My first activation tomorrow

I was just reading the new Ofcom guidance on the amateur licence and that reminded me that you can only use 5MHz when portable if you have mobile phone coverage and that Ofcom have your number.

Doneā€¦on my Variation. However things have changedā€¦do they still hold that information? There is a long discussion regarding 60m/p somewhere on this Reflector I think.

Iā€™m local to Ilkley Moor, I live across the valley near Haworth. The summit has always been a bit of a black hole when it comes to VHF for some reason. 2FM is pretty dead around here, weā€™ve actually got some nice repeaters but they donā€™t have a lot of traffic.

Donā€™t get me wrong, itā€™s possible to have some QSOS from G/NP-028 using 2m and 70cm, I have worked into Devon and Scotland from there on SSB. HF works well from Ilkley Moor, Iā€™ve often qualified it on just of few hundred mWs of CW. (See the LA1KHA challenge thread). Weā€™re experiencing some pretty poop propagation generally at the moment, so donā€™t be discouraged.

I would ditch the mag loop though and get a dipole instead - dipoles are so easy and hassle free - set and forget.

As others have said, buying a handheld just above the budget ones is well worth it. The cheaper range of Yaesu handhelds are nice solid units, with better filtering than the budget brands, on TX as well as RX. A lot of the budget brand handhelds have been shown to have extremely poor TX filtering (I suppose itā€™s to allow operation over a wide range of frequencies), in some cases this probably actually contravenes regulations in use.

73, Colin M1BUU

[quote=ā€œGW4VPX, post:22, topic:15650ā€]do they still hold that information?[/quote]They carried my mobile number across from my 5 MHz NoV to my main licence. It used to take a little finding on the Ofcom website, but it was in a sensible place when I checked early last weekā€¦

Thanks Rick. Their website is down at the moment as it is being updated. Iā€™ll have a look next week to see that they still hold the info.

73 Allan

In theory yes, you are supposed to be ā€œcontactableā€.

In practice if my phone rings when I am busy operating on a summit (or anywhere else for that matter) the probability that I will actually answer is about 0.1%. I probably wonā€™t even hear it. It will go to voicemail. This is exactly what will happen if I am out of coverage, so in reality coverage makes no difference.

At worst they want me to close down. I am going to do that pretty soon anyway.

Obviously everybody has to make up their own mind, but as a QRP station operating for a short period I donā€™t think it is a risk worth worrying about.

Martyn M1MAJ

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Hi Richard

Welcome back to this hobby we share. Quite a few differences I expect in some areas, have a great SOTA and look forward to hearing you.

M0AZE Mike

So I did another activation on Saturday - Scafell Pike G/LD-001. Once again only managed one QSO with the Baofeng so still no points. Hoping to activate Snowdon and maybe a few other Welsh peaks in the next 3 weeks. Iā€™m in the process of building a 2m SlimJim so plan to use that with the FT817 on top of a 4m fishing pole.

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Frustrating for you Richard :pensive:
If youā€™re taking an FT817 try HF to give yourself more options. A better antenna for VHF would also help. Apart from that alerting, self-spotting (if possible) and if all else fails enjoy the walk!
Good luck next time!

Thatā€™s bad luck Richard. I was between summits then, in GW/NW, or Iā€™m sure I would have heard you. I managed to work James M0JCQ/P on G/LD-014, just with the hand-held whilst on foot. I must have only just missed you. :frowning:

I managed to activate Snowdon GW/NW-001 today and had 9 QSOs on 2m FM, so success at last! I used my FT817 on 2m FM with a Slim Jim (made from 300 ohm ribbon cable) on a 4m fishing pole. I was around 10m below the summit in one of the few places that wasnā€™t crawling with people. I could just lean the pole against the rocks but bungeed it just to be safe. The contacts included two S2Ss so I got my first chasing points too.

So Iā€™d like to say thanks to those who I spoke to. But also thanks to my 10 year old daughter, Hannah, who patiently sat and listened while Daddy played radio.

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