Nice report, thanks for the photos. Seven + hours on a summit that looks quite exposed to weather is impressive. I’ll be in the UK for work travel in a year, and I’ll tack on a weekend before and after for some activations. I’m staring to think about what summits I’d like to do.
Good old Snowdon, a prime people magnet!
I was listening towards the end of your 160 metre session but nothing heard except distant lightning, so it was a relief to hear you so strongly on 80 metres.
Brian
Thanks for the s2s and the chat John. Excellent report as usual.
73 Allan GW4VPX
Marvellous account and pictures. Can’t decide whether you are extremely hardy - or extremely daft! Thanks for the contacts but please note MW6BWA and MW0JLA (usually called Rod!) were on GW/MW-009 Beacon Hill which is a lot lower and easier than where you had put us (NW-009). sorry to hear of the log problems - were you using ‘waterproof paper’? I do agree it isn’t - but it is better than nothing.
Think it may have been our first S2S and I look forward to the next.
Viki M6BWA
Don’t complain about the car park, you paid the money and got a space. You should be chasing the rogue that sold you a radio that is defective by design. You paid the money and got well and truly ripped off.
In fact how much do you want for your Baofeng (considering it’s useless)? I’ll buy it off you and you can put the money towards a radio that functions. I’m quite serious. There’s no point you taking a radio that is known to be a poor performer and I don’t have enough minutes left in my lifetime to waste them chasing deaf radios. Let me help you get a handheld that works properly for next time! Hell you’d be better off with an old FT290, an RX that works and hardly any battery consumption!
You were 55 most of the time (peaking 57 when I held the antenna just right) using your Baofeng and J-pole on my VX170 + rubber duck when I was 200km North in GM. I spent 30mins calling you but nothing. Not even “there’s something weak there”. No problem using 0.5W + rubber duck to work Carolyn on the IOM. LOS path. The path to Snowdon grazes over the sea but is LOS too. You can’t be 55 with me and not hear me unless the radio is defective (manufacturing problem) or defective (design problem) or both.
This is fine example of why these radios are a waste of money along with real world tests Pedro CT1DBS has done.
Anyway +1 from me for being daft enough to sit up there for so long. Look at all those people… nightmare!
Andy, you are out of order and riding perilously close to the edge of the AUP with your irascible comments. Cool it!
We all know your opinion of Baofeng, but a radio that got him 37 contacts cannot be all that bad, can it?
Brian, this is the radio that the Swiss licencing body banned for out-of-spec TX purity. Samples tested by ARRL showed the same problems. They don’t work well on receive, so yes it is all that bad.
The thing is, it got him 37 contacts. Thirty seven is a lot by anybodies standard, its a page and a half in my medieval paper log, so it could not have been working all that badly on receive. OK, he didn’t hear you, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the receiver is duff, it might have been capture effect, or just bad luck with the QSB, who knows? I mean, my 817 isn’t that bad a radio, but it cannot cope with FM pile-ups, the audio just degenerates into a horrible noise. On the evidence above I wouldn’t mind dropping thirty quid on one myself!
The thing is Brian, if you accept amateurs using radios with marginal spectral purity then you cannot complain the next time your neighbour turns on his plasma TV and wipes out your reception.
No, that isn’t the thing, Andy, although it isn’t a negligable point. The thing is that a radio that you characterise as deaf has worked well in John’s hands, so that sample clearly isn’t all that deaf. As for spectral purity, I have recently seen a scan that shows it is quite acceptable. Now I don’t know if that means the quality is variable, or there was just an early run that was bad, or some are better aligned than others, or whatever, but I don’t think the case is closed.
As far as TX purity, that is up for debate, and I agree it is a concern that should be considered. As for listening, the receiver on my Baofeng is better than my Yeasu VX-8R with the stock antenna. I regularly chose the Baofeng for activations over the Yaesu.
You have some reasonable concerns, but maybe you are taking it a stretch too far? And are the concerns so egregious that they make up the cost difference? I would say no. Baofeng radios are a cheap entry point to the hobby and they work acceptably for what they cost and what they are expected to do. I wouldn’t ever hook one up to an amp to avoid amplifying harmonics, but a 4/8W depending on the model, they work fine.
I agree there are two issues here - can’t comment on the TX purity.
John mentions above, and in other posts, that he carries it mainly as a spare. It is clearly capable of qualifying a summit. It’s a good idea to test anything that you carry as a spare.
I hold my hand up to having used sub-optimal equipment / antennas occasionally to qualify a summit, so no criticism from me on that point.
Who would spend 30 minutes calling an activator who clearly can’t hear them? - must have time on their hands 
73 Adrian
G4AZS
Replies to All:
2E0YYY
Thanks Mike. Roy said he spoke to you at the rally. Hope you had a good day and moved on plenty of batteries. Keep up the great work digging out the DX! 73, John.
