Did that on 12m. I was 3kHz below the band start due to my latent stupidity. Spotted, called CQ and worked a few chasers who were loud. I could hear loads of band users but nobody interested in me. Then I saw a spot saying “59+++ in Kansas but out of band for US”. Oops! QSYd 8kHz up and worked a nice pileup
Did that setting up on a beach in EA8 Lanzarote. I could hear E51KIK but SWR was terrible. Faffed about for 10mins wondering what was wrong as antenna setup on lava different to setup on Scottish bogland. Then spotted loading coil was set for 30m not 20m, fitted link and worked E51KIK on his next CQ call. 16500km using 5W SSB, other side of the world on 20m to a station who was building a noticeable pileup.
Not hypoxia but after sufficient wind-buffering and low temperatures I find I can no longer do simple tasks like zipping fleece. You spend minutes trying to do some moderately dexterous task and can’t. That is the sure fire indicator that it is time to get everything packed down and get moving ASAP.
Managed to get all the way to a full HF antenna setup today on Loughrigg Fell G/LD-047, plugged the FT-817 in only to find I was missing the microphone. No idea where it has gone, but I highly suspect it somehow managed to detach itself from its’ holder and disconnect the cable during a tumble on the way back down Gummer’s How Christmas day.
I was messing with a MiniPro SC yesterday evening, so was hopeful I’d just unplugged it whilst messing around but it has yet to surface.
Luckily I did finally, after numerous activations without the option, put a BNC to SMA male pigtail on the Slim J antenna BNC connector, so was able to qualify the summit with four contacts on 2m using the FT1XD. I even plugged that antenna into the FT-817 initially, definitely summit brain. It was very cold with horizontal sleet, that’s my excuse.
Anyway, I do fortunately have a spare microphone, having replaced the FT-857 original one with a DTMF electret mic. I had messed with the internals of the spare, replacing the standard element, and it sort of works if you turn the gain right the way down. Anyway, we’ll find out tomorrow.
A learning experience, at least it wasn’t a big trek.
If Yaesu UK are open tomorrow (probably not) and there’s no post Christmas COVID delivery issues (probably yes) you can order one tomorrow and have it on Tuesday. You’ve just got to have faith.
Bummer when these things happen. I lost a shed load of useful cables and a nice pair of upmarket fingerless gloves and some cool (well they were warm actually) mitts when I left a side pocket unzipped.
Fortunately the MH-31 I’d messed about with worked just fine today, although the ‘SSB’ selector on the back makes me sound like a Dalek. Not sure that kind of ‘compression’ is improving readability!
I’m still getting used to my new Chameleon MPAS Lite HF vertical antenna. I was multitasking at the summit today (G/LD-056) simultaneously erecting the vertical and a roll-up 2m J-pole on a 6m pole.
Having worked 2m FM/C4FM I switched to 30m CW. I wasn’t getting or giving good reports – I’ve used the vertical only a handful of times since I got it and 30m had been much better previously. After working about 5 stations, I was about to switch to 20m CW when I noticed I hadn’t extended the 17ft (5.2m) telescoping whip - it was still in its compacted state (61cm long).
How I managed to have S2Ss with Bruno HB9CDH/P on HB/AG-013 and Kurt @HB9AFI on HB/VD-036, I’ll never know. My apologies to them and the others for my ‘summit brain’ moment. And I promise next time to extend the whip to its full length.
Ugh, here’s one. On Saturday on Black Hill GM/SS-167 it was so rainy and cold I couldn’t get the top link of my fibreglass mast to twist down.
So I had to snap it. Literally just snap it (after taking a few moments to consider options/get angry) and then stuff it all back inside to be able to walk back down. It’s a 1M pole and I use it as a walking-stick too really. Very cumbersome. There was no way I could dry the pole enough to get enough grip, and the temperature as well made it impossible to work with.
So anyway, in totally unrelated news my new SOTABeams pole just arrived this morning… I can’t believe how short it packs down!
Stick the joint under your armpit for minute then use your friend “Inertia” to shock it down. Make sure the bottom bung is firmly pressed on the ground or you’ll end up looking like a one man version of the Chuckle Brothers as all the sections fall out the bung vanishes.
I’ve so nearly been there so many times! As it happens the top section I use on my SOTABeams 10m Compact mast finally gave up the ghost after 2 years of service a few weeks ago (it was more of a gentle hurrah than a snap). You can order a replacement section which I did - total price including shipping is around £9.
It’s very good the 10m compact mast, can’t fault it, has lasted so so much longer than anything else I’ve ever used.
Yes I was tempted to try natural fluid but I tried some water from my drinking bottle on a very bad case. It was warm enough to do the job. The problem that time was putting the pole away damp on a previous activation. When extended in the sub-zero WX the moisture still in the pole was able to freeze.
