
Speaker 3:Talk a little bit about what you got set up for remote radio, because I'm always interested. Yeah, so.
Speaker 3:So my qth, the antenna, is a fan dipole 10 through 40 meters and that goes to ic, which has a very convenient usb port and sound card. So it's it runs right from that to a little mini pc that runs on uh 12 volts and uh yeah, and that's uh kind of always on. As far as the software concerned, it's windows 11, so it runs rc forb, which unfortunately that excludes anyone on ios or uh or uh apple, because it is android and windows only at the moment. But it is free software and I don't have a big budget to buy one of the other remote software opportunity or options out there. But it's a way to get more people on the air and to be a little selfish. You know, when I'm out traveling and I see someone pop up on a soda summit, I can chase them from my phone. So that's a lot of fun too.
Speaker 2:Very interesting. Yeah, I always like I say it's curious and what an excellent opportunity, like you said, for folks that maybe don't know if they're ready to make a purchase like that yet, to get on the radio, to play with it a little bit and get to use it and see what they think, and also, like you said, it's accessible to you as well, self-servingly, when you want to grab a summit or something or a poda or whatever else you're doing. So very cool. Awesome to hear about that. Matt, you said you didn't have any radios at the QTH, so a lot of out on the mountain experience, it sounds like. As far as that's concerned, I guess I'm going to ask the hardware question to you as well. What is your current favorite rig to take out on your soda missions?
Speaker 4:Oh man, I just got the new version of the mtr3, the kuriki version, and I love that, um, and so I I didn't get in in time when they were originally making the l and r precision mtr radio. I don't have it handy, it's. It's literally about this big like deck of cards, five watts cw. Tim's gonna, tim's got his close by. It looks like, um, they're awesome little radios and so for soda, where ultralight is everything. Uh, I've been using that quite a bit. Yeah, oh gosh, yeah, they're, they're just amazing. So that's my current rig du jour and yep thing is it is cool, that's really awesome. Um, that's just. You know, it's a CWL on radio, so obviously that eliminates the SSB opportunities there. I have a TX500, the Lab 599 CX500. I like that one quite a bit as well and kind of like Tim was talking about there a minute ago, a lot of the ultralight.
Speaker 4:There's quite a following in SOTA for the ultralight do-it-yourself antennas and paddles and things like that there are there. It's really neat, I would say, probably more so than parks on the air. But what limit? What little I know about parks in the air. Um, because we're so weight and space conscious there we're always looking for the smallest, next best thing and and there's been a lot of that a lot of innovation. There's a couple of guys that are constantly coming up with new things in SOTA that are just really cool and that's, you know, that kind of has gotten me into, you know, soldering and building things that I never imagined I'd be doing. You know, out in the garage they're kind of trying to solder stuff, so it's kind of cool. But anyway, to answer your question, and I've got a couple of other radios, we've got a L-Craft Kicks and a couple of HTs that I use, but that, you know, the biggest radio I have is pushing 10 watts and that, I would say, is pretty standard for something that's on the air for the most part.
Speaker 2:You see a lot of guys kind of in that 5 to 10 watt range. Yeah, okay, that makes sense, and we were talking about this as kind of show house here. It's all poda right, and we're often running 100 watts with the biggest and heaviest antenna we can drag out into the field.
Speaker 1:It's kind of lavish in comparison to soda. It sounds like it's like the glamping version of soda. Yeah, I was just going to say.
Speaker 2:So it sounds fun to hear some equipment that hadn't even crossed my mind because it wouldn't really be probably effective in a lot of the podo parks. Right Given where you are, you get height, so you've got that extra might, as we always joke in ham right. So five Watts goes a lot further for you guys up on the summits.
Speaker 1:All right, let's set a baseline real quick too, of explain, because we're talking a lot about soda and there are maybe some people out there that are not soda experts. I'm going to put myself in that camp, kind of give us the elevator pitch of what is Summits on the Air Stim you want to?
Speaker 4:try it. You want to go first on that one.
Speaker 3:I'm trying to think of something pithy and I can't.
Speaker 1:So I'm just going to say it's all right.
Speaker 3:It's hooking uphill until you can't anymore and then making radio contacts Okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, how many contacts do you need for it to count as a? Do you call it activations?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we call it activations as well, the people we're making contacts with. We call them chasers rather than hunters. Hunters, yeah, same role. You need four QSOs with different people. So if one person works you four times on four different bands, I don't think that counts, and Matt maybe, if you know I don't think it counts either.
Speaker 3:Yeah, four different QSOs to get that. And to kind of go back to the low power thing. I think that also kind of feeds into why Morse code is so popular with the SOTA activators. It's because we're using these low power radios most of the time and I know on the East Coast there's a lot more density of hams so you can get away with low power poda. But I'll be honest, it's pretty challenging out here in the West. I've been skunked a few times doing podOTAs with five watts and not being able to get those 10 contacts.
Speaker 1:What's the ratio of your HF versus, let's say, V8 UHF contacts?
Speaker 3:Can I share my screen?
Speaker 1:Yeah, go ahead, you can share your screen.
