Strava-01-Non-AR-GM7STP-GMSS239.jpg : Strava Route taken from car park to summit and back.
Total distance walked was 4.70km with total ascent of 328m and actual walking time of about 1hr 15mins. Our overall duration including stops and SOTAing on the summit was about 3 hrs.
Photo-03-Non-AR-GM7STP-GMSS239.jpg : GM/SS-239 Conic Hill : Summit cairn & view across Loch Lomond.
Don’t be fooled ! There were lots of tourists behind me in this photo sheltering from the stiff wind.
Although this was quite close to a spur of the moment attempt, I did check out the previous successful activations of Conic Hill to find that there has been much success on FM.
SOTAmaps-GM-SS-239-Conic-Hill-Activations-asat-20250530.JPG
So I was quite disappointed not to have even activated this summit never mind get enough QSOs for the 1pt; especially as I was trying out my ID-52 / Spectrum Slim-G 2m combo for the first time !
I wonder are such non-activations quite common ?
So far for me on HF : Non-activations = 1 vs Activations = 0
and on FM : Non-Activations = 0 vs Activations = 1
Dear Conic Hill until the next time …
73 Peter GM7STP
BTW : are non-activations generally not reported on SOTA Reflector or OK to continue to do so ?
Hi Peter,
Did you post any spots on the reflector to say that you were on the summit ?
I find it helps enormously.
It also helps to post alerts beforehand.
I’ve had a few activations that haven’t worked but they have mostly been due to poor weather or equipment failure.
A good comprehensive report though.
It looks like you have discovered the addictive part of Sota !
Andy
MM7MOX
I was very surprised to read that you had not qualified Conic as it is located in prime 2m FM country. There are quite a number of chasers in the Glasgow area and I have worked a good number from much further afield. I assume that you have checked your equipment since the attempted activation to rule that out as a possible reason for non-qualification.
Hopefully you’ll have much better results the next time you are out.
Hi Gerald, I’m a bit surprised too !
I reckon I was set up correctly and that all was working OK.
There isn’t much to go wrong with a ID-52 handheld set up … or is there ?
But I will certainly check out all equipment is OK before I head up my next hill !
Peter,
It sounds like you did not have the radio’s default stubby helical with you. Instead you had a cable connecting the radio to one of several longer antennas that were supported by or attached to the pole.
My suggestions are to check that the antenna config does work (no mention of this having been tested beforehand) and works better than the standard antenna. Connectors fail, coax can go open circuit. SMA connectors require a tight fit before the centre conductor actually connects.
If there are any repeaters nearby they can be used for testing equipment, both on solid ground with no walking, and when on summit. Repeaters are useful for SOTA, it’s just that you can’t claim contacts for SOTA purposes.
Hope this is useful.
Hi Fraser,
I reckon I have had my ID-52 set to FM rather than FM-N mode for 145-fm.
ID-52 spec gives modes: FM = +/- 5.0 kHz or less and FM-N = +/- 2.5 kHz or less.
So for the 144 MHz band I have understood that the FM mode was acceptable.
For me this worked well on Ben Bowie with local Simplex QSOs on 145.550.
It is quite a step up for me to go from an IC-2E to an ID-52 !
I certainly have a lot more to learn about the ID-52’s capability. The basic manual and advanced manual appear to be very well laid out. I am slowly and steadily working through these.
Obviously I am happy to be corrected if I have misunderstood the use of FM vs FM-N.
Hi Andrew,
Yes thanks for your comments.
I actually did have the radio’s default stubby helical with me. I just didn’t think to try using it for 2m. Instead I changed from my 145-fm set up straight onto my 433-fm set up.
Certainly I need to check all the equipment; maybe especially the connections as was virtually a first fit for me on top of Conic Hill for my 145-fm Slim-G set up. I’ll also check into using local repeaters for testing purposes as you suggest.
Is the ID52 also capable of Dstar digital mode? If so I suggest checking that the mode is not set for that mode as it will sound like mush to anyone listening on an fm receiver. Might even be cancelled out by the receiver’s muting function.
The tx offset option must also be off for simplex work. Watching the frequency display when transmitting may be enough to check that option. Ie. the frequency should be the same on receive and transmit. It’s basic stuff but as you didn’t mention whether that was set correctly, it needs to be checked.
Yes the ID-52 has D-Star capability. Not tried DV mode yet, am concentrating on simplex and duplex first.
When in D-Star mode DV is indicated on screen instead of FM; so not in D-Star mode. So checks OK.
If in duplex mode rather than simplex mode a D+ or D- is indicated. Not indicated so in simplex mode. Checks OK for simplex mode.
I also checked the Squelch setting … I have this set to AUTO so reckon is OK at that.
I need to continue checking the basic settings but maybe it’s more likely to be the equipment connections:
ID-52 SMA to SMA-Male to SO239 (GR316) adaptor connecting to the PL259 of the Slim-G.
