Some last "SOTA-ites" pictures

One of our friends who went up Porter Mountain and did the SOTA contacts provided us with some additional pictures...

Operators in action - Jeanne with the microphone, Carl recording

The group of operators

After the time on the mountain, we adjourned to Culver's for sustenance and frozen custard!

Always fun being with friends!

Ham Radio SOTA

A number of Ham Radio friends from Mesa are staying in Show Low or nearby. Sue and Chuck are very active in SOTA - Summits on the Air (https://www.sota.org.uk/).

Amateur radio operators participate in a number of different events and/or contests that help them test their equipment, challenge them to operate in adverse conditions, and encourage them to be comfortable with the radio. SOTA encourages radio operators to set up portable radios and "activate" various summits by making contacts with other radio operators near and far. The activator gets points for activating the summit, and the contacts get points for being "hunters" or "chasers".

We arranged to meet up with Sue and Chuck on Porter Mountain. This particular summit has an advantage of being "drive in" -- instead of needing to drive to a spot and then walk up the rest of the way, we could drive to the location where they would set up their radios and not have to carry equipment very far.

The process of getting set up required setting up the radio and its power supply (friend Tom had brought his radio and batteries to provide power).... 

... and setting up one or more antennas tuned to the bands that they would be contacting (1/4 wave of the frequency that they would be transmitting on. By tuning the antenna to the frequency, all the transmit energy can go into the air as radio waves rather than being wasted as heat.).

Chuck initially measured the length of the antenna.

Cherie was holding the other end of the antenna and tape measure.

Then a radial of the same (or slightly less) length needed to be put out -- Jeanne is pulling out the wire...

... once it was measured out, the hamster (my chosen designation as I am not a licensed ham radio operator) held onto it at the right length until the end support was brought out.

This was a raised radial, needing to be 3'+ off the ground, so Jeanne is checking the height. You may be able to see two very thin red legs that are tied together at the top to hold the radial out at this length and at the correct height off the ground.

Pictures of the view -- out toward Show Low

View of the *big* antennas on the top of Porter Mountain - cellular, microwave towers, relays, maybe local TV or radio, utilities - police, fire; maybe businesses.

Nick and Chuck screwing the antenna into the tripod base (the radial was attached to the base -- in the foreground of the picture you may be able to see the two red lightweight supports that are holding the end of the radial out and up)

The "hamster" staying mostly in the shade and out of the way.

A "cheat sheet" on the appropriate calls for the operators to make when activating. They would tune to a particular frequency and listen for activity on it. If it sounded clear, they would check up and down three clicks. Once they found what sounded like a clear frequency, one operator would start by asking "Is this frequency in use?" two times (with a pause between to listen). Then the operator would broadcast, "CQ SOTA, CQ Summits on the Air. This is <operator's call sign> calling from Porter Mountain in Arizona. This is <operator's call sign> calling CQ and Listening." They would then listen for responses from "chasers". (translations of the code: CQ = "Calling all stations", CQ SOTA = "Calling all stations participating in Summits on the Air")

On the first frequency that the group activated, there were immediately a number of responses from SOTA chasers. Since there were a number of folks (activators) on our end listening, they would all try to listen carefully and get the call sign of the chaser (sometimes they could easily hear the call sign, sometimes they could hear part of the call sign -- sometimes they could hear the whole call sign, but transcribing it to paper would not get it quite correct). Once they had a good call sign, the operator would then say, "<chaser's call sign>  <operator's call sign> You are <signal report (letting the responder know how strong their signal was)> on Porter Mountain. QSL?" (QSL? = "Do you understand?")

The chaser would respond with "<operator's call sign> <chaser's call sign> You are <signal report> in <chaser's location>".

The "signal report" is usually two numbers -- 1-5 scale for "readability" and 1-9 scale for signal strength. I think that some radios have a gauge that you can read this information, but it seems like often the signal report is just the operator's impression of the signal, and most of the time it is "5-9". 

Note that the communication starts with the call sign of the person that you're talking to, and then your call sign. Like, on the telephone, I might say, "Barbara? This is Patti." and I might add a signal report, "I hear you very clearly and loudly."

Since there were a number of people in our group who were doing activation on SOTA for the first time, once the first operator had made a contact, they would ask the chaser if they were willing to speak with a second operator. Since the "chasers" understand that others are learning, they were all willing to communicate with the 5 or 6 folks that we had in the group!

The folks under the shade around the radio...

... a picture of the radio operators from the other side.

As the contacts were made, one of the folks in the group made notes so the contacts could later be recorded online. Porter Mountain has a specific designation (I think it is W7A/AE-043). You can see that the call signs of the chasers are listed (usually the activation log would be for just one operator/activator, but since there was a group, the additional column written to the left indicated who the operator was). The time of the contact in UTC, the strength of the transmission as reported by the chaser, the strength as judged by the operator of the chaser's signal, the mode and megahertz of the frequency. You may notice in the notes on the right, that the group contacted a person in Colorado, another SOTA operator who had activated another summit (in California), someone in Nevada, a person in Slovenia (eastern Europe), and someone in the state of Georgia (on this recording sheet).

At the end -- all of the operators around the antenna

It was fun being out with friends and getting to see the process of activating a summit -- also interesting to see how many chasers wanted to make contacts! 