Speaker 3:I don't know. I'll see if I can, but I will say just, while I'm bringing this up, I'll see if I can, but I will say just while I'm bringing this up. The Oregon Summits on the Air campout will wildly skew those results Sure, because this July was our fourth year doing the campout.
Speaker 3:We had 60 hams that took over this one campground for the weekend and there's tons of summits nearby. So in the morning morning everyone just sort of disperses out into the forest, up the mountains, and then it is just chaos on two meters and everyone is getting summit to summit contacts. So I will have very skewed results just thanks to that one event, because there's just so much two meter activity in this one weekend. Otherwise I'm you know, here in Central Oregon we do have a ham club, but it's kind of hit or miss whether someone gets you on two meters when you're out.
Speaker 5:It sounds very similar to the skewed statistics that happened around Caesar Creek State Park during Dayton Hamvention.
Speaker 1:That's what that sounds like to me All right, let me see if I can share this just to, and Tim, while you're pulling it out, maybe, matt, can you explain to me too what is considered sort of the you have to be on the summit, correct, like within a certain distance of the peak you do.
Speaker 4:And it's. I'm not looking at the rules right now, but it's 25 meters or 82 feet roughly to be in the activation zone and you want to spend some time looking at that. I've skunked myself a couple times setting up on what I thought was the actual activation zone and ended up not being in it and having a bad activation.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yeah. Sometimes I think it's hard enough trying to find in parks on the air like wild game areas or game lands.
Speaker 5:Oh yeah, we're constantly discussing poda park boundaries and what's legit and what's not. So if you're having to keep it within a certain distance of the peak, that adds definitely another layer of complication there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right. So looks like Tim maybe has the Sotlotless. Sotless is that the soda atlas pulled up here yeah, that that's right.
Speaker 3:This is kind of the preferred uh mapping website for summits on the air and I just wanted to bring up real quick the activation zone that uh matt was describing. So it's kind of a rough contour. Um, I think this is based off a lidar data um for for this map here. But essentially you want to be in this zone and uh, the reasoning behind it, this, this uh game, this radio game started, I think, in britain or europe, but uh, hill walking is very popular and the idea was to give an area for the ham radio operator to move away from the crowds and not, you know, disrupt anyone else's enjoyment on the summit. So it gives you this zone to kind of play in.
Speaker 3:The idea is you got to be in this area for the activation to count. In this area for the activation to count, okay, and for the folks that are listening.
Speaker 2:There's a well-identified green area on the Soda Atlas that we're looking at here visually and that is the zone where folks are going to be targeting hiking into with their ultralight gear that Matt and Tim have both kind of alluded to thus far. So it is a far more challenging as far as that radio sport than POTA. Right, there are tough ones to get to in POTA, but it looks like for SOTA especially. None of these are things where you're going to drive up to the parking lot and be in the zone.
Speaker 3:Well, that's not entirely true.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:So there are drive up summits, and here maybe I can just stop sharing.
Speaker 3:I'm guessing like tennessee right or north carolina area, probably more than here here in oregon there's there's spots around, there's a lot of logging roads you can drive up, but the main rule is that your radio station can't be attached to your gas powered vehicle in any way. So you know you could drive up and walk 10, 15 feet away from your truck or sedan or Prius, whatever made it up that road and then set up your station and operate off battery power I got to, I got to call out both James and Rory.
Speaker 2:No ATOS 120. Sorry guys, no, we would be completely out.
Speaker 5:Both of us James and his Jeep Wrangler and me and my Grand Cherokee wouldn't't. Wouldn't be running our a test. I am noticing, I'm looking at this, this mapping site, and you're talking. It's funny, you're talking about drive up sites. Not too far from you there, james, looks like northwest of oxford. There's a mount christy apparently that that's a thing and it looks like uh, looks like a street will take you right there, so maybe it's not so hard.
Speaker 4:that is our closest soda spot in our metro area. It looks like I didn't know that was a issue and that is. I don't know. It may just be the area that we're in generally, but I find myself buying a lot of timber permits to access some of these areas. Going to the site that Rory's talking about, usually if it's been activated before, somebody will put a write-up that says you know, hey, there's private property, no trespassing signs. That is specifically talked about in the SODA rules. That's not a valid activation, so that could be a limiter. So you got to kind of do your reconnaissance. We're using some of the websites that you guys are looking at now the one that Tim brought up a second ago and there are ways to get to like Gaia, gps or Onyx or things like that. We'll tell you.
Speaker 2:I was going to ask if Onyx was used, because I've seen a lot of the folks going off off road using that. I actually use.
Speaker 1:Onyx pretty regularly for finding the park boundaries of, like the game lands that. I mentioned before that are sort of remote. It does a good job of you put a, put your finger down and it tells you where you're at, basically, or if it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it definitely pays to spend the time at home before you leave the house. You know if you can drive, you know one or two hours away to find out what the status is on the place you plan to activate else are you doing to sort of see like, let's say, planning your mountain climb or your trek?
Speaker 1:obviously safety becomes sort of a concern as well, especially for mountaineering. What what is usually your process look like?
