During my second activation today on es-054 Tap o’Noth my antenna started falling down, the fishing pole was collapsing section by section. I was trying to hold it together to finish the qso David, but couldn’t copy you and keep the antenna from coming down, not a multi-tasker you see.
So I wonder what you finished with, I came back on briefly but had to get home for my son when he finished school.
I had some interesting propagation this afternoon, when Bill W4ZV called in at 1335z. There was an echo, not something I’ve experienced before, but I’m still new to the hobby. Any ideas? The echo was slight but noticeable. Long path/short path?
Wx very different to yesterday, weak front from the north. It was windy, wet and cold, the bothy bag was very good though and made it possible to activate for a little while. As I descended ES-054 the sun came out and the wind dropped, visibility improving too.
During my second activation today on es-054 Tap o’Noth my antenna
started falling down, the fishing pole was collapsing section by
section. I was trying to hold it together to finish the qso
Hi Ian
To help stop your fishing pole collapsing mid-activation (been there) make sure it dried completely when you get home. I usually take each section out and if really wet I push kitchen towel through the insides and leave to dry over night.
If you are doing a multi-activation I carry a small absorbent cloth to give the pole a wipe before before collapsing it down. This helps when it is rain all day as you well know there is a lot of it here in Scotland!
Thanks for the tip, I’ll try that in future. It was pretty squally as the front came through and was probably always going to collapse one way or the other. Good fun though.
I agree with Neil. Damp on the joints reduces the friction between the sections and can cause them to collapse, particularly when the pole is subject to flexing in squally conditions. From experience it can be a serious issue for VHF activators using a beam antenna, as the collapse of the section holding it usually results in the collapse of the section below and so on. I well recall sitting below the antenna on one summit when it came down and stuck me fair and square on top of my head!
Good to catch you on the hills today Ian. You were putting in some really good signals down here.
many tnx for the s2s dr Ian (I hope u got my correct ref).
Your sigs were very loud here.
Many tnx also for the help by some chasers and the
kind qrx (wow, real SOTA-ham-spirit).
All the best and cu on the bands
Vy73 de Fritz DL/HB9CSA es DL4FDM
In reply to HB9CSA:
Thanks Ian for contacts…
Yes I think that the HAM SOTA SPIRIT is quite fine for S2S… Thanks to all too…
Ans for the fishing pole… Have the same things on F/MC-016… I should buy a new one !!! But fine for all this expe not a long one (50 cm long !!!) And 6,5 m deployed !! Quite fine for V inverted dipole… at 5,5 m from the ground… And too not expensive…
So this WE I’ll try my new HB-1B and the antenna, please to contact you on F/N0-028 (probably on saturday) and F/VO-076 on sunday (with SSB… Promise to Mike !!!) but not on F/NO-028 I should go there by bicycle so not a lot of charge hiii !!
Good luck to all chaser and activator and booth for S2S…
Best regards
"Tof" F5UBH
PS I’ve but on FLickr some photo from F/MC… I do a video too but not finalize yet !!! Be published soon on youtube…
Bye
My double 5/8 colinear blew out of the hawthorne tree on SP/-013 Gun this morning. Dragged the 857 of the stool, but as luck would have it, the rig landed in some deep grass. Bent 2 of the radials quite badly, just managed to straighten them up.
Yes Fritz, I got all the info ok. Very nice to get a s2s with you and also thanks from me to the chasers for immediately qrx-ing. Fritz, the rig is a kx1 at about 3 watts and a simple inverted vee at 6m apex. Your signal was very clear, my cw copying not so good, hi hi.
I’ve activated 8 summits recently and the chasers have been top notch operators, thanks.
Hello Ian,
I was sorry to hear that you had problems copying me due to a collapsing pole whilst trying to complete our QSO today.
This would explain why your signal fell from a nice easy copy at 549 to an S1 or S2 that was difficult to pull out of the noise.
It was not helped by me being pre-occupied with attempts to alert you that another /P station was calling you (Fritz DL/HB9CSA/P) rather than a focus on making sure that my own contact was 100%.
I had good copy of the report that you sent me and I see from your log that you have entered the report I sent correctly ,so at my end the contact was good.
I continued to listen on the frequency and was pleased to hear that you did eventually complete an S2S with Fritz. After G4WSX called you I went to look for Fritz to see if I could get him in my log too.
By the way I use a fishing pole bought from Aldi which can’t collapse in that way as the individual sections are plugged together with tapered bottoms fitting into the top of the section below.
Many thanks for posting this report on Reflector.
Hope to QSO again soon.
73 David G3RDQ
David, yes no problem on qualifying the contact. I could hear you give the /p and after when the s2s was in the bag wondered if maybe that was your intention, thanks anyway for trying.
The pole and antenna were both fine, no harm done, I continued briefly in case there were a group of qrx chasers, but there didn’t seem to be so I made good my escape.