2m FM is alive and well!

I remembered the IO83 fairy dust this morning on my activation of Nine Barrow Down G/SC-013 (IO90). Five quick 2m FM QSOs just with a handheld & rubber duck. It’s potent stuff - seems to work more or less everywhere…

2m FM is dead. Called CQ once each on the two IOW summits yesterday and got no reply. Several CQ SOTA calls from Gun this morning - nothing. Had to break into a QSO on S22 just to make one contact in order to raise the status of my walk to “activation”.

Fake news.

You need to recharge your fairy dust!

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Yesterday, activating only VHF FM.

TX/RX: Yaesu VX-6
Antenna: J-Pole (Deluxe Roll-up from Nelson antennas)
Fishing rod: 4.1m Sotabeams compact lightweight.

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It’s a well known fact that 2m FM activations in VK are, like for people located outside of IO83, a waste of time. Summits are too far from population centres, no one listens any more, etc, etc.

Someone forgot to tell my handheld, because today on VK3/VC-018 I worked into Tasmania (VK7DW) with an FT-60 and RH-770 clone for a distance of 497km with 5W, along with 12 other 2m and 70cm contacts. Most fun I’ve had on a summit for a while :slight_smile:

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@VK3ARR Thanks for the QSO. I couldn’t hear you on the HF bands and it wasn’t the best on 2m FM, but you’re in my log :smile:

Congrats Andrew @VK3ARR, well done!

Regards
Andrew VK1AD

New 2m and 432MHz tropo records set 28-dec-2019

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Last one of the year today. Foel Goch GW/NW-039, a favourite of mine - “on the way” to my New Year’s Eve gig in Wrexham.

Took the SB5 and tablet hoping to catch the tail-end of the remarkable tropo and some tasty FT8 DX.

Reached the summit and it was very windy and cold. My dark selfish mind turned to the possibility of a quick low-effort handheld rubber duck activation.

And as I went to start setting up the beam, I discovered the perfect get-out clause - I’d left the feeder in the car!

So HH+RD it was, five QSOs on 2m FM, two S2S. Easy easy. 2m FM is alive and well.

This was activation #388 in the year for me, beating my previous record of 367 set in 2018.

Happy New Year everyone!

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Hi Tom
Yesterday I had 24 2m QSO in ~30 -40min.
Agree, 2m FM is alive and well.

Let’s hope it stays that way in 2020 :star_struck:

Happy new year!
73 Sabrina HB3XTZ

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Just back from an impromptu Road Trip to GW with my youngest son (22!) Liam.

Six summits activated, all in IO82 square (none in IO83 square!!). All qualified on 2m FM with a handheld and rubber duck.

Easy enough. Very similar experience to daytime handheld activating in IO83 square.

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And back to IO83 handheld activating today. 6 QSOs on The Cloud G/SP-015 and 4 on Gun G/SP-013. S2S on each. Very similar to my experiences in IO82 in Mid Wales.

Quote from M1EYP’s blog:

“I then checked with Jimmy who had made the grand total of zilch on 2m FM. But he wanted to carry on flogging his dead horse! I took down 30m and erected 40m for the likelihood that Jimmy would need to fall back on 7MHz SSB to qualify. However, with the stubborn Jimmy still refusing to budge from his flawed VHF campaign,…”

:rofl: You seem to have had a change of heart Tom! However, I shall take your advice and take my HF gear for Hardown Hill. :wink:

A relevant piece of missing data - is the date.

There definite remain some summits and areas that are difficult on VHF - and this will be one of them.

My point is that the general situation seems improved from a decade ago, and certainly the ease with which you can qualify a summit in IO82 is at odds with the pessimism of some chasers who live in IO82!

But there will definitely be outliers and exceptions for you to find!

The date is totally irrelevant when one’s chain is being jerked Tom :wink:.

I was merely amused at the contrast between your support of the band and your (no doubt tongue in cheek) derision in this extract. I make no comment on the debate throughout this thread other than I use VHF myself!

What is life without a bit of harmless fun? :grin:

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That contrast is the exact point I’m making though Andy!

2m FM remains healthy round here. This evening I went out to activate two local summits - The Cloud G/SP-015 and Gun G/SP-013.

I used just a handheld with rubber duck. I operated for a total time of 15 minutes across both summits. A total of 31 QSOs were made. Dare I say “VHF is alive and well”?

It wasn’t even contest night, nor weekend and I wasn’t even using a beam!

@M1EYP It warmed my heart to see your familiar spots for The Cloud and Gun appear earlier. That’s one thing back to normal at least!!

2m is quite popular here in W7W land. I can easily qualify a summit on 2m, so long as it’s in range of a city.

73,

-Josh

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This is my 6th consecutive day of activating (14 activations so far) since 13th May - “Liberation Day”!

So those “familiar” spots should have been appearing for nearly a week now.