Speaker 4:so I'll start with the soatless website. Um, it's really it's a great website because it has links to guy gps that allow you to to link to cal topo, which is another mapping software we use quite a bit. So it talks about, about, you know, it'll show you those property issues for one. But also, where are the roads? What's the path of least resistance to the summit? And I'll spend a decent amount of time, especially if it's an area where there may not be cell phone coverage, putting out some of those maps. You know, kind of bringing some of that stuff with me. Onyx is another great one, for you know things like that, and so I'll. You know things like that, and, and so I'll.
Speaker 4:You know, look at that and kind of okay, this is how I plan to approach it. Um, could there be a gate here? You know, is there any kind of a seasonal access issue, as there are sometimes with timberlands and things like that? Um, and then the other part of the safety piece is if I'm going to be out of cell phone range for an extended period of time, having some other kind of like a personal locating device, like a garmin in reach or a plb, something like that is really handy. I do it just just for peace of mind for my wife, you know, so I can tell her checking in every hour. So, hey, I'm leaving the truck or I'm, you know, starting my hike from there. Um, so I, you know, if I get injured, encounter, you know, wildlife, something like that there's, there's a breadcrumb trail, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, perfect, I'm assuming safety is first right.
Speaker 3:Absolutely In any of this, absolutely. Oh yeah, you want to be able to get down the mountain too. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:I am happy to report to Rory that Brockway Mountain definitely does qualify. So, the next time you drive your Jeep up there, you'll be. Brockway Mountain at the north end of Michigan is a very popular spot for folks to drive all the way up and it's a really cool summit and it would be a great place to set an antenna up. And I had no idea, but it surprised me at all.
Speaker 5:I would have to get out of the car, though that would be the hard part, you wouldn't know.
Speaker 1:On the Michigan map. Where is this, jim?
Speaker 2:Rockway's going to be all the way up by Carver Harbor, basically Up by the top of your upper thumb. Keep going, keep going, keep going. Further up there you go and it's backwards on my screen it is backwards. You get the idea?
Speaker 5:Yeah, so believe it or not. I mean, it's nothing compared, of course, to the Pacific Northwest, but when you get to the western end of the upper peninsula of Michigan, there is a fair amount of topography up there. So the map here does have quite a few spots. So the map here does have quite a few spots. And there's another interesting one that I had just zoomed in on while you were talking about that, jim, and I figured you were.
Speaker 5:Mount Horace, mount Horace, greeley, which is, which is. I'd have to look at how that works with the private property, because that is technically private property. That's the old Air Force base up there, so but it but it's on the maps, I don't know. Can you? So if it's private property and you get permission, does that make it doable?
Speaker 4:Yeah absolutely it does the problem that you run into. I'll take an example Around here we have Indian reservations, and so that's that's something you have to kind of consider. And not all the, not all the tribes, the reservations have the same regulations. They don't have the same. Some are very exclusive members only, some are very broad. There's another situation where if there's something that somebody can get to as a byproduct of work that other people can't get to, they may have an advantage there, and there are situations where someone's been activated three times by the same guy on successive years and by nobody else, because he's an employee of, you know, whoever owns the site. Yep, okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and to touch on one more thing from the tools that Matt mentioned, especially in the case where there hasn't been an activation before and there's just not a lot of information Peakbagger, that website. There's a whole other community of information peak bagger, that website. There's a whole other community of people going up to summits but they're not bringing radios. I don't know why. But uh, crazy people. They will usually write up a little trip reports or or at least they'll have like a tick list so you can see like, okay, someone was up there a few weeks ago or someone went up there last year about around the same time. So you can kind of there's other tools and reports that you can dig up and try to get some hints on the best way to get there. But we kind of have an unwritten rule in Oregon that if you're the first to activate a summit you are required to write a trip report for it.
Speaker 5:Okay, I think that's a good unwritten rule, that's a good courtesy to build. I think.
Speaker 2:It builds that community. I imagine too right you go read them. They're exciting for someone that hasn't or may not ever activate that particular summit, but you get a little bit of a story out of that experience, which is excellent, and it benefits the next guy when he heads up there too yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that's one of the differentiators right here and we'll continue to pull these out as we go along with you guys. So, on Parks on the Air, many of these can be done with very little preparation. In fact, oftentimes we'll throw all of our gear in the car and it might be in the trunk and we see a sign that looks like a national park or a state park and boom, we swing in and we can activate. Right, what I'm hearing from you guys is a soda. Activation is a much more deliberate maneuver. Right, there's planning, there's preparation often, and there is a certain level of I need to commit and commit to this idea of going and executing on this plan. So it really is cool to see some parallels, but also some of these differences that make soda a more challenging radio sport as far as that's concerned, but also perhaps, of these differences that make soda a more challenging radio sport as far as that's concerned, but also perhaps more exciting for some folks that are of that mind.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. But you know I don't want to scare anyone away at the same time, because there's some metro area summits that you know. You can drive either all the way up or really close to and walk up there with your HT and then make your contacts and just play a little radio on your lunch break.
