Hello Reflector, I wanted to share this SOTA novice’s first experience activating on the HF bands and a important lesson I learnt.
I am new to both amateur radio and SOTA having only received my foundation license in January 2024, since then I have only activated a few times in Scotland with my 5 watt handheld Yaesu FT-4XR which has been brilliant. However sometimes I’ve found I have been lost in the noise a couple of times when responding to S2S CQs, so I wanted to see what was possible with a little more power and to test out the HF bands.
The plan was to test out a new rig I have been putting together for 2m, 20m and 40m. It comprises a Yaesu-857, 14.8V battery, a random-wire linked dipole cut to 20m/40m, SOTA Beams Tactical Mini with a number of 3D printed parts to tie it all together. Thanks too @MM0EFI and @M0GQC who’s youtube videos where brilliant reference and guidance for the build.
For the summit I didn’t want to miss out on the points from a large summit due to technical failure so decided to hike GM/SS-234 ‘Dunglow’ which is local to me in order to test out the setup. Once I had summited from the western approach I started out by activating on 2m using a measuring tape style antenna (or so I thought) which I normally use with the FT-4XR handheld. After making a number of contacts on 2M I began activating on 40m only to find that I was not picking up anything across any HF band. I pulled down the mast and checked the connections. In the end it turned out I had my HF feed plugged into the VHF socket and the VHF in the HF socket.
It was a surprise to me that it was even possible to activate on 2M successfully with a dipole tuned for 40m, I could honestly not tell the difference in terms of reception. It was also a relief to discover that nothing had broken! After swapping the feeder cables, I managed to activate a total of 6 QSO’s on VHF and 18 QSO’s successfully on HF, making contacts as far as western Ireland, south Wales and Cornwall (400 miles away) which where all personal records for me. I had never really experienced a pile up before and was frantically scribbling into my Logbook, it was a great experience and even with the technical issues including the wind blowing down the mast; It was great to know the DIY linked dipole was not the source of the issues… it was in-fact the operator at fault.
I thought that the reflector would appreciate hearing the mistakes of this SOTA novice, I was laughing at myself on the summit. Thanks to everyone who made contact with me especially: @GM4JIB for the S2S with Ben Lawers GM/CC-001 after spotting me on the same summit the week prior, apologies for interrupting lunch!
All the best and 73,
Jace, MM7VXJ
View of Black Loch and Dunglow on the left.
Looking east up towards the summit.
View from the summit looking North West towards Kinross.
SOTA Beams Tactical Mini in the wind, view looking south.
The rig with measuring tape antenna.
