Traps: An experimental SOTA vertical triband.

Traps are a divisive topic, with many hams saying they are inefficient, even though many commercial multi-band antennas use them. Whether they are inefficient or not, with portable operating there are many kinds of ways to measure efficiency: Radiated power (or how much power is lost in the antenna)Footprint (or how much space you need […]

June 16, 2026
Adding SOTA summits to your Garmin.

I have been active with Summits On The Air for a year and a half, and had been navigating exclusively with Guru Maps until very recently. Guru is an exceptional app, been using it for 10 years: even its free version allows you to have offline vector maps with routable topography. The paid version is […]

June 11, 2024
Using OSM maps on Garmin handhelds.

The scenario is simple: you spend a not insignificant amount of money on a Garmin GPS unit, then travel and find that you don’t have maps for that region, and Garmin charges quite a lot of money for something that you didn’t know you were missing. So you then search the interwebs for solutions, and […]

Making a cheap LiFePO4 battery for SOTA.

I needed a good battery to power my Xiegu G90, so that I could carry it up hills and talk to strangers in my bid to join the SOTA community. In 2023 the general trend for portable lighteweight power is to buy a *premium* battery like the Bioenno pack–which are designed specifically for this purpose–or […]

June 25, 2023
Xiegu G90 weight loss: Preparing 20w for SOTA activations

I bought a used Xiegu G90 in 2023 as a portable rig to take on SOTA (Summits On The Air) activations, and to use as a travel rig. The G90 is a compact unit, about the size of an airport-best-seller novel which covers all modes from 160m to 10m at 20w output: it is SDR […]