Speaker 2:Nice and it's for contacts, so it is less than you need for POTA. So there's another differentiator there. It makes a bigger difference, of course, when you're out in the West, where there's less radioactivity, perhaps in the general area. But yeah, that's a good point too is some of those might be fairly accessible for the folks around here in the metros.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think the one thing I've heard too is you guys have noted you've had failed activations and you've sort of laughed about them. So I think, in the spirit of ham, get out there and don't be afraid to try it a little bit, as long as you're prepared, or find a club, it's going to happen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I'll do a shameless self-promotion here. On my website, n7komcom, I have some Summits on the Air, getting started, instructions that I kind of tried to make it as simple as possible for getting started and kind of a checklist to go out for your first activation, without making it overly complicated. There's a lot more rules and nuance that you can learn about later, but this is just for people who want to give it a shot and get out there.
Speaker 1:And, if you're okay, I'll link that in the show notes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that sounds fantastic.
Speaker 4:Well, definitely sorry. I mean, I was definitely. If you had an opportunity to go with somebody who's done it before, I would definitely do that point and, uh, I, I would probably do the same thing with parks on the air.
Speaker 4:um, you know, just somebody who's who's actually, you know, has all the stuff, has all the equipment. You know, if you can just tag along and bring minimal gear and just see it, you know, be able to get on the air, that's, it's a really cool thing, it's really neat and that kind of emboldens you to get out and try it on your own. So I would definitely recommend that.
Speaker 2:Matt, does that mean that you have not done POTA yourself? I'm sorry if you already said that I've done it.
Speaker 4:I've done it a couple of times, and I think it was before you guys had a, did you guys go through a logging? Was it in?
Speaker 2:POTA days, like the previous ARRL version of POTA that they did briefly before it got A couple years ago.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it must have been. I had to email some guy with my logs and say hey, yeah, the original POTA setup.
Speaker 5:You couldn't. The database wasn't set up to where you could log it yourself. It's come a long way. I'm laughing If you guys saw me laughing over here. I found, I found tim's uh store with stickers and there's a couple of good ones there, so I would, I would, I would definitely just from my two seconds scrolling through that, plug the n7komcom and click on the scroll down here and click on the ham radio stickers. I might, I might have to go shopping tonight. There's, there's there's some.
Speaker 3:There's some good ones there, for sure just trying to spread the fun with those, yeah no, those are, those are, uh, those are excellent.
Speaker 5:I, I, I like that and keep it go ahead, go ahead, sorry I was just going to say one more difference between poda and and soda.
Speaker 3:So with with poda, the hunters don't need to upload a log to get points. It's all general. Their points are generated from the activator log. It works a little different for Soda. Soda chasers do have to log their own activations.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, or sorry their own QSOs with the activators so it's really easy to do from the SodaWatch website, which is where we post the spots of where the frequencies that we're operating on. There's a little button you click, so after you have your QSO you can just go over there, click that and log it. So it makes it really simple, but you do have to manually do it. It doesn't do it for you.
Speaker 5:I'll have to keep that in mind. I have not logged as a soda hunter. Okay, good to know.
Speaker 2:So you would have to take that chase and log it on the soda site for that person to get there.
Speaker 3:Very good to know. Sorry, the person the activator gets points independent of that.
Speaker 2:The chaser can get points for themselves. I thought you were going to be picking up the radio. They are cross-referenced of that. Oh, okay, okay, but the teaser can get points for themselves.
Speaker 1:I thought you were going to be picking up the radio and making some contacts. No, they are cross-referenced.
Speaker 5:Okay, I feel better now. I was feeling bad there for a moment.
Speaker 2:It was looking guilty there.
Speaker 5:Well, because I'm a perpetual hunter of anything on the air. I'll gladly give anyone a cue. So I'll answer a lot of calls, and I'm happy to have my POTUS stuff populating my calls and my numbers go up there automatically, but maybe I'll log into the soda thing and get that going. I hate to go back to the store here, though, but there's a mug that will be purchased. Don't rag chew with me until I've had my QSO.
Speaker 1:God, that's made for you, rory, it's made for me.
Speaker 5:Does it say no, go ahead, Rory, it's made for me.
Speaker 3:Does it say no, go ahead? I'm sort of oriented. So it says four QSOs. I could make you a 10 QSO one if you want that.
Speaker 1:And I need. I just cross over into a whole new market.
Speaker 5:I desperately need that and that that's a whole thing. Everyone knows that I don't, I don't screw around until I've had my, my activation, give the give the call and move on. Don't, don't be, don't be talking to me about your medication and how good the weather is until I'm good. Yeah, I didn't see that side of the mug, but yeah, I might need that. Sorry, okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, hold off for now. I'll make you up something I digress I love it. Oh boy.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask. You referenced the Soto Watch website. Is that the main website?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that would be where we post all the spots where we're operating and what mode.
Speaker 1:Okay, and I'm assuming if someone's looking here- Okay, perfect, and I'm assuming if someone's looking to get started, they should go there.
Speaker 4:create an account do all that stuff as well, yeah, okay, yeah, I don't use that too much because I usually do it via the app, so there's a SodaGoat app.
Speaker 3:Oh.