More sights in the sky

A few days ago, I posted about seeing Jupiter and Venus in the night sky (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2026/06/sights-in-sky.html)...

Mercury joined them a few nights later -- I think Jupiter is the highest, with Venus almost alongside the crescent moon, and Mercury is a faint light below and to the right side of the moon. You can still see the colors in the sky from the sunset.

It is beautiful to see!

A welcome back hot dog dinner and dance!

In addition to Pizza Hut and Einstein Bros. Bagels on Carl's birthday, our resort, Encore Venture In, had a "Welcome back!" hot dog dinner and dance with live music scheduled!

The Rec Hall was pretty packed -- it took a while for everyone to get through the line.

The live band was playing during the time we were eating, which made it pretty loud and hard to chat with other folks at the table.

We heard from other residents in the park that this was the first time the management had done anything like this - we think that the plan had been to have the eating outside, but it was too warm for that. So, tables were set up for eating where dancing would normally happen...

... but once everyone was done with eating, tables were moved out to the side and we were able to do some line dancing and some Arizona two-stepping.

Carl said that it was awfully nice that the park provided him a hot dog dinner and dance on his birthday!

Birthday benefits

We had heard that there are a number of restaurants that give you something free on your birthday (https://thehalalguys.com/123-restaurants-that-give-you-free-food-on-your-birthday/)... for some of them, it doesn't have to be redeemed specifically *on* your birthday (Carl had redeemed a free breakfast slam at Denny's a few days before his birthday), but for most of them, you need to be signed up with their frequent diners club or smartphone app.

We didn't start looking into this until the day before Carl's birthday, and some require that you be a member of their club or app for a little while before they send you a birthday "gift", so I signed up for some so I would have it before my birthday (in July). 

One of the places that is in Show Low that has a birthday benefit is Einstein Bros. Bagels. Not only do they have a free egg sandwich on your birthday, but you get a free bagel with a "shmear" (cream cheese) for joining up on their app... 

... so after Pizza Hut, we went by Einstein Bros. Bagels so I could get my free bagel. I think you had to make a purchase to get your free bagel... at any rate, we ordered a half dozen...

There were a lot of choices of bagels -- we did the order in the app, and the lady behind the counter confirmed that she got it. 

Although we ordered a half dozen bagels with a container of cream cheese through the app, when we got the bag of bagels (we didn't check it until we got home), and we had gotten 8 bagels (instead of 6) and no cream cheese (plus we got my free plain bagel with the shmear on it). We had cream cheese at home, so we froze a few of the bagels so they wouldn't get so dried out and enjoyed them for breakfast over the next few days.

Pizza Hut buffet!

When we were out and about the other day, we noticed that the local Show Low Pizza Hut has a lunchtime buffet, so, a couple days later, we went to check it out...

The building doesn't look like an old Pizza Hut...

But the lunch buffet is back!

When we went inside (shortly after 11am), there were no pizzas on the buffet, so we asked at the front. They said that they wait until people order the buffet to stock it, and asked us what kind of pizza we wanted. Carl asked for Italian sausage, so they said they would make one for us to get from the buffet.

I guess they had some others that were being prepared for the buffet, because the first one was half ham/pineapple and half ham/jalapeno.

But the Italian sausage one came soon after!

The Pizza Hut also had a jukebox that could access the internet for the music to play - no turning records inside! This one can be controlled from an AMI Play app on a smartphone. I don't think anyone was playing music on it while we were there, but every few minutes a song would start up -- maybe folks who work there were using it (there weren't many customers there).

While we were there, Carl reminisced about the Book It! program (https://www.bookitprogram.com/) that his kids participated in when they were young. As they were homeschooling, Sue set reading goals for each child, and when they met their goal in a month, they earned a free personal pan pizza with one topping. Of course, Carl and Sue went too and enjoyed the buffet as their kids enjoyed their personal pan pizza. At that time, the buffet included a salad bar too (we got a side salad with our meal). Previously, they had a dessert pizza on the buffet (apple and glaze and sugar), but we had bread sticks -- one type with herbs, the other type had cinnamon and sugar. Both buffets (then and now) had pizza and pasta with sauce.

As this blog is a few days behind "real time" -- we went to Pizza Hut on Carl's birthday, so used the buffet to celebrate his birthday too!

A drive to Alpine

Our friends from Venture Out, Don and Linda, had told us that they previously stayed in a campground in Alpine during the summers -- they had talked about how pretty it was around there, so we decided to take a drive there from Show Low.

Don suggested that we take the route from Show Low through Pinetop-Lakeside -- the drive took us to higher elevations... 

Pine forests with very clear understories

It appears that there have been fires through this area in not too distant past.

There were also broad meadows. I think that this is still considered to be high desert, but there were shallow lakes and cautions about flash flooding in places.

We ate at the Bear Wallow Cafe and enjoyed our lunch!

Looking down the main drag in Alpine

On the way back, we took a less scenic part of the loop, heading north out of Alpine -- the land looked much more like desert...

This is along US-60 heading west back toward Show Low -- we were almost to the New Mexico border when we started heading back west. In this area, very low grasses and shrubs...

As we continued west, larger shrubby-type trees.

We enjoyed the drive -- it was about 3 hours of driving with a few stops along the way.