So the @hamchallenge @hamchallenge this week is to make a xOTA contact. Got my first SOTA contact earlier this week on 20m, and a few 40m POTA contacts for the first time.

Considering the conditions I'll take 3 contacts as a win!

For the 16th challenge, 'Make a contact with a xOTA station.’, I will be keeping an ear out for any stations calling. #hamchallenge HC16 @hamchallenge

#hamchallenge week 16: Outdoor #hamradio activities like Islands/Summits/Parks on the Air have been very popular over the last years. Combining radio with outdoor activities plus the various connected award programs appear to be a mix that has hit the nerve of many #radioamateur s. For this week's challenge, make a contact with a xOTA station and post about it! https://hamchallenge.org/2025/16

For the 15th challenge, 'Monitor a transmission and take notes of the field strength’, I have to give it a pass for now. Not got a chance to think about it. #hamchallenge HC15 @hamchallenge

Received #SSTV images from the #ISS using a HT with a HB9CV antenna and Robot36 on the smartphone.

I was a fun activity, and the kids enjoyed this, too.

I count this as #HamChallenge #HC10S
#hamradio #amateurradio #amateurradio

I managed to receive one of the images sent by the ISS today, using my little Baofeng UV-5R and the Robot36 app on my phone. The image is not perfect due to noise but I'm still really happy it worked.
Counting this as #hamchallenge HC42S and HC10S
@hamchallenge

For this week's #hamchallenge I observed the QRSS transmissions of S52AB on 30m. They're running 24/7 so it's a good indicator for the propagation on this 800km path. Each day I noted the times when the signal became visible in the morning and when it disappeared. The results are tabulated below. Typically the signal comes out of the noise with a big peak in the morning and then becomes weaker again, the same peak can be observed before it fades out. HC15S @hamchallenge

@hamchallenge HC34S Match an Impedance. Successfully matched 36 Ohms to 50 Ohms at 7 MHz. Created a quick posting with the two solutions over at https://qsl.net/n8dmt/ham-challenge-hc34-match-an-impedance/index.html (Did not want to be spoiler to those who would work this challenge in the future. But walk-through solutions are there for check-use as helpful.) #HamChallenge #HamRadio

#hamchallenge week 15: Monitor a beacon or transmitter that's transmitting continuously, such as a NCDXF beacon or the DWD RTTY transmission on 10100.8 kHz, and take notes of the field strength over the course of a week (as often as you can manage). What did you notice? Did it behave the same on all days or were there differences? https://hamchallenge.org/2025/15 #hamradio

For #hamchallenge HC14S I do on- and off-site backups of my computers regularly. So my logs are also in the backup. I use @restic for backup for some years already (and it is developed by a fellow amateur radio operator). From time to time I already restored some data from the backup, so this works as well.

The bigger problem are too many logfiles. Quite every digimode app comes with its own logging abilities. And I did not find a proper way to merge all logs yet.

@hamchallenge

@hamchallenge #hamchallenge HC14S.

I have a laptop and a PC in the shack, both running Linux. Although my main logging is on paper, SKCC contacts are logged in SKCCLogger and WWFF logs are entered with FLE under Wine. Backup is made once in a while on an external harddisk using "Back In Time": https://github.com/bit-team/backintime

this one was easy again. I log with POLO and export the logs, then upload them to wavelog and qrz.com. I also save them on my laptop, which is backed up once a month on an external disk. @hamchallenge HC14S #hamchallenge #amateurradio

The important bits of my ham radio log are kept in Obsidian, and my backup strategy for that is to have a copy synced to git on another machine, and another copy backed up with Backblaze.

It's not a contest log (I don't do that) and I'm not perfect about keeping it, but when it works right it lets me keep track of things like who is interested in what on various local discussion nets.

Bonus: completion on call signs, tagging, hyperlinks etc.

#hamchallenge HC14S @hamchallenge

For the 14th challenge, 'Implement and describe a backup solution for your ham radio log.’, I realised that my backup options are simple. I keep copies of my ham log in different places like QRZ, Club Log, HamQTH etc., a copy taken automatically into my personal cloud backup, and my favourite paper logbook. I’m not an active operator and do not have the need for an offsite backup. #hamchallenge HC14S @hamchallenge

#hamchallenge @hamchallenge HC13S

Last week I made 61 QSO's from an unusual location: the second highest SOTA summit in the Netherlands at 101 meters. Story at https://reflector.sota.org.uk/t/first-sota-close-to-home-from-pa-pa-006/37784

#hamchallenge @hamchallenge HC12S

Today I made a QSO with an unusual antenna (Nigel M0NGN on 7 MHz). It is a linear loaded vertical with 2 radials. The radiator is 7 meters long and consist of 450 Ohm ladder shorted at the top. This runs along a 10 meter Spiderbeam mast, so the feed point is at 3 meters high.

#hamchallenge Week 14: My #hamradio logbook #backup system is simple: My central log (to which I live-log contacts and import all my contest logs) is the console logger "YFKlog", which uses a MySQL database backend. It's running on a Hetzner VPS which creates nightly snapshots of the system disk that reach back seven days. In addition, a nightly cron-job creates a database dump which gets rsynced to another VPS in another datacenter. I also regularly upload my log to LoTW. #HC14S @hamchallenge