Speaker 4:I'm going to try it out. Soda has so many cool websites and applications, but somebody came up with a SodaGoat app that allows you to actually post spots or see where other people's spots are, so kind of like.
Speaker 4:Parks on the Air similar If I was looking to do a park-to-park, I could go onto the Parks on the air. Similar if I was looking to do a park to park, I could go onto the parks in their website and see where somebody is on this frequency and go to their frequency and get a park to park with them. Same same principle with summits on their summit to summit, s2s, uh, contacts, more points. So I get the points from their activation. So it's it's a separate kind of points, it's a summit to summit exclusive point, but it they're really neat, they're kind of fun to do. So, yeah, there there are ways to so anyway, to kind of go back to post a spot, that'd be one way to do it. Oh, the other thing we have, I think is similar to poda, is you guys have rbn. Um, if I post an alert, rbn will pick it up. So for cw we do.
Speaker 1:We have. We have a couple apps that will do that for us. I was gonna ask how, when you're on the mountain, do you spot yourselves? I'm assuming you maybe pre-schedule your activation as one method, but we do. Yeah, I think we actually almost use the same app.
Speaker 5:But yeah, the RVN, the Reverse Beacon Network, does pick up the soda Soda.
Speaker 1:Mat, which is probably an app you may be familiar with. I've used that before to use the RVBN to spot myself in a park out in Colorado actually, where I didn't have a lot of cellular coverage while doing a park activation.
Speaker 4:You can also do it via APRS, which I've done, and there's a way to do it via the inReach. If you send an inReach message to a specific number, it'll do that as well.
Speaker 3:And text message also. I use that a lot where maybe I'm out somewhere and I don't have data, but I have regular cellular messaging and then you can send a text message and get spotted. Yep, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2:So I'm a little bit curious so to matt.
Speaker 3:Of course you can use that to send ft8 yep. Well, if you have a radio that will hook up to your phone, or SSB, where you just hold down the mic manually. It'll send that FT8 and actually post a spot for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a fair point, because I'm mainly an SSB operator. So yeah, I remember sitting there and holding the phone and then some lady was looking at me about why was I playing weird beeps and boops? Into this, this microphone sitting at a picnic table, but you know you do what you got to do. Yeah, it's a. It's a great method.
Speaker 2:All right, gentlemen. So soda takes us on some pretty sweet adventures. Obviously, we're hearing more of that the further we peel the onion here. Tell us I'd love to hear one from each of you guys Talk about one of your favorite ones that you went out, why it was, you know what made it a challenge, why you loved that particular one, why it sticks in your head. I'd love to hear maybe matt first and then tim, give us one that you really enjoyed going out and doing, and and tell us a little why uh, I would have to say it's probably my.
Speaker 4:My mountain goat activation here in january this year went out with my. The same guy introduced me to summits on the air. Uh went and snowshoed up mount spokane, which is an active ski resort on one side but allows people to snowshoot at the top. Get up there to the activation, so it was a little bit cold. We're on kind of the western slope. Uh, there was some wind chill. Uh kind of thing when you're trying to do cw. Uh, without with gloves it won't do cw, you know, kind of right.
Speaker 4:So you kind of lose tactile feel and people can get frustrated with your really bad code after a while. Anyway, it was a blast, it was a lot of fun. It took me almost five years to get Mountain Goat. It was a journey, it's been a blast and it was kind of the culmination of all of that experience and learning and building and everything that goes with it. It was just, it was really neat.
Speaker 2:it was an awesome experience I got two questions for you. Tell us what it takes to be a mountain goat? Uh, because I don't think we know yet. And then also, I'd love to know how long it took you to get there on snowshoes so mountain goat is a thousand activator points.
Speaker 4:There's also a trophy for Shacksloft, which is the reverse. For the chasers it's a thousand chaser points. And so let's go back to step. Different summits have a different point value. So the smallest summits in my area are two points. There are summits that are even down to one point.
Speaker 4:It's based on elevation, not how long it takes you to get there, not how many miles, not how many, it's just purely based on elevation. Um, and it goes all the way up there, actually 10 point summits. And then there are summer bonuses and winter bonuses in different regions. So we have a winter bonus here that goes from december 1st through march 31st, um in the w7w region. I I think Oregon's probably the same and then places like Arizona have a summer bonus. So that'll take a 10-point summit and make it a 13-point summit so you can get to Mountain Goat faster by, you know, trying to activate in those peak seasons. So yeah, once you get those four QSOs, you go home and log it and you get the points and you can pretty quickly in places like Arizona and some other places, you can get to mountain goat very quickly. It took a while. Like I said, I think it took about four and a half years here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it took me four years. Yeah, okay, takes a while, yeah, and then the snowshoe was short.
Speaker 4:Snowshoe was like I don't know, think it was two miles, so it was I don't know 15, 20, 30 minutes, something like that.
Speaker 1:Only two miles up the side of a mountain, but you know.
Speaker 2:Are we talking about traditional, like big net snowshoes? Are we talking about the new ones that are just like a vinyl plank with the pivot and the whole nine yards, real high tech ones?
