Tag: DIY

Activation Report: W7O/CN-074 – Round Butte, OR | January 2023

W7MTB on Round Butte


This SOTA summit is a paved drive up. Access is quite easy from Madras, to the East or Culver to the South. 

Madras to Round Butte

Hwy 97/Culver Junction to Round Butte

There is a large open area on the top of the butte to setup your gear. On the Saturday that I was there, I saw one pedestrian and one other car in the 3 hours I was there. There are some small juniper trees but I’d suggest bringing a mast of some kind. 

Working 17m CW from Round Butte

I worked several S2S on 2M with ops up on Frog Lake Buttes [W7O/CN-024], 4620 [ W7O/CN-090] 4925 [W7O/CN-086] then switched over to HF and worked scored another S2S from W6/SC-365 on CW. This was the first time I had deployed my newly build K6ARK End fed random wire tuned with the EmTech ZM-2


This would be an excellent introduction summit for new operators. I presents no physical challenge other than sitting in the cold and wind, but it has beautiful views and feels remote enough to be relaxing.

Resources: 

K6ARK End Fed Half Wave (EFHW) build and test

 I watched a video on the Ham Radio Crash Course about this very tiny and relatively easy-to-build antenna a few months ago and bought one right away from Amazon. It only took about 30 minutes start to finish, the hardest part being attaching the surface mount capacitor as the video describes. I have since use it pretty much exclusively when activating the in the field. I even had a SOTA SSB QSO with Adam, K6ARK, himself during a SOTA activation at Smith Rock State Park! 

I am using 18 gauge wire cut for 20M. I used my NanoVNA to tune and marked 10-20M on the wire with various colors of shrink wrap to differentiate the bands. I have a second length of wire that I added banana clips to connect so I can get up to 40M if I want to. If I want to use a new band I unroll from the Buddipole wire holder to the marking and check the SWR function on the IC-705 in the field and so far have had pretty good success. I’ve done several POTA and SOTA activations using SSB with the antenna. I love how simple and portable this setup is.

This is a great DIY antenna project, it simple to build and easy to use and I’d suggest it for anyone interested in field QRP activating.

K6ARK End Fed Half Wave QRP antenna with wire on Buddipole winder