You can quickly confirm the TX is working by keying up local repeaters. Try full power on the rubber duck then lower powers then switch to the external antenna and try again.
Also, be aware, many handhelds cannot function well with an external antenna, the cannot cope with the overload and out of band signals. So you may have been transmitting and people may have been responding but you couldn’t hear them because the radio was blocking and the squelch didn’t open. Learn how to run with open squelch till you find the true cause of the issue.
What’s wrong with a PL-259? The question should be what is right with them!
There’s no managed impedance to them, they are what they are and normally not 50Ohm. That gives an impedance bump. But that doesn’t really matter at HF and/or QRP levels. It matters little most of the time up to 2m or 70cm. But they are not really an RF connector… they are an 80 year old connector for up to a few MHz. A 4mm Banana plug with screen.
There’s 2 sizes that look the same. PL-259 and Japanese PL-259 with a metric thread. You’ll note that some PL-259 don’t feel right on Japanese equipment, that’s because the threads are slightly different.
Some PL-259 are well made with PTFE insulator. Some use Nylon and melt when you get enough heat to solder a heavy centre coax. Some use SRBP or Paxolin. shudders. Most are cheap and nasty.
There’s no standard way of fitting them. Soldering methods vary or they screw on or crimp. But doing it right so it stays right is unduly hard. And if you are buying a crimping tool why would you then spend money on shoddy connectors? (There’ll be a goon along in a minute saying it’s not that hard to fit them and they have had more failures with “proper” connectors. That should tell you more about the goon than the connector )
They’re heavy. As a lot of SOTA involves carrying gear up mountains, fitting lighter connectors is good. Less to carry. Or you can exchange the weight saved on light connectors so you can carry more chocolate. Sounds good to me.
So it boils down to they’re a bad bit of engineering that can be mainly avoided especially for SOTA and QRP levels on HF. I only use them if the pain of modifying commercial gear to have a better connector is not worth it, i.e. things that stay in the shack and are not connected / disconnected regularly.
Are BNCs better. Yes, they are better engineered, even the cheap ones from China. My K2, KX2, 705, QCXs, 2x auto ATUs all use them and they are the things used for SOTA.
What about SMAs? Well they only fit them on handhelds because they are physically small compared to a BNC. And for the perceived “these are high quality professional connectors”. Whilst you can get an SMA good to 26.5GHz (if you open your wallet wide) the ones on handies are often rubbish. The design of rubberduck connections to handies is guaranteed to wear them out due to how the centre pin rotates in the female socket.
For lots of homebrew QRP HF gear you can use a cheap RCA Phono connector. The impedance mismatch is acceptable, they’re cheap, they’re surprisingly rugged, you can easily plug/unplug when wearing gloves and they weight almost nothing. They’re cheap too… did I say that?
I tend to use BNCs because most equipment uses them and I have a 35 year ham career collecting them secondhand from rallies etc. So I have a big stock of used ones and I bought a crimp tool and some RG-174 and RG-58 sized ones too. I only use SMA on uWave equipment apart from an adapter cable to allow BNC based antennas to connector SMA based handhelds.
So the whole subject is a bit like a healthy lifestyle. You don’t have to exercise and eat healthy meals, you can slob about and eat a poor diet and survive. But in general, exercise and a healthy diet is better for you long term. Just like avoiding the PL-259 and switching to proper/better connectors is better long term. You don’t have to but everybody knows they should, even if they don’t admit it.
I’ve found that for SOTA 2m FM isn’t as reliable as it was just a year or two ago, at least here in G/NP-land. I just don’t hear some of my previously regular chasers very often. Unfortunately one of them went SK last year. I don’t think it’s equipment problems because when I do get QSOs everything works well. Whether this applies in other areas or it’s just me, I don’t know. Perhaps they are trying to tell me something…
Interesting. I recall that Collins and Heathkit used RCA sockets as their antenna connector on early equipment. But they had ceramic insulation and were probably not “cheap”. One of the microwave handbooks, possibly the ARRL one, reports that the RCA connector has a 50 ohm impedance and was intended for microwave applications, amazingly enough. But probably not in the form seen on audio connector cables for stereo interconnections.
The Japanese connector similar to Amphenol’s PL259/SO239 (83 type code) connectors is M series. Nearly equal but the threads on the barrel don’t quite match and even lock up if you try to use too much thread, a problem I had with a Japanese 6m beam bought in Hong Kong.
The so called UHF series (PL259 etc) got its name when 30 MHz was considered ultra high frequency. Why they still get put on amateur gear at all is a source of wonder. It’s a case of either going to a lot of trouble to replace them with BNC or leaving them on and installing an adaptor to BNC. Which is what I generally do.
. Better luck next time (and hopefully you’ll avoid the tragedy of the 3 contact qualification!).
)