Me too Brian! My first AM QSOs when first licenced in ’69 with highly-inefficient homebrew valve rigs. No photo of that but here’s me and fellow ham AM portable in ’74 (I’m the long-haired hippy in dark glasses).
Wouldn’t dream of it!
But not everywhere! I remember in the '70’s being on a climbing meet in Cornwall, camping halfway between St Ives and St Just for Bosigran, I took an HB9CV and a 20 foot ali mast and tried every day for a week but no takers - the beacon was S9+++ though!
Thanks for the offer 
But I’m more thinking of one of the Ukranian transverters to go with my KX2. (Save your typing 817 enthusiasts - I’m already aware the 817 is better, I just fancy doing it this way 
)
The exception that proves the rule? Or, maybe I’m viewing my nostalgia through rose-tinted glasses. Seriously, the anecdotal experience of us oldies who were licensed way-back-then (i.e. prior to the Morse test abolition) is that the ad-hoc, day-to-day VHF traffic was higher than today, which is what this thread is about.
I have a KX2 and Ft817. I would think the KX2 and VHF transverter is a flexible solution provided you don’t want 2m and 70cm. It would be interesting to get your feedback after field trials.
Yes, it was sometimes hard to find a clear frequency, but in addition to my experience in Cornwall I remember lugging the FT-290R1, mast and 2-el beam up GW/NW-012 in the days when it was just Cadair Berwyn, about 1978, and getting just one contact - back into Birmingham! My hill walking companions laughed like drains! Activity outside of lifts was highly concentrated in urban areas.
I have been active with this rig several times and can recommend it.
The only thing I will change is the antenna. the 4-fold oblong is very sensitive to wind. I will build a small yagi, which will be fixed lower at the pole.
Sometimes I am portable on non-SOTA hills, sometimes spontaneously by car, especially when good conditions are announced:
https://tropo.f5len.org/forecasts-for-europe/
And every time in ssb
73 Armin
Armin @DL6GCA , what is the frequency stability like on your transverter? They are great value for money apart from being reported as a bit “wobbly”. I’ve often thought of buying a 4m version. But I’m becoming a bit transverter rich with 13cms, 3cms and 0.024cms.
I have a theory about nostalgia. It’s that you remember the brilliant, exceptional, indeed memorable days. And a couple of decades later, your brain tells you that was the norm. And you believe it.
It is going on right now, with chaser stations regularly telling me on 2m FM that you simply don’t get the levels of 2m FM SOTA activity now that you got in 2003. Even though the Database (filtered, of course) tells a very different story.
It is a good thing that people hang on to the good, positive memories. Give me that over those that dwell on the negatives every time. But beware the conclusion that the present day is far worse than it actually is!
Come on, Tom! I have made it clear that I talk about general levels of activity. I just spent a while tuning the band, I heard one station, just one, barely breaking the squelch and with strong aircraft flutter. Back in 2003 according to my logbook I was getting an average of nine actual contacts of an evening when I came into the shack, plus about one a session on 70cm. A contest, an opening, a SOTA activation will bring them out of the woodwork but almost nobody just comes up on the band and talks. No rag chewing, no calling previously unworked calls to widen ones ham acquaintances, just long echoing silences. What does your logbook tell you, Tom, when you aren’t on a summit?
Tom, I’m hoping you made that comment playfully. But don’t make the mistake of thinking when someone makes a couple of self-deprecating jokes about nostalgia and memory lane that, in the subsequent serious remarks, they haven’t accurately recalled and compared a situation in the past with the situation now.
I know you have taken opposing views from Brian (and me) w.r.t “2m - dead or alive?” I like to trawl the reflector back catalog (lots of good stuff there) and you and Brian (and others) have been debating this without resolution for eons.
But you may recall I said you and Brian were both right but talking about different things.
Is there any other way to make a comment online?
Words of nuance, words of skill
And words of romance are a thrill
Words are stupid, words are fun
Words can put you on the run
Oi, he was speaking to me! Mind you, I wouldn’t dream of it either. I did try to get the idea of horizontal FM across, but it was firmly rejected. Their loss, not mine. I’d had a ball anyway working plenty from the summit… the end of a long day and I went home well chuffed.
Nothing.
My logbook only exists when I am on a summit. I haven’t had a home shack QRV for a few years.
So I only assess general activity ffom the ease with which I qualify SOTA activations with a handheld.
Without doubt, it’s on the up.
Believe me, I really hope you are right. Its been too good a party for it to just fizzle out!
WARNING - ON TOPIC ALERT !!
Gerald (G4OIG/G8CXK) and myself (G4MD/G6GGP) are hoping to go on an ad-hoc trip round the “Shropshire 5” on Monday 20th Jan using 2m and 70cm ssb, horizontal and vertical polarisation as required. Hopefully will stir up a bit of activity! Still in the early stages so watch out for further details and approx. alerts to follow but note first summit will be around 0800 so attendance by the “breakfast club” would be appreciated!
Hope to see a bunch of you on Monday 
73 de Paul G4MD
We had that in this thread:
I havn’t fixed my tcxo until now 
… it’s still at the shelf - but the time will come.
I think, that the transverters for the other bands might have the same problems…nevertheless is an interesting possibility for everyone who has a qrp device for 10m. The transverter is cheap and light.
73 Armin
I look forward to having a go at chasing you both. Under normal circumstances I would probably have gone up a hill for an attempt on at least one s2s - however, I shall have to be home based as the boiler is being replaced and I will have to be around all day.
The contest equipment (UKAC) should do the job OK - horizontal beam 2m & 70cm plus dual band collinear. The QTH is on the South slope of a low hill so no actual los Northward (never any IO83 or 84 contacts) but probably near enough for SOTA. Power will be off from time to time but I have already done the necessary beam rotation and have quite a good supply of batteries for the radio.
Hope you have a good day - it was lovely in the Forest of Dean today.
73,
Rod
