Apologies to anyone waiting for me on 3.666 ssb this afternoon when I was on Pendle Hill. After stretching my legs I plugged in the links on my dipole & tuned up around 3.666 MHz. That frequency was busy with strong continental stations so I started to look up & down the band for a clear frequency. Maybe it’s the superb low noise level you get on a summit compared to my shack at home but I could not find a clear enough frequency anywhere in the entire phone portion of 80m!
I even looked at 160m, but could not tune the aerial on that band, I went on 40m & found a clear frequency at the top end around 7.185MHz but by that time the light was fading & It was definitely getting colder so I reluctantly decided to pack up & make my way down.
This of course means I have a good excuse to activate Pendle again to give those that do not hold 60m NOV’s a chance of working me.I will try to be on summit a little earlier next time
tuned up around 3.666 MHz. That frequency was busy…
…could not find a clear enough frequency anywhere in the entire phone > portion of 80m!
Hi Mark
I have often found this myself on winter afternoons, I have carried out many such activations where 80m has proved fruitless. The knowledge that you tried has to be sufficient comfort!
Sunday mornings around 0900 are a black spot too, wall to wall nets…
tuned up around 3.666 MHz. That frequency was busy…
…could not find a clear enough frequency anywhere in the entire
phone > portion of 80m!
Sunday mornings around 0900 are a black spot too, wall to wall nets…
Found much the same myself yesterday on Kisdon. Managed to get the summit qualified on 80m CW but then was unable to find a spot in the phone section or to get any QSOs for that matter. No one was calling CQ just nattering using what sounded like QRO power levels.
Switching to 40m-ssb I managed to work a few in ON,LA and DL (I guess that in daytime there will always be somewhere in Europe that has the right skip to favour a QRP operator).
Perhaps, Mark, the solution is to use CW to get spotted on the reflector and then get one or more chasers running QRO to grab a spot on 80 and keep it clear, relaying the QRG back via CW. This is similar to the approach we used yesterday to get M0NJW his fourth qualifying QSO - 2m FM to contact G4RQJ on Little Mell fell who relayed our suggested QRG to G0TDM who then posted it on the reflector allowing GM7UAU to rendezvous and get the point.
Waited around for a few minutes Mark and I guessed that might have been the case. 59+ Italians on 3.666 and jam packed either side. Not sure what radio you use but out-and-about I find the 857 is wide as a barn door when the bands get busy which doesn’t help matters. Time for some inrads.
Found much the same myself yesterday on Kisdon. Managed to get the
summit qualified on 80m CW but then was unable to find a spot in
the phone section or to get any QSOs for that matter. No one was
calling CQ just nattering using what sounded like QRO power levels.
I must say I did not encounter any such difficulties on 80m when I activated GW/SW-033 yesterday afternoon … but maybe I was on a little earlier than you, before the longer skip set in. I was on exactly 3.666 MHz with 5 watts of SSB to an inverted V dipole and worked a string of 27 UK stations, plus an EI and an ON4, all between 1505 and 1547 UTC.
We were on Kisdon at around 1100 UTC. Perhaps the Sunday morning netters had had enough by the time you were out Walt … and had got back from the pub by the time Mark was on.
I must have missed you by minutes Walt, my first call on 60m was logged at 15:53z. If I hadn’t taken so many “rest breaks” on the way up Pendle Hill we could have had a summit to summit QSO on 80m.
80m does change very quickly around dawn & dusk & I can quite easily see how you had a clear band & I had a very busy band within what must have been 30 minutes.
I did have my homebrew portable key with me, but brain wasn’t in the right gear unfortunately.
I have never had a problem with the receive qualities of my FT897D, even in crowded band conditions, & the Collins 2.3KHz filter I have in mine is superb at reducing adjacent channel QRM on SSB. I have had many compliments on my transmitted audio quality, it may surprise some to hear that I actually use the 2.3KHz Collins filter on transmit as well as receive
Rick, I saw your alert for 3.558cw & listened for quite a while around your alerted frequency. I literally stumbled across one of your CQ calls later in the morning & did call you a couple of times before you finally worked me. It is something so insignificant, but I was chuffed to bits that I read your callsign, & summit reference over the air before I posted a spot for you
It was a very great pleasure to work you on the key again Rick
Thanks for all comments on this thread, I will post an activation report shortly on a separate thread for anyone interested.
I must have missed you by minutes Walt, my first call on 60m was
logged at 15:53z. If I hadn’t taken so many “rest breaks” on
the way up Pendle Hill we could have had a summit to summit QSO on
80m.
Sorry I missed you, Mark! I haven’t worked Pendle Hill yet. Better luck next time! It’s quite rare to find SOTA activity that late in the day.
but then was unable to find a spot in the phone section or to get any QSOs for that matter. No one was calling CQ just nattering using what sounded like QRO power levels.