I am moving house in January to about 20 miles south of Fort William which gives me a new set of hills on my doortep. Glencoe, Etive, etc. and I am thinking I might get out to try something a little different SOTA-wise.
I have alway quite fancied attempting some kind of 2m DX CW. Or possibly even 70cm so I would be interested in peoples’ experiences.
I suppose one of the key factors is a high gain antenna. There is the SOTAbeams 5 ele one and others of interest about.
I am also very interested in whether a VHF V-Beam could be made to work since if so this strikes me as a particluarly practical option for the hill top and I would have thought some very high gains could be acheived. If so, it would be particularly usable here in GM since the beam direction would largely be south much of the time so may only need 2 or 3 re-peggings to cover the arc necessary per activation.
Anyhow, I think I could quite enjoy seing how far south I could get under normal prop conditions from some of the higher hills.
2m CW is slowly gathering pace in SOTA. It is becoming a favourite of mine and is attracting a cohort of regular chasers interested in doing something a bit different.
I just use my normal 3-el SOTA Beam, horizontal, with 5w from the 817. Best DX so far has been Lincolnshire, from Cheshire, which is nothing compared to a 2m SSB contact with Robin in GM/WS the same day, so I’m sure there’s much more DX to be had with 2m CW.
I’ll look out for your 2m CW alerts Jon, and try to get up something for a 2m CW S2S.
Hi Jon, when I activated the GM/WS-019/019 pair which are classed as “Glencoe” area, I used an ft817, 5w into a standard 3 ele SOTA beam & had no problem at all exchanging good reports with the West Midlands gang on 2m ssb (ok, their kit does most of the work). This was under “flat” band conditions. I would think much further would be possible on cw - all you need is someone at the other end listening.
Hope the move goes ok, does this mean you will be a regular in the Clachaig?
Steve G1INK.
Hope the move goes ok, does this mean you will be a regular in the
Clachaig?
Well yes, it probably does!
I had hardly been in the Clachaig for about 20 years and was in there the other day and it seemed it hadn’t changed a bit!
It will be the same with the hills. As a student I spent weeks at the Lagangarbh hut and so got to know the hills quite well - but haven’t really done much in the area since.
I have tried two or three times CW on 144050 kHz, but no success here. My 2 m dipole seems to match well on 432050 kHz, so I will try also that band. Usually the HF activation takes already enough time, so I have tendency to cancel the VHF/UHF part. On Low Earth Orbit Satellites the QRS CW is a good mode, but then these 1 W transporters are moving 500 - 1000 km ASL.
I tried 2m CW earlier in the year and always take a key up the hills with me. I made a number of contacts within the SOTA community, notably with Frank G3RMD, Don G0NES and Peter G3TJE, but attempts to attract a wider audience through the Yahoo 2m CW group reflector was not successful. However, there has been a recent upsurge in the activity within that group with Derrick GM4CXP taking a lead. They tend to look for contacts from 2000 hrs on Mondays, but may be persuaded to do a bit of daylight CW.
I am now running 70cms on a more regular basis (25W to 6el), so would be interested to sync up some activations with you to try for S2S contacts.
73, Gerald
P.S. Some people think the advantage of the SB5 over the SB3 is not worth while, but I personally like the antenna - amazing as I was originally sceptical about the design.
In reply to GM4ZFZ:
hi JON I am alwayws interested in 2M CW contacts , i,ve been trying to work as far north as possible at present i,ve only had contacts around yorkshire - morecombe areas , i,m sill trying to get into scotland on 2M cw so keep pointing the antenna towards south Wales and maybe we will have a 2M QSO
My first instinct was to say that would be a great idea.
Then I thought about it and, although the activator is king, I think it would be selfishness of the highest order to just do 2m-cw and ignore the masses of chasers out there on other bands and modes. So I’ll just carry on as normal and give everyone a chance of the points.
I hope you enjoy your forrays with “your new 2m-cw regular gang”, I hope your fans on the other bands and modes don’t get to upset while pining after their great loss:-) We’ll see:-)
I didn’t say anything about the 2m CW being the exclusive band/mode to be used. But we could all have a S2S blast at an agreed time for half-an-hour or so, and then migrate onto whatever others we wish. Probably 2m FM, 2m SSB, 40m CW and 40m SSB in mine and Jimmy’s case.
Previous SOTA events with S2S scheduled slots on particular bands/modes (eg SP Fun Days, SOTA Youth Hostel weekends etc) have always featured the activators doing other types of operation before and/or after any skeds.
Having said that, I do like the sound of “selfishness of the highest order”; it does have a certain appeal! I hope you continue your stalwart membership of my regular 2m CW gang Mike
Does anyone fancy setting up a certain Saturday or Sunday morning
session for a grand 2m CW S2S blast? Probably in the New Year - it
could be fun.
No mention above of other bands/ modes Tom, my apologies for being presumptious
Having said that, I do like the sound of “selfishness of the
highest order”; it does have a certain appeal! I hope you
continue your stalwart membership of my regular 2m CW gang Mike
I bet you do!! I wasn’t aware of my stalwart membership of your 2m CW gang Tom, that’s great news, what’s my membership number? 1, 2, or 3
Takes 4 to qualify a summit Mike, so we’d better have a recruitment drive!
I agree that 2m CW as an exclusive is not really on, but it would be good to qualify a summit using the mode, then move to another mode / band. The mode, for me anyway, has always been employed after SSB - perhaps an activation day like that suggested will provide an opportunity for it to be used before SSB.
Indeed Mike, you are member No. 1 (my 1st 2m CW contact from a summit - Snowdon), and also the person who has worked me on most activations on 2m CW (4). However, the membership is stronger than you might suspect, standing at a very healthy 11!
It would be very interesting as an experiment before a QSY to other bands/modes, but in my opinion, ONLY as part of a multimode activation and not cw only as I think Tom did last time.
I know that you always consider the chasers with various options and power levels in your activations Gerald, I always do the same, as do most activators.
It must be frustrating for those chasers who don’t have 60m or cw capability when they see a spot for a station/summit which they can’t reply to.
It must be frustrating for those chasers who don’t have 60m or cw
capability when they see a spot for a station/summit which they can’t
reply to.
Actually this has been on my mind for some time in respect of the joint activations that I have been doing with Paul G4MD. Ideally I like to offer a broad spectrum of opportunity: 2m SSB for those within VHF range, 5MHz SSB for those further afield and 7MHz / 10MHz CW for those in Europe. Our joint activations have failed in respect of the latter, with neither of us activating HF CW. Perhaps selfishly I have spent the time available “playing” with 70cms SSB and 23cms FM.
However… irrespective of how many band / mode combinations are employed, someone will inevitably be disappointed. That’s life, as I know only too well when I am at home: full licence, 5MHz NoV, CW capable… and I still can’t hear all those people activating the LD summits with their 2m FM handhelds!
So we shouldn’t feel we have to please everybody all of the time. We’ll only fail…
Indeed Mike, you are member No. 1 (my 1st 2m CW contact from a summit
Snowdon), and also the person who has worked me on most activations
on 2m CW (4). However, the membership is stronger than you might
suspect, standing at a very healthy 11!
Tom
Well that’s an honour I will cherish for life Tom, thank you.
I was under the impression that I was also your 1st cw s2s SP-015/NW-062? maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Wasn’t I your 4th, thus, qualifying MG contact, again on CW? You must be proud to have such a loyal fan;-)
