Last weekend I threw my ham radio gear into a backpack and carried it to the top of South Beacon Mountain in upstate New York, along with with my friend Tom Tumino, N2YTF, and we spent several hours at the summit making contacts with other hams around the globe. Tom is a SOTA enthusiast who has introduced me to this great new aspect of amateur radio. The SOTA program (short for Summits On The Air) encourages hams to get out of the house and operate “mountaintop portable”. Peaks are ranked and assigned point values according to their prominence, with the idea that you want to collect as many points as possible by operating from as many high peaks as you can. The points aren’t good for anything except bragging rights, but it’s a nice incentive to get you out of bed at 7:00 am and on the road.

SOTA is most popular in Europe where they have thousands of peaks cataloged. Here in the US, the program is just gaining momentum, and the administrators are still building the databases of eligible peaks. However there are many portable operators in the states and several other clubs that are active in mountaintopping independent of SOTA. Steve Galchutt wG0AT has created a great series of videos documenting his hikes on Mount Herman in Colorado with his two mountain goats Rooster and Peanut. HFPack is an active organization that focuses on portable and “pedestrian mobile” operations (i.e. backpack radios). Slightly more eccentric is the Polar Bear Club which encourages portable ops in the winter months.

The photo above is of a 70 foot fire tower at the summit of South Beacon that we used as an operating base (you can see our antennas and a SOTA flag at the top if you squint). More photos after the break.

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A friend and I had dinner in the little Hudson River town of Beacon NY last night, after a day hike on nearby South Beacon Mountain.  As luck would have it, Beacon is home to the Retro Arcade Museum. Despite the enticing name, we almost didn’t bother checking it out since it was fairly late, and from a distance the museum appeared to have closed down for the evening. What a mistake that would have been!  Inside was the finest collection of classic arcade games, pinball machines, console and handheld games I have ever seen (not that I’ve seen a lot of these, but it was still *very* impressive). The owner, Fred, gave us the grand tour, which includes a hilarious party room in the back dubbed “grandma’s kitchen”, outfitted with yellow formica everything, just like your nana’s — perfect for hosting hipster birthday parties. We didn’t have time to play the games but for ten bucks you can enter the matrix and play anything you want for a full hour. And these are not a bunch of PacMan machines you could find on eBay. Fred has obviously done a lot of homework, and legwork, and acquired a number of very fine examples of early games, including many electro-mechanical ones and first-of-their kinds. It is truly a museum. Of awesome.

Beacon is a 75 minute train ride from Grand Central, and the museum is a one mile walk from the train station. Aside from the museum, Beacon has a number of other cute shoppes and restaurants so this would make an excellent day trip for the whole family. I shall be back.

gettin' some learnin'

Introduction to Electronics!

Got a gadget tumbling in your subconcious that needs electrical life? Don’t know where to start? Start here! This class is perfect for the absolute beginner who needs some practical electronics knowledge.

From the description:

We’ve got some rad classes coming up at Resistor!

April 26 – Soldering 101
Learn the basics of soldering while constructing a TV B Gone.

May 2 – Fire the Lazzor!
Bre’s laser class is back! Learn to use our Epilog Mini laser engraver. The class is a ton of fun, and allows you to come back later for more laser cutting if you’re so inclined!

May 3 – Wireless Wearables
Construct your own networked fabric with a LilyPad XBee board, radio, and conductive thread.

May 16 – PCB Design with Eagle
Back by popular demand, Zach will show you how to design a printed circuit board which you can etch yourself or send out to have manufactured.

May 30 – Beginning PHP
Learn one of the internet’s most prolific scripting languages, no prior programming experience required.

Tomorrow night there won’t be regular craft night at NYCR because we have a visiting presenter, Chris Palmer.

Unfortunately the event is fully booked and full! Stay tuned for future events at NYCR and check the calendar for classes to get involved in NYCResistor.