Very good Sam - noted. I had to comment about the pole. 5m and 6m long lightweight good quality travel poles which telescope down to around 57 cms are available for less than £20. They will fit inside the likes of a 35 litre rucksack, so don’t rule out carrying one for your backpacking tours. If you take one in your rucksack on a budget flight to Europe though be warned. Some security staff have been known to impound or force you to put the travel pole in the hold, but many don’t. It’s much a lottery and a risk, so if you fly it is best to pack the travel pole as hold luggage, as I now do. The other advantage of such a short pole to carry, is that you don’t get asked questions by other members of the public, landowners and gamekeepers when you are walking or cycling to the summits as they cannot see it protruding. If you need details of a supplier of these short travel poles please email me via the address in QRZ.COM.
It’s a running joke in my household now that if I say I’ll be back ‘around lunchtime’ it tends to be 3pm. My daughter does the mental conversion automatically now!
You’ll have the same ‘get there, can’t do it’ scenario play out over -and-over once you get addicted to SOTA. On a recent outing which involved an hour-and-a-half’s walk and a complete HF setup I had to take it all down again straight away as I’d forgotten the power cable for the rig.
My first activation was with a wonder loop. I managed 1 QSO on the 2m handheld. I now use an end fed and usually get a nice little pile up. My pole is only 4m. This is CW QRP.
Either. I started with the pole right next to the operating position but the last couple of times I’ve had the pole half way along the wire. I’m not sure it makes much difference although the former works better when I want to re-use the pole for my 2m slim jim.
I have a trapped EFHW for 40/30/20 and I’ve used it mainly as an inverted V. I used it in France as a random inverted L (about 5m up the pole and then out to the trees). I’m not sure which works better either. I only did as a inv L becase I had rigged the pole for my 20m vertical and setup in the shade and as it was more than 27C I didn’t want it as inv v as I’d have to move the pole so I could stay in the shade or sit in the sun. Sitting in the sun didn’t seem a wise move.
@G4OBK Thanks Phil. I’ll email you about that. A pole will likely come in handy for UK based operations.
I like the idea of taking my kit on holiday, so every bit of space and weight I can save is a plus. Not to mention the airport security issue!
I often end up travelling with odd looking electronic equipment, uncased circuit boards and such. The only thing that seems to draw attention at security is my telescopic antenna!
