1st activation - Great Orme GW/NW-070

1st activation done :slight_smile:
Kit.
6m fishing pole
Homemade 2m ladder line
UV5R dual band 2m/70cm - around 5w.

Today me and Mrs M0VAZ headed up the Great Orme in glorious sunshine, arriving at about 10:00
I started to get setup with the 2m ladder line antenna on a 6m pole, while attaching the pole to the fence post I heard a station on 2m GW8NZP/p. I connected the antenna and no signal.
Went back to the antenna on the radio and the signal came back again.
I can only assume it was to do with the radio masts on the hill, the rest of the day was on the radios own antenna.

I did make a mistake in spotting the wrong summit, I spotted as GW/NW-076. I blame the notes in the notebook, that was a summit I was looking up info on! This error was spotted by 2W0AMN - Thanks Chris.

So to all the people who I made contact with, you might need to alter the summit info when you log.
8 uniques and 1 repeat contacts made today
GW8NZP/P - 2M/FM - S2S - GW/NW-028
MW0VFC/P - 2M/FM - S2S - GW/NW-002
GW4ZPL - 2M/FM
GW3XRM - 2M/FM
GW3YQP - 2M/FM
GW3YQP - 70cm/FM - repeat contact
M0MZB - 70cm/FM - West Cumbria!
G7KSE - 70cm/FM - West Cumbria!
2W0AMN - 2M/FM

Thanks to all that made the contact and Great Orme will be on my list to try again. Its a doddle of a summit to activate.

Thanks
John

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Well done John and welcome to SOTA! You’ve done better than me, I’ve yet to get a contact from the Great Orme, despite living there for many years :grinning:

Cheers. I had planned at least one other, but time wasnt on my side. Plus I think I was pushing my luck by activating another summit on my wedding anniversary!

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It’s mainly that radio but the environment is such that there are few radios that work well up there. But that model is famous for it’s performance issues and it doesn’t stand a chance there. Surprisingly good performance TBH for a UV5R at that location.

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I was surprised how well the radio worked, normally I use it locally on a few repeaters. I was made up with the 5w into 1km south of Sellafield (but there isnt much in the way tbh)

As long as you use it with the knowledge of what it is then they’re fine.

There are few radios for 2m that work well on the Gt. Orme, it is a bad place TBH. I’m sure someone tried one of Richard’s 2m filters from their and it made a big improvement. Have a search on here.

Thanks for the contact on 70cm. That was my second SOTA on 70cm, so it is quite a rarity.

I did not realise you were on a Baofeng, if i had known i would have got mine out to see if we could reach each other.

Yup, blocking caused by Front-end de-sense from local high power pager etc transmitters. Take a look at the SotaBeams 2m Band Pass filter, I’ve got one and they make a very big difference. Or, if you fancy doing some homebrew there are several designs out there like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBNcTn9BEy0

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@M0VAZ log updated.

Good to catch you from Whitfell today

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