Tuesday, June 18, 2019

DMR Tip 3 - Digital Monitor Modes

I’m going to cover “Digital Monitor”, what it is, does, and why you should use it. I use an Anytone 868 & 878, but the general principle applies to all DMR radios with this feature or a “promiscuous mode”.

Digital monitor feature has three modes, “Off”, “Single Slot”, and “Double slot”. You can set it in the menus (Click on the “Menu” button on the Anytone HT and tt’s the first menu item when you select the Up button). Here, I’ll just be referencing the “switch” in that menu. On my radio I have a button assigned to change the mode it’s in quickly so I’m not fumbling around in the menus. I use this programmed button the most on my radios..

Here is a link to the slides I used for the presentation I gave on Summits On The Air (SOTA) at the The Valley Center Amateur Radio Club on June 4th, 2019 in Valley Center, CA. Thanks to the other SOTA operators that contributed to this presentation, (KE6MT, K6ARK are a couple that come to mind), and other SOTA operators that helped me.

I had fun and made some new friends.

Enjoy & 73,
N1CLC
Christian Claborne

2019-06-16 Sitton Peak

I got up early, the house is empty so it’s time to head out to another summit and ham it up. Today’s primary destination is Los Pinos Peak. I couldn’t get up there last winter because the road was closed due to flooding and the fire. I figured it would be open by now, and if it wasn’t, I’d hike the 6 miles after the gate that I marked last time. I loaded up and was wheels up by 645. If the gate is open, it’s possible I can activate a few peaks in the area. (click on the chart below for larger).

2019-05 Six Summits in 3 Days

We went to the summer cabin home for Memorial Day and activated 6 summits during the three days that I hiked. I was planning on only 1 on a couple of days but I had the time since a couple of them were pretty easy. I’m been trying to get more summit-to-summit contacts, but this weekend didn’t seem to yield that many.

South Mountain 24-May-2019

For my first activation, I decided to drive up to drive up to South Mountain. I needed to test an update to my vertical. I bent the top section of the Chameleon MPAS antenna and decided to pick up their version 2 of just the top section, which is smaller and lighter. I brought my 20/40 linked dipole just in case and the external antenna tuner.