2m SSB in Scottish Borders, any interest Saturday August 18?

I’m planning on heading up Hownam Law (GM/SS-197) tomorrow.

I have my KX3 with the 2m option, 35 watt brick amp and a 3 element Yagi which I can deploy on 2m SSB (or FM).

Beyond HF, is anyone interested or have an opinion on viability of nabbing chasers on 2m SSB?

Paul M/W6PNG

Unfortunately I will not be up in Berwick tomorrow as it would be almost line of sight at 22miles but from Newcastle that’s right on the opposite side of all the Cheviots. That is the single summit from which I have a 4 band S2S 60m, 2m, 70cm, 23cm and it would have been a chance to for me complete it. I suspect 2m SSB may yield contacts only to the north and west as there is a lot of hill mass to the south.
Jim

Thanks Jim.

Looking over the peak stats I wondered who had completed the 23cm contact and now I know.

Paul

I am North of you (quite a diatance) but you should be workable on 2m.
If I see you alerted will look out for you

Barry,

Thanks and you made my day!

That was my first SSB 2m contact and 145 miles and a 41 gives me an idea of what I might expect with a little more effort.

The antenna was hard to control and so I think I was working you off the side of the 4 element Yagi.

It started raining moments after our contact and so I hurriedly took everything down and scampered off the hill.

Paul

Hi Paul,

Soon after confirming my report you were up to an easy 54 and we could have had “armchair” copy with a little qsb.

Glad to work you though, you need to know the terrain between us to realise it is not an easy path.
Enjoy the rest of your visit

1 Like

Here’s the path without Earth curvature.

©Crown copyright 2018 Ordnance Survey. Media 032/18

Thanks Andy.

Is the application you used to create the path available free or a part of a subscription?

Paul

I always use the Solwise website for a quick and dirty calculation.

Mark

Thanks and I’ll check it out.

Also thanks for the S2S today from presumably your warmer locale in southern Spain.

Paul

Anquet Maps. That was a paid for program complete with OS map data. OS is Ordnance Survey the equivalent of USGS. The OS used to sell the data for stupid money, the program, plus map data at 8 different resolutions (1:25k, 1:50k etc.) plus Gazetteer, height database supplied on a 64GB USB stick (coz it takes up 40Gb of disk) for £395 in 2015. It’s protected and encrypted etc. and needs to “phone home” to unlock the maps. But once done, will work offline.

The data price from the OS has come right down now and there is a new version which is much more “cloudy”. So you can pay between £25-£50 a year for different resolutions of data and whether you want to require a net connection to work or be able to download all the data and work offline. My map data is 3.5years old and is not going to be updated but the subscription data is updated every 3 months. So the annual subscription is cheap enough to make sense. You pay and you can access the data on as many devices as you like and it works on iOS, Android, OSX, Windows 7,8,10. The new app is different and I’ve been waiting for it to mature a bit before moving to the new version and that will happen before end of the year.

There are others available but I like this (even though it was very expensive) because I have it installed on my PC at home, PC at work, my full size laptop and my 10in dual mode tablet. Once activated it doesn’t need a net connection and it uses the official UK mapping data. Not needing a net connection and being able to have detailed maps and height info download was worth the cost.

Hi Paul, yes indeed great to get a S2S back to the UK. My equipment wasn’t playing ball, I was getting the weird scenario where folk were hearing me OK but not moving the needle in the other direction - consistently. I suspect the sockets on my MiniPA50 amp - the connectors are very sloppy in them, it’s an issue I’ll need to sort out when I get back home. I’ve mostly standardized on N-Type, although there is generally a weight penalty. I’m not a fan of PL259s, but if I do stay with them I’ll try and get hold of some decent ones.

The S2S was right at the end of my activation. The temperature is a lot lower than it has been and we did start out early in the morning.

Regards, Mark. M0NOM

BNCs. You can “fit” a N plug onto a BNC socket without damage but it will not lock in place. BNC connectors are much lighter than N but is still a proper connector. Of course, replacing your SO239/PL259s allows you to feel smug and superior to people stuck using such a woeful connector. But watch out because you may come across someone who is using 7/16 DIN and they will be able to out-smug you by a huge margin!
:wink:

I didn’t know that BNC’s and N-Types are sort of compatible. I will also look into BNCs, it is definitely a good option. Was thinking that somewhere like RS components would be a good option for them, going for a named brand and buying both plugs and sockets from the same brand. The only issue I’ve had with BNCs is the differing tolerances you get between brands (or unbranded which is probably more accurate!)

Avoid the junk and buy the good stuff and, again, feel superior to people using stuff made in the middle kingdom!

Radiall
Greenpar
Suhner
Andrew (may only fit Andrew cables)
Amphenol

If you want to check on path visibility from your location then http://www.heywhatsthat.com/ works worldwide. There are also better solutions which actually plot path profiles - read the information at http://www.g4jnt.com/GeogWinSoftware.pdf before even thinking of downloading that one! Another which might work for you is at Mike Willis Web Site

You can spend hours of time playing about especially if you are thinking about moving qth - which is how I came across HeyWhatsThat