Speaker 4:Closer to the second one yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:yeah, some of the newer style. I've used both up here in Gaylord, which used to get quite a bit of snow. Michigan doesn't quite see the same snowfall as it used to. In the midnight we used to snowshoe quite a bit. So I'm always curious when people say I snowshoed out there, how long did that take you? If you have the right gear, probably less time, but very cool. And I do want to call it out because Matt pointed out something that I didn't quite understand and it sort of just clicked now. On mont spokane, for example, it is six points generally, but you add a plus three during the harder months, which is the december through. What is december through march? That matt?
Speaker 4:mentions, there's even that turns into a nine point summit there's even a tradition that has kind of caught on here in the northwest where guys would go out on december 1st and it's based on zulu day. So they'll go out, make sure they get the contacts for the points before midnight z and then wait around for 15, 20 minutes. So the same guys will call you again right away and go hey, I want you know. So that's your double points. Yeah, it's awesome.
Speaker 3:That brings up a a good point about the points in summits on the air, this rule that we didn't cover. So you can, you can activate a summit as many times as you want in a given year, but you only get points for the first time you do it. Oh so, if I like my local summit here. I've already activated lava butte. I can go up there again play radio, have a lot of fun, but I won't get any more points for it until that UTC rollover in January.
Speaker 2:Okay, so it's a full year that those points are applied for.
Speaker 5:Wow, that makes it make a lot more sense that it took four years for you guys to get to that. I'm still looking at this silly map. I'm so distracted. This is all new to me, and when I find something new, I'm always looking like a crazy person. Distracted. This is all new to me, and when I find something new, I'm always looking like a crazy person. So we and mount mount arvon, up outside of lance, up in the up, there is an eight pointer, with three more in the winter. So that that's not bad. Yeah, that's not bad, that one's. I know someone who lives near there. I wonder if she knows about soda. She's a ham too. She lives actually just down the side of that mountain. So I might I might have to send her a message.
Speaker 2:I have one last question for Matt on his adventure out there. Matt, is this one that you did solo or did you take a buddy on this? I?
Speaker 4:took a buddy, then MCB his name's also Matt, he was. He was in the military with me. We flew together, so he was the guy that got me into Soto, went out there and did it. Yeah, it was cool, I think he's he's been on quite a few of the soda activations here with me. So yeah, it's a good time. It's. It's always more fun with somebody else and in fact he actually recorded. I get a little video that's pretty neat, oh you'll have to share it with us if you don't mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that'd be cool if you send it to james, maybe we can get it cut in here. Okay, we still have some time there. We go the power of editing. There we go that that's interesting.
Speaker 5:That's something else I noticed. Like the three of us tend to do poda solo, we tend to prefer to poda solo, but I could see where soda, you would necessarily want to do that. In some cases and in most cases, I think, some of the more difficult ones you might want to have someone along, or just to make it a little more fun, or, in your case, to take some video on, or, in your case, to take some video. But, uh, what which do you prefer? Some, some solo trips or or trips with friends, or which or they both have their pluses and minuses, I'd imagine they both have their pluses and minuses.
Speaker 4:Um, yeah, I uh definitely the solitude, uh around here is is great to be able to get out there in a weekday and everybody else is at work and find them out that nobody's nobody's activated before, and be up there for an hour, an hour, and yeah, and when you're out with a couple other people, there's a few different strategies to operate.
Speaker 3:You can all kind of spread out in the activation zone and just sort of hey, I'm on 40 meters, All right, I'm on 20.
Speaker 3:And just sort of, you know, switch bands try not to interfere too bad with each other. Or you can just set up one radio, one antenna and swap off, and I think that's my favorite way to go, especially because you're both right there. So if there's a summit-to-summit calling, you can call AS, as, as well on Morse code, which means standby, and then your buddy can get the same summit-to-summit right there and you know, if you're doing SSB, standby for one more operator and just pass the microphone around. And that's a lot of fun, very cool Tim tell me about yours.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I could A few come to mind. I think I'll mirror Matt here and say the mountain goat activation, because it was at the Oregon Summits on the Air campout and we started hiking, I think at 4 am, to get up Mount McLaughlin in southern Oregon. We have a lot of volcanoes in Oregon so this is going to be a theme in this. But we had a few different operators up there and it was just a blast to do one of those early morning sunrise hikes up a big mountain and then work a ton of people at the camp out on two meters fm, two meters cw, and then we were doing 10 meters and and a few other bands as well. And the surprise for me was on my fourth contact where I got the points and and got over the the goat threshold. Uh, nathan n7, nwt busted out some some tory like goat ears and popped them on my head, ears and horns, so I wore that. For the rest of the activation was a lot of fun nice.
Speaker 2:I always appreciate the hams getting together and kind of all being nerds together and enjoying it together, because it's hard to it's hard to have somebody that's not doing this thing that we call radio sport, uh, to understand why it is important to us right, and why it is so cool for us when those types of things happen. So it is, it's fun to be surrounded by folks that understand a little bit. So, yeah, activation there.
Speaker 3:Another one was from this year and kind of shenanigans is is the of the camp out, like we were doing 70 centimeter SSTV, two meter CW, just like if you have a Quan Chang. You know we were doing a lot of stuff with those. But Adam K6ARK, who you probably know that name, he brought his VibroBlex bug up on a first activation climb Uh, so there's three of us up there and he was doing two meters CW with a vibroplex.
