Is that the lesser spotted Yaesu FT-290R? Excellent taste!
(if itās anything else as I am only going by the speaker grille, then I take it all back! )
Every single word of this. 100%.
Iām not lucky enough to have gotten the experience of full fat, full beans Sporadic E yet, but have experienced days where there is a juicy dollop of lift going on.
I love the element of surprise that 2m can suddenly throw up. Even more fun when it is 70cm. Thatās why I enjoy VHF and UHF so much, because it throws up so many surprises outside of the usual ānobody is on 2m and 70cm any more grumble, moan, complain, miscellaneous negativity etcā¦ā load of cobblers we hear often.
If folks stopped saying it was so quiet all the time and actually checked in to a repeater or called on the various calling frequencies it wouldnāt be the sound of crickets chirping!
Heading out tomorrow around Two Rock Mountain. Will try and activate it on 2m and 70cm. Iāll only have an HT on me with the RH770.
Canāt stop super long to activate as Iāll be on a training run and only have the HT in my running pack and donāt want to get hypothermic cooling down from running.
Hopefully I can bag 4 QSOās at the summit. Yaesu FT-65 so FM only. No ETA yet. Iāll add an alert when Iām at the base and about to set off. Would be great to do my first SOTA activation in about 2 years. An odd way to do it but I hope it works.
Summit Reference:
EDIT: Just noticed if I get the activation tomorrow it will also be a complete as I chased an activator on this summit in 2024.
An interesting thing happened earlier today. While waiting my turn for Gerald MW0WML on GW/NW-012 Cadair Berwyn , he was called by Allan GW4VPX.
The thing was, I could hear Allan. Not very strong, but whilst the signal strength wasnt high, he was 90% readable. At just over 100 miles, it isnt going to break any records, but what surprised me that I could hear him at all considering there is a lot of solid matter in the way (map shown at the end).
I donāt know if he could hear me at all but thinking about it afterwards, I wondered if there was a way to try it out (without impinging on what the activator is doing).
What I may start doing, is once Iāve worked someone, is to goto 144.300 and put out a CQ just to see if anyone else just want a quick exchange of signal reports.
For Info: I was running 20W to a Vertical White Stick at about 5m.
Map and elevation chart below to illustrate the obstructions.
The thing is that radio waves do not follow a hypothetical line of sight. The refractive index of the atmosphere varies with height so the radio waves follow a gently curving path. Add to this the opportunities for diffraction over summits and possible aircraft reflections and apparently blocked paths will often yield contacts.
I was in no rush . When nothing much else is happening I tend to listen in to an activation. It gives an indication of what I can hear and also can indicate what other summit stations are around and audible as they make the summit to summit qsos.
And it threw me off later in the day
I was programming beacon frequencies into the radio and happened to glance up and see a spot for 144.300 . Quickly switching to the frequency I caught the tail end of the CQ and it was less strong than you were earlier - thats because you had gone to horizontal and probably pointing in a different direction , so my brain assumed it was G4TJC on Black Hill and I called in.
I did manage to find and work Simon as heād gone to his working frequency, but the episode had me a bit red faced and laughing at myself
Looks like you had a great day with fantastic weather, lots of radio (even with HF contests) and the black flies wernāt biting
Echoing about what Brian said about non-Line of Sight contacts on 2m (and 70cm), there are a number of mechanisms that can cause āimpossibleā radio contacts to be possible. VHF/UHF radio conditions have improved in parts of the UK during the last few days due to high pressure. These āliftsā are ideal for creating tropospheric ducting.
e.g. Messing around at home Saturday afternoon with a new short pole/guying arrangement for my 3-el 2m Yagi I could clearly make out the Morse ID of the GB3NGI 2m beacon 237km away in County Antrim, N.I. My back garden is about 20m ASL and Whitbarrow Scar G/LD-056 is āblockingā the path towards N.I. Normally, the Yagi would have to be on a hill to do that.
For me these quirks are what makes VHF/UHF radio so fascinating.
