Ham, Reporting For Duty
Growing up, it was completely normal to have a forty-foot tower and Yagi antenna looming over our house in our small town in western Washington. My dad (KY7K-SK) became interested in ham radio in the late 1970’s and built a substantial ham radio shack over some years centered around his Heathkit HW-5400 he built on our kitchen table. The sounds of ham radio were often in the background as a kid, but my dad never pushed the hobby on any of his kids. My mom also got her license after studying and passing the code test but she was not too active. I think she got it just to show her support.
In 1997, a year after I graduated from high school, I joined the Air Force. I got lucky and ended up in an electronics career field. I learned basic electronics and soldering, then moved on to learning about aircraft navigation systems and weather monitoring systems at my technical training at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. After that, I was off to my first of seven assignments, back home in Washington state at McChord Air Force Base.
Fast forward to 2009 and my family and I found ourselves in Anchorage, Alaska, where I was fortunate to support the many remote radar sites across the state. This is where I crossed paths with my friend and ham radio mentor, Tom (NL7RR), a Coast Guard veteran who worked as a contractor supporting those same sites. It did not take long for him to learn about my connection to ham and he began his campaign to get me licensed. “You need to get your ticket,” he would tell me in an encouraging way. I had thought about it over the years since my dad had passed away in 1999 but I didn’t have someone to push me towards those initial steps (and I was dissuaded by the code requirement early on).
Finally, by 2011, I passed the technician and general exams and began my ham journey with my first callsign, KL3FN. I can still vividly remember my second HF contact from our home in Wasilla, Alaska. I was using my dad’s old Heathkit radio and a not-so-pretty (i.e., homemade) inverted-L antenna supported by a tree next to the garage/ham shack. That contact was to a Kiwi in northern New Zealand, also named Al, some 7,000 miles away. That contact hooked me on the wonders of both the science and chance of ham radio.
Our next adventure took us from Alaska to Hawai’i. I know, you probably think I got the short end of the stick, Al, but trust me, the family and I had a great time. I found the ham community in Honolulu to be very welcoming. The first year I was there I helped the local club as we supported the annual Honolulu marathon. Then in 2013, I heard about this thing called Summits On The Air (SOTA) that was all the rage in Europe and getting a lot of attention in the US. With the help of a few of the SOTA support team members we were able to establish the KH6 SOTA association in 2013, and thereby gamifying hiking and ham radio to a whole slew of seldom visited Hawai’i peaks. Having been an avid hiker for years, my interest in ham radio grew exponentially with my introduction to SOTA. Thus beginning a quest to continually refine my backpack shack (radio gear) to provide both operating efficiency and be as lightweight as possible.
In 2014 I left the family in Hawai’i for a one-year tour to Korea, ham radio in tow, and a reciprocal license of HL3ZFF to allow me to operate in the country. Before I stepped foot in Korea I had researched and found that SOTA was alive and well there. I even found an ex-patriot ham, also into SOTA, who lived near the base I was at. It did not take long for us to start hiking and enjoying mountaintop radio in some amazing scenery.
By this time I had taken the plunge and upgraded my boat anchor radio to a backpack friendly Elecraft KX-3. I also started practicing with CW. I think CW and SOTA go together like peanut butter and jelly because it allows you to really start lightening up your gear due to its inherent efficiency at low power. I believe SOTA is also a great way to learn CW (either activating or chasing) because the exchanges are very concise and organized: callsign, signal report, thanks (TU) and 73. Since then, my logs have progressively become more and more filled with CW contacts over the years as I have slowly gained confidence and skill.
In the military you don’t necessarily get to pick your assignments but between luck and chance I found my next assignment a SOTA goldmine as we next moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado. My job while there was pretty stressful, but SOTA gave me a great way to relax. There is just something about sitting on a summit that clears my mind and does a little reset on my brain. The community of SOTA hams along the front range (between Colorado Springs and Denver) was very supportive and active. On most activations I logged at least one “summit-to-summit” contact with another ham on a nearby peak.
As we neared the end of our Air Force journey we decided to take one last assignment to Utah. Again, anywhere with mountains is alright by me, and I wasted no time exploring the mountain ranges around the Great Salt Lake and points beyond. As we looked to retire from the Air Force (in the middle of the pandemic) we began looking for a good place to land. SOTA again helped guide my decision and luck would have it that Rob (AE7AP) served as a great ambassador to help us decide to join the Helena ham community in 2020.
SOTA has given me so many great adventures and experiences. It’s led me to places I would never have gone otherwise and I am grateful for it. The stunning views, the thrill of the climb, and the camaraderie of the other hams keep me coming back for more. None of that would have happened if not for someone taking the time to encourage me to get my license.
I recently had a hand in helping a friend in Colorado (someone I had deployed with to Syria in 2018) get his first license. He did 99% of the work, I was just lucky enough to help give him a nudge, like I got over a decade ago, and pointed him in the right direction. It felt great to play a part of his journey. Who do you know that could use a friendly nudge to get into ham radio?
Let me know if you ever want to tag along on one of my next hikes or want to participate as a chaser. As always, thanks to the many local hams that provide me the contacts necessary to complete an activation. I hope to get you in the log again soon.
73, AL ~ KH7AL