Speaker 1:And that's cool, yeah. So I have one question too, which is more personal related, but you both being newer hams as much as myself. I wanted to try to make learning CW sort of a thing for me this winter, because I'm going to be stuck inside a little bit. How did you guys learn CW so quickly? What tools did you use? I'm going to detour a little off soda for a second.
Speaker 4:I think I've run the gamut. I started with LCWO, learn CW Online, which has a bunch of drills. There are quite a few websites that'll let us up drills or activators or chasers, call signs for you to catch. The issue I ran into with that pretty quickly is there's not a lot of. There's not a lot else other than just the RST exchange and the call sign. It's pretty limited, it's kind of scripted. So there's a website called VBAND.
Speaker 4:If you guys are familiar, ham Radio Solutions has a website that allows you to go on with a key and a little adapter that they sell and go on there and actually have CWQs. And you know for my situation, without an actual ham shack here at the house, that works out great and actually take it on business trips. I have a little adapter in my bag and just sit there in the hotel room and can have you know QSOs with people anywhere in the world over the internet and just practice that you know learning and send uh, listening and sending. So that was probably the one that those kind of the uh recently has been the catalyst and has helped me get, get better.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is very interesting. I've just looked that up and, uh, the little USB dongle to uh allow for practice that way Seems very smart. Uh, it does. I will ask this question. I do have a straight key next to me. What? What do you guys use? Is it straight, or do you use the?
Speaker 5:what's your?
Speaker 2:preference here, I use a paddle, do you? Yeah, okay, paddle, paddle, for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're, you're nodding, yeah, so I use a paddle, but I'm learning straight key and this was a project that I wrapped up last weekend. But I got a navy flame proof key. I don't know if you're familiar with those but, not, but if you have it, you okay, yep, yep. But okay. I didn't like the black. It was kind of boring, so I went all Jackson Pollock on it and uh did a did a cool paint job.
Speaker 2:It is very I would almost call it like an 80s style splatter paint kind of.
Speaker 3:Thing.
Speaker 2:Yellow base and then blacks and blue. Did I see pink in there?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we got pink, blue, some real dark navy purple kind of Very cool yeah.
Speaker 2:So fun with my stuff, turned it up on the straight key and I love it. Anything to make it fun, right guys? Yeah?
Speaker 5:I think, jim, you've struggled to bang away at the straight key there. You, you don't, you don't do so I think. I think you got to get a paddle in there. I think you'd be better I, I do.
Speaker 2:I do need to get one. I uh ended up buying the uh zygu, a straight key, and and it's, it's a nice key, uh, as far as that's concerned, but I didn't know what I wanted and I thought that that might be a little simpler to start on. I don't know if I made the right call. It doesn't matter. I like getting equipment, so I might have to get something more.
Speaker 3:So what really helped me? I started with that same website that Matt talked about, and the drills on that weren't really taken for me Okay, and what I found really helped was joining. What I ended up doing was CW Ops has a free course.
Speaker 1:I've seen that one too.
Speaker 3:They put you in a cohort with, like I don't know, four or five other people and you meet twice a week and just having the peer pressure that accountability. I don't want to fall behind my classmates. My classmates Really helped a lot just for making sure I was practicing every single day and working on that instant character recognition.
Speaker 1:In the effort of trying to practice, I did buy a CWMorrisus pedal key.
Speaker 2:Everybody's showing their keys off. Everybody's showing their keys off.
Speaker 1:I feel bad, like a bad ham. I see it sitting here in front of me all the time and I keep telling myself I need to learn, I need to learn.
Speaker 2:I need to get this out and use it.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, you know you bought it and my wife's going to start asking questions about why have you never used that?
Speaker 2:thing that you bought.
Speaker 1:So you know, better late than never, I suppose.
Speaker 4:This is a good example of a soda key. So this is the K6ARK 3D printed one. And I was hanging out at a buddy's house yesterday we had a little assembly line going. I think we cranked out six or eight in an hour and just having a soldering station I mean this thing weighs. I don't know. Tim probably knows what it weighs Nothing.
Speaker 2:Nothing Like two ounces max, not even.
Speaker 4:So this is great because you know, if I 3D print this thing and solder it and all of a sudden it Well, I was going to ask how much equipment?
Speaker 1:are you worried about not having backup or redundancy? I'm assuming you take backup keys like you said. Yeah, I take a couple of antennas.
Speaker 4:I take a couple of batteries, because everything's so small I usually take just one primary radio, but a couple of paddles, a couple of antennas, a couple of batteries still weighs a lot and I'm assuming we didn't even talk about antennas.
Speaker 1:really, I'm assuming you're using wire antennas mainly, probably on some sort of lightweight mast.
Speaker 4:Mostly, yeah, nfeds and maybe some dipoles. Yeah, I think most guys are using NFEDs or dipoles of some kind.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm using NFED Halfwave with my MTR Actually, so what I've been showing at the screen is my entire kit, including battery. So in this thing is also my, my entire antenna.
