Chris M0KPW had a couple of days off from work this week and he asked if I fancied a little bit of SOTA activity.
Not a good start to the activation as the one we chose G/LD-048 Top O Selside we could not access, as the road up the east side of Coniston water was shut off. We then opted for an easy G/LD-050 Gummers How.
I really went for a bit ot fun, but I did take the Alinco Tri-band Handie and the 23ele 23cm aerial, I managed to work three stations but failed with fourth. So Nil points for me, it’s pretty damn hard to qualify a Lakeland summit on 4/6mtrs and any microwave band.
Tuesday I was busy, so I couldnt accompany Chris out, but I did go for my dog walk on Kirkby Moor G/LD-049 on Wednesday. This time just the Alinco and two ele PCB aerial, but alas, just one valid QSO and one fail.
I was talking to Ross G6GVI via email, he suggested using my SG-Labs amplifier the the Alinco handie.
So I tested this in the shack, I could now produce 7w on low power and 15w on high power, with the added advantage of the pre-amp in the SG-Labs linear making the Alinco much more lively.
Ross, notified the guys he works usually that I was going to be on. Also after being inspired by following Andrew G4VFL on his QO-100 travels, I’ve loaded up APRSDroid on my phone and the guys could follow me to the summit.
I switched on, put a call out and back comes Ross 5/9 plus everything, then with him liasing I go on to work another five stations on 23cm FM. What a rare treat to qualify a summit easily on 23cm FM all QSO’s were easily 90kms, not bad at all.
I asked Ross if there is any way of notifying the guys in the North West of any planned 23cm activity, apparently it was all pretty informal. But since Ross has started up 23cm-NorthWest group on Groups.IO, so hopefully in the future It will not be Nil points for me so often when I take the microwave kit out.
Well done Nick, you were certainly putting an excellent signal down here. In fact I heard you call a couple of times whilst I was still ascending (on the “wrong” side of the hill) and when I first replied I just had the rubber-duck omni antenna on top of the Alinco! Then I fitted my PCB yagi, which is still convenient enough for “walkie-talkie” operation:
As I mentioned the other day, you’re the 55th station I’ve worked on 23cm with my Alinco from the slopes of Winter Hill since Easter 2019, so there’s plenty of equipment around (although some is not turned on that often) and we have a dozen or so stations who are quite active on FM through the week. I’ve been up there abour eighty times this year and can only recall three occasions when I didn’t get any replies.
I recall Andy @MM0FMF once upon a time advising me, that if I wanted to get activity for a “minor sport” (like 23cm) to “make a splash” on this SOTA reflector ahead of time. I’m not good at trawling through SOTA alerts days ahead or checking other sources like Groups IO but I do check this reflector most days.
My home QTH is rubbish for 23cm unless you are to the west or NW of me, e.g. G/LD-048, -049, -050, -056 but I would be happy to go on a local G/LD summit with my 23cm (or 70cm) FM/SSB/CW next time someone is planning an activation in G/LD or neighbouring regions.
Absolutely. It was 2017 when Jack GM4COX suggested that we buy a pair of SG Lab 13cms units, his rationale was “if we have one each we can get at least one QSO from a summit!”. We bought 7 in a job lot and by some local publicity we were able to attract the interest of non-SOTA 13cm ops. Normal procedure is to decide on a 13cms activation and ensure our GM13 groups.io group gets some traffic as well Alerts.
It’s not that unusual to be able to qualify on 13cms as there’s me, Jack GM4COX, Jim MM0GLM, Alan MM0VPM who go out SOTA / portable plus a number of fixed stations here in GM, GM4VKI (Kilmarnock) and with GM4DIJ, GM8OTI, GM4BYF (Edinburgh) & GM6CMQ (Dunfermline). Andrew G4VFL is a regular visitor to GM with terrestrial and QO-100 SOTA 13cm gear. Nick G0HIK/P is often worked on 13cm for “cross border DX”.
It’s possible to get uWave SOTA QSO much further North. Our own SOTA treasurer, Barry GM4TOE is QRV on 23 and 13cm from Banff and Martin GM8IEM is QRV on 23/13 from near Lochinver.
Just this last month Malcolm GM3TAL (Dunfermline) is now QRV on 23cm, keen for QSOs on his new band means I’ll be taking my DJ-D7 with me on activations to be chased by him.
You just need to make the noise up front to let people who are QRV know there’s a chance of a QSO.
The extra SMA connectors in my hardline patch-lead allow me to swap to horizontal polarisation easily - otherwise I’d have to hold the radio sideways (this technique works surprisingly well with the Alinco rubber omni antenna).
The majority of stations use horizontal antennas, although three of my regular contacts (plus GB3SE repeater) are “vertically challenged”.
… and be on a suitable summit. There’s plenty around that I’ve struggled to get out from on 2m let alone higher frequencies. Then again I am running QRPp on 23cm relative to you Alinco owners, but maybe my antenna makes up for that.
I now need to “fettle” my recently acquired SG Labs transverter. The old homebrew unit wasn’t suitable for the hills at over 2kg and it only ran 250mW output.
Hi Andy, I can also easily notify you on the WhatsApp group in the future.
I’ve just been informed by EI3IX that he plans to activate GI/MM-001 next wednesday on 23/13/9cm, so get those radio’s warmed up.
I hope to go out somewhere for it. possibly not a SOTA though.