Never had too many summit brain stories on SSB, but on CW they keep coming:
Not actually turning recording on during the activation, despite “having checked”
Forgetting one particular letter despite multiple repeats; I was on the verge of writing down dits and dahs in my log
Activating with CW narrow filter off on my FT818 and activating in SSB mode on my SW-3B… on those occasions I thought the bands sounded very funny, and the activations were particularly challenging
And finally, a few days ago, I struggled with very low volume on my SW-3B; this combined with a loud sidetone made the activation very unpleasant. That puzzled me quite a lot as I didn’t remember this problem on previous activations. It’s only after a good night sleep that I thought to myself: “Could it be that it didn’t occur to you to check the RF gain? You must be kidding!” Well, it turned our it was set half way the whole time
I’m a creature of habit… With my KX2, I use maybe 10% of the application options. As a result, I’m not that familiar with rare operating procedures.
At one point I switched off the antenna tuner to test an antenna. After the test, I left it switched off.
The next time I activated a summit, I had the hardest time figuring out how to turn it back on. I was sitting in front of the TRX and there was a big black hole in my brain. I was about to pack up and leave. But somehow it worked out.
We had visitors and planned a trip to Mount Rigi HB/SZ-021. Due to the family nature of the trip, I was going to make a very short “4+ QSO” activation. However, on the summit it was so windy that I had no chance to set up my HF antenna. I then tried to activate 2m FM with my FT-2D, which failed due to the strong transmitter desensitizing my frontend. I probably could have done with my FT-817 if I had taken the microphone with me instead of only the keyer…
Last night on Queen Adelaide’s Hill (which isn’t a SOTA summit) I was calling CQ after scanning the band when Manuel @EA2DT came back to me, always nice to hear from Manuel. I explained I wasn’t SOTA, we exchange pleasantries, then I went back to calling CQ: ‘CQ SOTA CQ… no not SOTA!’.
I have called this the Manuel effect. I think it’s a real thing At least Manuel found the funny side of it…
It’s so easily done if 90% of the time you are SOTAing. I occasionally find myself adding “/P” to my callsign [and having to correct myself] when operating from the home shack again probably cos 90% of the time I am portable.
It was a pleasant, if slightly breezy, morning when I headed up Pen-y-Fan with my wife and her two teenagers. The twins went ahead, and waited, and went ahead again, as they do, and probably covered 50% more distance and elevation change in the process. My wife and I plodded steadily uphill until there was no more up, and then I wandered off a way to find somewhere out of the way…
Of course, on such a day, Pen-y-Fan is quite a popular summit, so if you stick a fishing pole into the air fifty yards from the nearest path you’re still going to get interested folk wandering by to ask questions. Also, even if you try to choose a spot that’s out of the wind, sooner or later the wind will find you. Normally I take a pair of fully-enclosed headphones for SOTA. Today I realised, a mite late, that they were a couple of hours’ drive away. Luckily I had a pair of emergency earphones in the radio bag, so all was not lost, but they don’t cut out the wind noise anything like as well, and they’re also not sufficiently obvious that they deter random questions from curious folk who’ve wandered over having spotted the pole…
Anyway, I failed to post an alert, but I did manage to post a spot as soon as I found a clear frequency. Somehow, without my noticing, it lost the /P it should have had. No big deal, I guess. Then I started calling CQ. No responses. Rinse. Repeat. Eventually I thought to check the rig’s output power setting. 0W. Having turned the wick up a bit, my next CQ got several responses. I’ve not used my mini key in a while, so my keying sucked mightily. Wind noise and curious questioners helped make my already somewhat questionable Morse reading less reliable than usual. Oh, and I forgot to set the keyer’s speed a few notches lower as I usually do for SOTA activations.
Somehow, I still managed to qualify the summit. Thanks, chasers, for your patience.
…summit brain…:::snicker::: … oh yeah, like I’ve never have that. I’m not a patient person and add to that my goofy level of excitement when I’m about ready to start activating and all sorts of hilarious hi-jinx often ensue.
Like I have been standing on my paracord when I go to throw the rock tied to the end of said paracord over a tree branch – only to have the rock yo-yo back into my face.
Okay, so I try again… this time a perfect throw! Only to have the rock come untied and sail off into the either. [roll cat yowling offscreen sound fx]
You must be thinking of the time on 9,000 ft elevation West Ortega Mountain, early in the decent, late in the afternoon and in a hurry when I unwrapped an energy bar and began munching… while almost jogging downhill thinking, “never eat while jogging down a mountain.”
Woke up abruptly at the bottom of a fifteen foot drop-off. Fortunately while tumbling I thought of saving the radio…
Then I started calling CQ. No responses. Rinse. Repeat. Eventually I thought to check the rig’s output power setting. 0W. 
Having turned the wick up a bit, my next CQ got several responses. I’ve not used my mini key in a while, so my keying sucked mightily. Wind noise and curious questioners helped make my already somewhat questionable Morse reading less reliable than usual. Oh, and I forgot to set the keyer’s speed a few notches lower as I usually do for SOTA activations.