Speaker 2:It's a trapped and fed half wave oh, okay and then with him showing us a uh, a little nylon case. It's very small. You could probably stick it in the back pocket of a large pair of jeans, yeah, and uh, on my, on my kx2, I use a nfed random wire.
Speaker 3:Okay, okay but it's still a very, very lightweight antenna and but gives you lots of all the bands. Gives you all the bands kx2 has built-in tuner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm trying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, not familiar with that hardware, but uh, yep okay and the kx2 has a built-in battery too, right, right, am I making that up Well?
Speaker 3:you can unplug it. I take it out to charge it. But yeah, it's all contained within the case, Okay.
Speaker 2:Does anybody have I have to ask this question because I just find it to be extremely novel Elecraft's KH1. Does anybody have one of those?
Speaker 1:Matt's got it down in his lap he's ready to show.
Speaker 2:Okay, very cool radio. Every time I see somebody running one of those, I'm always very impressed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm a little bit jealous. Yeah, I got one of those too.
Speaker 2:Nice, Matt. Matt, you're muted. Go ahead and unmute. Let us know what you had there.
Speaker 4:Sorry about that. Yeah, I was going to say for business trips. This thing is money because in just about any piece of luggage right and take it with you.
Speaker 2:And not many questions until you get there, and then you're dragging a little counterpoise wire behind you while you're walking along ascended CW. Yeah, and we have a gentleman that runs one of those in the local park here in the South Lion area. His name is Ram and he walks around with his motorcycle suit on he motorcycles so he uses that as his light kit and he does CW while he's walking around the park with a little telescoping antenna. So I'm always entertained when I see him activating.
Speaker 5:I have never seen him there. For as many times as I've heard of people running into him there, I've never seen him out there, and I've been in the park the same time as he has before too.
Speaker 2:K-E-8-U-E-X, I believe, is his call sign. Sounds right you always see him.
Speaker 1:So I guess we're running out of time here. I want to give Matt and Tim one last chance. Is there anything about Soda? If you're going to talk to the three of us to get us motivated to get out there and climb some mountains, what would you say?
Speaker 4:The one thing I would just leave you with is don't let the getting outdoors and getting up on a mountain be a discriminator. There are drive-up summits. There are really easy summits out there, there are urban summits you can go do, and even if all of those are not in the range of possibilities, based on your location, chasing is also huge. I mean, there is no soda without chasers, so we absolutely need those chasers. It's a lot of fun. It's just a blast to be able to talk to somebody on a little five-watt radio via CW. Multiple states away, we get to France. Tim will tell you about France. We get France almost on a daily basis. We get Japan pretty regularly. We get some other countries. It's a blast. It is really neat to be able to communicate with somebody like that. It is just, it is really neat to be able to communicate with somebody like that.
Speaker 3:And, uh, I would. I would recommend it for anybody, absolutely. Yeah, I would really just echo Matt. And, uh, you know we post videos to YouTube of these like epic summits, where we're hiking all night and climbing up mountains, but that's not representative of the entire sport. So you can do these drive up and easy ones and, you know, I recommend connecting with someone to take you out for for your first time if you can.
Speaker 2:Awesome, okay. Well, I want to thank Matt for taking some time. He actually emailed us just about two weeks ago now and he said hey, I know, I know you guys don't don't do a much soda over that way, but there's a large population of hams on the West coast that enjoy doing soda and we of hams on the west coast that enjoy doing soda and we'd love to love to chat with you about it, and so I want to appreciate, appreciate, matt, for uh reaching out to us and suggesting it and putting it on our radar right, because comparing these two very prevalent radio sports just because the geographies are different here, uh has been really fun to hear kind of why folks are doing it, how to do it, and uh try to get get us motivated. I think that it's probably likely that all three of us will have to go out and activate a summit the next time we're up north.
Speaker 1:Or we'll send you. Yeah, we'll let you know when we're here now.
Speaker 3:For sure I'll get y'all's call sign and my ham alert, so I'll be looking for you.
Speaker 1:Watch out, and I can also say Matt, thank you also for my side, because I was excited to get that email and I remember emailing Jim and Rory like, hey, guys want to talk about soda. It sounds pretty exciting and it's something I have no experience in. And then you were like I'm going to also try to bring a friend.
Speaker 4:I was like, all right, let's do this so thank you also, tim for joining Matt for taking the time, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Thanks, tim. Thank you, and so, tim, we'll make sure to link your website as well. Thank you, matt, I'm not sure. Is there anywhere people we can link for you?
Speaker 4:that people maybe learn more about you. My TRZ page. I don't really have one, but Put him in your ham alert.
Speaker 2:Put him in your ham alert. There you go, Tim. That is the right approach.
Speaker 1:That's where he'll appreciate you the most.
Speaker 4:Definitely.
Speaker 1:So with that last plug for the Everyday Ham as well, you can go to everydayhamcom, learn about our socials, our links to YouTube, our audio links for the podcast, like and subscribe as always, and with that, everyone. 73. Thank you, thank you, guys. 73.
Speaker 3:Ham smarter.
