Thank you Roy, Ed and Karl. I will try a hard reset of the 817 Ed once we return to the car.
Currently sat in the equivalent of beer garden beside an Ibethan village square and the beer has arrived, food awaited…
In a way I hope the mic has failed as it’s a cheap fix!
Karl - I did hear you say “send two long dashes if you copy” but that’s hard to do with a memory keyer in line without disconnecting it all!
I have just spoken with Phil and he has tried a hard reset but it hasn’t resolved the ssb transmit isssue. I have emailed him instructions from my manual but it sounds like it could be a mic problem or something more serious.
Yes - you were the only station worked on all 3 bands used Walt - nice one - and you were very loud on them all. Overall it was a great day. Now back at the hotel and queuing up for my shower.
87 QSOs completed and for both summits probably around 10-12 Km / 6-7 miles walked. I won’t get time now to put the logs in this evening, My free time needs to be spent on prep for the EA6/FO-001 sojourn tomorrow and resetting several things in the FT-817 which is either broken on voice modes or the microphone is. Here is a picture of Formentera where we take the boat to in the morning. This was taken from the flank of EA6/IB-001 on our down this afternoon:
It’s hard to see Formentera in the pic. The spit of land is the Salines - a long archipelago of salt deposits and marshland.
There is no chance of sliding out the hotel early morning here to grab a quick SOTA before breakfast - it is barely light in Ibiza now at 8.00am local time.
Good suggestion by Mike to try FM in a spot I saw. I did try it and again no power out. In the process of doing a factory reset of the FT-817 I lost the use of the CW filter etc but managed to wade through the set up menu and change a few things on the fly from IB-001. I worked a good handfull of DX stations - USA. AC1Z, K2YGM, NE4TN and N4EX. S2S with S5100ISONZO, and HB9AFI/P earlier in the day. Beautiful weather and views all round. It was fun working several of the G SSBers cross mode. I’ll log you as CW contacts and hope the database gives you a star - maybe you should log them as SSB as usual and see what happens…
See you tmw… thanks to Roy G4SSH and Ed DD5LP for posting the messages and Nick G4OOE for the support phone call!
OOO - no output on FM either - that points away from it being a simple Mic. insert failure then. Even with a failed Mic. insert I would have expected the carrier to be indicated. I do have a spare original Yaesu MH-31 insert which I removed when I added the DF4ZS RF-Clipper module (it came with its own mic. capsule and needed the Yaesu one to be removed to make enough space for the board) - I’ll bring that with me to the UK, so that you can try it out. One more thing to try - reverse the mic. cable - it has an RJ-45 plug on both ends, it’s just the rubber caps that are different.
73 Ed.
P.S. heard your morse signal - if that had been SSB, it would probably have been to weak for me to work.
Good morning from Ibiza. We are about to set off and drive to the ferry - departure time 0830z for Formentera for EA6/FO-001.
Removed FT-817 from my rucksack to change some of the settings from the factory reset and reversed the mic lead. The radio is now generating a carrier on FM, not sure why it didn’t yesterday. Using the PO meter setting it shows power going out. We’ll see. So I will try FM on 20m around 14.285. If ineffective I will revert to slow CW and try to work cross mode. As it will be in the middle of the day I will start on 14.062 and go to 10118 last.
Did you try SSB? I’m guessing Yes and that still is not working? Perhaps you have two faults - one the mic. cable contact and the other the mic. insert - that will be proved if no one hears audio n the FM signal. I have searched and found the insert - it is now packed to be brought to England on Saturday.
Thanks for the cross mode QSO yesterday, it’s the first time I’ve ever had any experience of CW apart from when I did my Foundation licence in 2010. I picked out my call as you slowed down to a speed I could just about regcognise.
Off to brew some beer now, I’ve just got the grain in the mash tun. I’ll be listening for you later between brewing processes. I hope the 817 behaves itself.
Could hear your CW (S3-4) on 14.320 Phil but there were just too many people calling while you were sending for me to start to make anything out of it. If I’d thought earlier I should have fired up Ham radio deluxe to decode (and send) for me.
Never mind - lets hope you find what the problem is - I suspect the Mic. Insert or a simple broken wire somewhere.
Have a good trip back, See you and the rest of the TW crowd next week.
What a FB unique expedition today. Now at the port awaiting our vessel to arrive to take us back to Ibiza town (40 mins). We had a lovely walk down from Torre Mola (unimpressive summit) to Es Calo, then a taxi back to the port. Bus out was 5 euro taxi back 20 euro inc. tip.
Cross mode QSOs with:
OH9XX HB9BHW G0VWP G0RQL OE7FMH G0TDM G4SSH (Microphone came out of drawer)
We overstayed on the summit and the bus was 15 mins late leaving the port - hence the taxi back rather than the cheaper bus - it was worth every last cent!
Looking forward to the next SOTA trip wherever it will be and working Andy MM0FMF next month on some new ones in EA8!
I am now QRT from the Balearics - 6 activations, 238 QRP QSOs completed.
Where next will I go…dearly love to return to the Czech Republic…
It’s good to see EA6 summits getting activated at last, even with iffy microphones! It does surprise me how slow people have been to get these all activated especially as EA6 is a cheap holiday destination for Europeans. Madeira CT3 has proved a very popular SOTA destination, again for Europeans but I think it is more expensive than EA6. 20 activations of some CT3 summits is surprising. The recent update to EA8 has added lots of summits and I hope to put some new ones on the air especially for the completists. We did consider EA6 but EA8 is Africa and that seems much more exotic than plain old Europe!
Now my back is still not recovered (but is recovering) so that will limit the scale of SOTA activities. I’m still trying to work out the logistics of activating something on one of the small islands in the Chinijo Archipelago at the North Eastern end of the Canaries. If my back was fine then I’d be going for it, but it’s more wishful thinking right now. Activating from an uninhabited island just has enormous appeal. Activating an uninhabited island that is considered to be part of Africa turns the appeal up to 11 if not further!
Have a good trip back Phil and I’m looking forward to seeing the reports in your blog.
Could I suggest the Azores ? Lots of unactivated summits and beautiful landscapes…
Flores isl (Flores is flowers in Portuguese, so you guess…), for instance, is a candidate, specially from mid-June to mid-July… Also Pico isl. (meaning summit) just 5 miles away from Faial (4/5 ferries a day) and 10 miles from S. Jorge…(2/3 ferries a day).
This is exotic, friendly, warm sea, no annoying mosquitoes (as in Canary and Madeira)… See the photos below.
1500+ km from mainland, half way to North America and with direct cheap flights from London.
Some people stated that they saw the lights at the top of the Statue of Liberty in clear nights but I suspect this is not true…