AC2KL
Hello Kevin. Thanks for your comment. Hope you enjoy your time in Britain, but bring your umbrella! The bigger and wilder summits are in GM Scotland but there are plenty of good ones in GW, GI and G too. If you’re stuck for GPS routes I can help you with a few of them. The majority of UK summits have no trees on them, so they can be rather bleak especially in winter.
73, John
G8ADD
Hi again Brian. Yes, there was a vast difference between 160 and 80. Just as great as the difference between Snowdon at just gone 7am and what seemed like another mountain entirely by 2pm. You could be forgiven for thinking quite mistakenly, that the trains were running but they won’t actually be starting until May. They could have run them in April this year, as there was no snow on the line. I can’t imagine Snowdon ever being too popular with you Brian. Too many people and not enough climbing I guess. 73, John.
GW4VPX
My pleasure Allan. So difficult to keep the ‘W’ out of your callsign but you managed it! Thanks for the S2S.
73, John
M6BWA
Hi Viki. Seems I spelled (spelt) your name wrong as well as moving your QTH tens of miles north and called Rod ‘Ian.’ Three errors in one paragraph! Seems the summit ref. was a typo as it’s ‘MW’ in the paper log. Rod is in there too, not Ian. Blame it on old age!
I don’t know about hardy but I am quite used to it. Despite that, this one didn’t come easy. The main difficulty was the wind direction but summer heat is my main enemy.
I haven’t tried or even seen any waterproof paper. G3CWI Richard of SOTAbeams used to sell a thing called a ‘Waterlog’ years ago but it may be discontinued. I was thinking of laminating a blank log sheet for use in this situation. A special pen or pencil would be needed but perhaps it’s worth investigating.
Thanks for the S2S.
73 to you & Rod, John.
MM0FMF
Thanks for the detailed reply Andy. Sorry I didn’t receive your signal. Another S2S would have looked good in the log. We will probably never know for sure what caused the failure to work S2S but please refer back to your UV5 thread at Baofeng UV5 (Post No54).
Best regards, John
G8ADD; N3TWM & G4AZS
Brian, Evan & Adrian, Thanks for presenting a balancing argument as regards the UV-5R-2. As to whether it’s a good or bad rig, I can’t fully decide as yet but please refer to test results carried out on it this week. Baofeng UV5 (Post 54).
All the best, John.
4 Likes
There is no doubt that conventional paper disintegrates fairly convincingly when wet. Even ballpoint ink appears to, essentially, vanish when the paper is sodden.
There is a notebook series sold in Australia with the name “Rite in the Rain”. The paper is apparently not conventional paper. The notebook I bought came with a stylus for writing on the pages. It was bought for use on a wet activation, but have since avoided all wet activations somehow, sometimes by using a sun shelter, ironically. But the notebook looks to be ideal for sota logging. And if you use the stylus instead of a pencil, it looks like the pages might be reusable, though retaining original logs is always a tradition of mine.
I don’t know where this product originates from, but there are various sizes and the suggested use is by surveyors, builders and others who must take notes in wet weather.
73 Andrew VK1DA VK2UH
You can get it here.
Rite in the Rain is great stuff. The pocket-size notebooks are awesome, but choose your favorite, they have a lot of options.
wunder
1 Like
Thanks Andrew & Walter, If I just had one or two sheets permanently in the rucksack on standby it would be good. Like you, I tend not to go for rotten WX activations but sometimes it happens. I used to get it half the time before I retired because I only had the choice of Sundays or Friday afternoons and had to take what was dished out; sometimes dreadful.
I too keep my original logs. I have the full set going back to 2002 and they’re all scanned too. Though I could still scan, going waterproof could disrupt this habit and I do like to have the paper logs as occasionally you do need to refer back to basics. In fact I had to do it for this activation to see just how I managed to get two names and a SOTA ref wrong. Answer was, I didn’t. All was correct in the paper log, albeit it was hard to read.
I will look at the links and see what’s what or maybe try to devise something myself based on my preferred log sheet which has all the required boxes in the header.
I did see something in the outdoor shop last week but it was a bit heavy and bulky.
Thanks again, 73 John.
Rite in the Rain makes printer paper. Laser printed sheets should be waterproof. You can format your own favorite log format and print it.
http://www.riteintherain.com/printer-paper
wunder
2 Likes
Thanks for the contact John, great write up & some lovely pictures, hope to work you again.
73
Neil
1 Like
Zecom waterproof paper is good too, available from https://www.weatherwriter.co.uk/ and elsewhere.
Beware though that when they say not suitable for inkjet printers they mean it. It does not absorb inkjet ink at all.
–
Martyn M1MAJ
1 Like
I searched the web for “waterproof amateur radio log” and guess what I found?
https://www.arrl.org/shop/All-Weather-Amateur-Radio-Minilog/
https://www.arrl.org/shop/All-weather-ARES-notebook
http://www.waterprooflogbooks.com/radio_logbook.html
wunder
1 Like