Nothing at all to be red faced about! Iāve made way more amusing misidentifications!
One of the best summit days Iāve had in a long while, with the possible exception of the battle I lost on HF with the contest stations. The Black Fly are just a bit irritating, getting into your nose and ears when they get bad. Fortunately they were nowhere near that density!
The tropo forecast is looking interesting for Saturday.
It may be worth trying to chase some 2m SSB activators that you wouldnāt normally expect to hear.
Also 433Alive activity day on Saturday (23rd) between 12:00 and 15:00 UTC so there maybe some SSB/FM action on 70cm too. The timings are not hard set, so maybe activity before and after too.
Some people taking part may not know they are valid for sota, but as long as they meet the activating criteria (ie not sat in the car etc) then they can be claimed.
I should be on G/SP-017 and will have 2m and 23cm with me too as well as 70cm. If the winds are light enough Iāll take the 19element beam so its also a good idea to give an indication of location if calling in (nearest major city would help) as the beam is rather sharp.
VHF and UHF. All the staple radio food groups represented. Magnificent!
I wonder if anyone is going to try some SHF this weekend?
Really keen to try 23cm this year to add to the UHF itinerary but not sure how to go about it without sinking a tonne in to it. Whats a good way to dip a toe in equipment-wise? Any bargain stuff to try out?
There are a number of routes and it depends on the definition of bargain.
My route was the following :-
Spotted an Alinco DJ-7 triband handie on well known auction site. 1W on 23cm FM and works on 2m and 70cm too. Antenna is a pcb log periodic from Amazon which is taped onto a piece of plastic drainpipe and mounted on a lightweight tripod thing. Coax is 1m of something with sma-males on each end. Total cost <Ā£200
Needed a replacement for the aging and temperamental FT-736 so treated myself to a IC-9700. This is not bargain territory and not really in the portable group either.This has led me down the rabbit hole of getting setup for 23cm at home involving rotators and larger antenna.
SG Labs transverter. Works with the 817 but I presume any 2m rig (like the 290 will do). There is an article out there somewhere about moutinging the tranverter inside the battery compartment of the FT-290 to transform it to a 23cm multimode rig. I got my transverter from a local ham but can be obtained new from SG Labs. I;ve yet to try mine in anger from a summit.
I also have a 13ele yagi that I intend to use portable once the main antenna for home arrives. Probably with 3 or 4 meters of hyperflex 10.
Recently I managed to pickup a 10W Ic-1200 mobile 23cm single band fm mobile rig from a bring n buy stand at a rally. This I considered a bargain. Iām hoping to take it out for a field test tommorow.
As with most of the lesser used bands/modes in sota , making noise about an activation works.
The blue tits have fledged, so I can now do some work to get that rotator fitted and a horizontal-to-vertical twister figured out. In the meantime my yagiās still firmly pointed north, and as itās vertically aligned Iām really appreciating folks who mention what polarisation theyāre using when they self-spot (and QRT spots also help, in their own way). Not that thatās helped much the last couple of days. Today I could just about hear @G4TGJ on G/SP-013 earlier but not even a whisper from @M1EYP on G/SP-009, though I could sometimes hear folks working both of them clearly enough. This Challenge is proving interestingly tricky.
I told a friend of mine 2W0JMK about this years challenge back in January. And being a keen 144 SSB man like myself he has joined SOTA and is taking an active part as a chaser and is doing quite well. Like myself Mark can work both Vertical & Horizontal polarization when chasing.
I would like to congratulate Mark on a Sporadic E SSB contact he made on 144.300 on the 24th of June he worked a non Sota station in Malta 9H1TX JM75FU from IO71PV with 59 reports both ways. Between us we have caught a few openings in the last week or so. But sadly not been able to catch an Eās Sota Activator yet,. But we are both still trying. Well done Mark who was using an 8 element power beam & 100w.
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. When nothing much else is happening I tend to listen in to an activation. It gives an indication of what I can hear and also can indicate what other summit stations are around and audible as they make the summit to summit qsos.
