N1ZF-Now a MOUNTAIN GOAT! - Paul N1ZF is a longtime ham radio operator who is a dedicated SOTA enthusiast and excellent CW operator. He holds a superb record accumulating over 900 activator points in only 19 months! Congratulations Paul!
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Congratulations on achieving MG Paul !! Thanks for all the QSO’s during your recent marathon trip through the Southeast.
73 Rich N4EX
congrats Paul on a fine achievement. May we cross paths again soon.
Jack
Congratulations Paul on achieving Mountain Goat.
Jimmy M0HGY
Congratulations Paul! And nice run in W4 and W8 lately! Thanks for the QSO’s.
73 Keith KR7RK
Congratulations on MG Paul.
Lee
Congrats Paul for MG.
Thanks for the SOTA QSOs we’ve got.
HPE to CHASE U AGN VY SN.
73,
Guru
Congrats Paul ! Your Mountain goat 
signal has been hopping over me lately, but always great to work you.
73 Karen
Congratulations Paul ! All of us have enjoyed your journey to Mountain Goat. Thanks from us chasers. And a thank you from the East coast guys for running 60 meters, for us. Wishing you all the best. de Scotty KG3W
Great job Paul, thanks for the activations and chaser points
73 GL
Bill WB0KIU
I was impressed when N1ZF called me from Virginia summit W4V/HB-005 during my Mt. Islip (W6/CT-010) activation in California. We made S2S QSO. The distance (2162 miles) is quite impressive for QRP S2S contact. Congratulations Paul!
73! Oleh
Congratulations Paul!
73, Malcolm VE2DDZ
Congratulations, Paul! Thanks for all the contacts. I hope to hear you on many more summits on your way to Double Goat!!
73, Walt NE4TN
CONGRATS, PAUL! Well done.
All Best, Ken
Congratulations Paul!
Not only have you done many efficient SOTA activations, you’ve somehow found time to call me and make a large number of S2S contacts! It’s always a great surprise to hear you calling through the pile!
We’ve made almost as many S2S on 30M CW as on 20M CW, and several on 17M as well! I hope we can continue this - you’re in many of my logs from your summits in the east. You’re consistently readable, more so than many other activators. Please keep the ball rolling - hope you continue to enjoy this unique activity!
73
George
KX0R
Hello All,
Thank you for your kind words. I realize that as a radio op I’m a work in progress, and much of the past work has been assisted and encouraged by the Chasers and Activators who led by example, and have been tolerant of my developing CW skills and occasional operational anomalies. I wouldn’t have kept at it without your help. I am committed to continuing to improve per the following lessons learned:
- I am going to find a non-resonant wire length that my KX3 will consistently tune up on 80/60/40/30/20/17. Some might have noticed that I’d neglect either 80M or 60M, which would depend on whether the vegetation understory allowed using my 84-foot ersatz W3EDP (60M worked 10% of the time??), or I was restricted to my 42-foot wire, which would always tune on 60M but not 80M.
- Once I have #1 squared away, I’ll work towards accurately and consistently posting intended frequencies in my alerts. I’ve noticed numerous Chasers anticipating where I’m going next when I switch bands, and when I chased consistent Activators, I immediately understood.
- Take greater care in neat record keeping, and verify as I go that I will be able to decrypt my log at a later date.
- Chasing complements multiple Activation skills. Thank you WA9STI.
- Personal preference: I’m not doing multi-summit days anymore. I admit being obsessed with a goal, but now I’d rather call CQ a few more times to see if there are any latecomers, or try an additional band, or re-work bands to see if conditions have changed. I was on Mt. Cole in Virginia, second successful activation of the day, it was getting late, and after I packed up and headed down, I finally looked around and realized, “Hey, there’s a view.”
- I’m not using trekker poles on steep boulder fields anymore. Thank you, AC1Z, for helping me up when I fell on Mt. Adams.
- I will carefully secure my antenna mast to the outside of my pack. Thank you, NS1TA, for spotting and retrieving my mast from that bushwhack on Mt. Field.
TU & 73,
Paul – N1ZF
I :
Chasers
2 Likes
The usual non-resonant length that goes down to 80 m is 53 feet. That happens to be very close to 1/4 wave on 60 m, so it should tune just fine.
Elecraft used to recommend a counterpoise wire that was at least 1/8 wave on the lowest band (from the KX1 manual). In the KX2 manual, they recommend a counterpoise the same length as the antenna.
wunder
I have been doing 60m on a 41’ wire with a 9:1 matching network, and that works well. I’ve found 60m is a really good alternative to 80m. I still get to work all the ‘locals’ but often I get lots of the same chasers I would otherwise get on 40m. So two birds, one stone.
1 Like
Hahaha! Proof that two wrong (turns) can make a right!
Congrats on Goatdom and welcome to the herd! You seemed to have a bad case of goat fever and hope you are relaxing and recovering from it now. 
73, pat - KI4SVM
Congrats Paul on your Mountain Goat achievement!
Thanks for all the chaser points, our first SOTA qso was on my Shack Sloth day 5/20/17 you were #1,023 and that was 53 contacts ago between us. Looking forward to many more
73,
Gary
K3TCU