Mountain vendors

As we were driving to the Farmer's Market in Show Low, we saw signs for another market at the Show Low Gym... unfortunately, the signs were getting blown around a lot, so we ended up taking quite a detour to get to the Gym, but we eventually got there...

This market was inside and had a variety of items, including a few booths selling clothing. The interesting aspect of this market was that you picked up the items you wanted as you walked through the market, but then you paid at a central location. I guess this is easier on the folks who are manning the booths to not have to handle money or support credit card sales.

I thought the Chocolate thoughts were appropriate: "A Day Without Chocolate Is Like... JUST KIDDING - I HAVE NO IDEA!" and "Chocolate comes from Cocoa... Which is a Tree... a Tree is a Plant... Chocolate is a Salad!"

We didn't find anything that we couldn't do without, but it was nice to be inside and out of the wind!

Show Low Farmer's Market

We visited the Show Low Farmer's Market a second time... on our previous visit, we didn't see much "grown" stuff  (no vegetables or fruit) -- more "made" stuff (crafts -- knitted/crocheted goods, paintings, framed photos; made-to-order signs, baked goods, jerky, home-made alcohol/fermented products - ginger beer, kombucha, vanilla). This time, there was one booth with a small number of fruits - strawberries, peaches (maybe nectarines), some other fruit that I'm forgetting, and there was a meat producer selling beef and pork.

There were quite a few more booths.

The wind was quite strong so many of the vendors were having to use extreme means to keep their EZ-ups from flying away!

We talked with the folks selling beef and pork for a little while -- the wife said that they got in to raising pigs because her husband had allergic reactions to pork products. They found that his allergies were to things used in the processing, not the pork itself. They then also got in to raising beef (I am not clear on whether they just raise steers to beef or whether they have a herd). She did indicate that they bring in alfalfa hay rather than feeding the cattle on the sparse local vegetation. (https://www.rustykranchaz.com/legacy)

Their prices and inventory on the day we were there

We enjoy talking with local folks about things they are passionate about. The last time we visited the market, we talked with one lady making homemade vanilla flavoring and another lady selling ginger bug and kombucha. Carl bought some ginger bug and has been making various carbonated beverages (using a preservative-free fruit juice with a small amount of the ginger bug, letting the sugars ferment a little making the carbonation).

Even more sights in the sky

Carl has been wanting to get a picture of the Milky Way for a long time (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2022/02/a-slower-day.html. https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2022/07/viewing-milky-way.html). Prime viewing time of the Milky Way for our location started 6/13, but, wouldn't you know it, even though we've had super clear skies for weeks, clouds started moving in each afternoon during that week. The prime time was going on for two weeks, so on 6/19, after we did dance lessons and danced to the band at the White Mountain Dance Hall, we decided to try to find a dark place to try to see the Milky Way and take pictures.

From the dance hall, we drove east and tried driving down a side road a little ways... but we ended up on what appeared to be private land, so we turned around. We then went to a wildlife area where it appeared on Google maps that there may be a couple of lakes over which we could look toward the south/southeast. However, it appeared that we may have disturbed a couple of vehicles of folks who may have been engaged in romantic encounters (one was already parked when we got there but soon left, another drove in but left as soon as they saw us), and unfortunately, we were too close to the ambient light from Show Low so we decided to try another spot.

I had seen pictures posted on Facebook from near Vernon, so we headed east on US-60 heading toward Vernon. Carl was concerned if we got into Vernon, there would be too many lights from houses, so he found a side road and we decided to take it. 

While it looked like from the map that the road might proceed a ways off of US-60, in reality, there was a gate just a little ways off the highway. 

The satellite view on google maps shows a little better that there is a line paralleling US-60, that's a fence (https://www.google.com/maps/@34.2828492,-109.8527299,184m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu).

This capture from Google street view allows you to see it better -- of course, it was well after dark by the time we were there, so we didn't exactly have this view when we turned off of US-60! (link to google street view of location)

Now, the gate had a sign on it indicating that we should close it if we went through it, and *maybe* if we still had the Jeep, we may have attempted it, but we decided that discretion was the better part of valor and that we should not take the car beyond the gate.

However, there was also a walk-through gate, and we decided that it would be doable for us to take the tripod and our phones on the other side of the fence.

Our Google Pixel phones have the ability to do "astrophotography". If we put the phone on "night sight", it will take a slightly longer exposure picture (the ones that we took of the planets over the last few nights used that setting). If the phone detects that it is being held very still (like being mounted on a tripod or sitting on a firm surface), the night sight indicator (crescent moon) will change to a astro indicator (stars), and it will take a 4+ minute exposure. Now, in 4 minutes, the earth will rotate enough that the stars will not look like points, but will rather look like short streaks; software embedded in the phone's camera will post-process the resultant image and correct for the earth's rotation, so the stars look like points.

Here are a few of our results:

This was before we crossed the fence, and we got less sky and more trees than we wanted.

On the other side of the fence... better! If you click on this picture when looking at the blog online, I think you'll get a big image of this picture, and you'll be able to see a streak at the bottom of the picture just above the tree to the right -- I think that was an airplane.

A better composition of sky and trees

Another picture with a streak of an airplane near the top of the leftmost tree.

And... the "money shot"...

Carl wanted to get a picture of us looking at the Milky Way. We couldn't really tell what the camera was pointing at, but I stood where we thought the foreground of the picture would be, and I set a timer on my watch for 4 1/2 minutes. Carl started the astro-shot and hurried over to stand next to me. We stood still, though we could talk for the 4+ minutes. Once my watch timer went off, we went to the phone camera to see what we'd gotten and were pleased with the results! 

When the camera takes the 4 minute exposure, it also takes a video. That picture of us is actually a screen shot from the end of the video as it has us more lit-up than the resultant picture. We think, because headlights from traffic passing on US-60 would illuminate the area briefly, that we happened to capture a moment of the headlight illumination. Carl did a small amount of post-processing to bump the saturation levels up a bit. 

We think that we can now check-off "get a photo of the Milky Way" from our to-do list! 

Bible Study at Venture In

Many of the planned activities here at Venture In are organized and run by members of the Venture In Chapel. We have enjoyed participating in the chapel services on Sunday and the co-ed Bible Study on Friday mornings.

This is a picture from a recent Friday morning meeting. Each week there are more people participating in the study.

The study is using Dr David Jeremiah's book, "The Promise of Heaven".

Someone from the VI Chapel produces an outline for each week's lesson and provides it to us. There are also group discussion questions that we go through.

I have never done a study of a book by Dr David Jeremiah. There are videos of him doing a sermon. His sermons are almost word-for-word duplicated in the book, so we cover 1-2 chapters in the book each week. I don't know whether the discussion questions are provided in a leader's guide or whether one of the leaders in the VI Chapel comes up with the discussion questions. Regardless, we are enjoying it, and we are getting to meet fellow believers in the park.

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!