After 3+ years of hiking, ran into my first bears… It was a road hike, and glad I saw the first one with enough space. It watched me for a while before heading into the woods, and I decided to keep hiking after about 10 minutes and making noise. On the way back, saw another one (same?) about a mile away from the first sighting…and it was much closer. Glad is scramble away quickly! Was ready to get back to the car, and bought some new bear spray the next day!
There were many towers on the summit, and I did need to use a band-pass filter with the FT65. I haven’t needed one on the past with FT70 or FT3DR (FT3D didn’t have interference on this day either), and will have to keep testing in the future.
Great - here in the Black Forest there is at most the occasional encounter with a fox or deer.
… that reminds me of a holiday in which we visited various National Parks in the USA:
One night a bear came and was very interested in the bins we were camping near. He was chased away with loud clattering with cooking pots etc… My girlfriend at the time was scared and wanted a new campsite a bit further away.
In the evening, she insisted that we grill fish… I told her the next morning afterwards: Bears love fish.
The panic was in her eyes. If I had said it that night after dinner… she would have spent the night sitting in her sleeping bag and not slept a wink.
Great story, and thank you for sharing! It’s all about timing and when you share information… (-:
My brother lives in Issaquah which is near some of these Tiger Mountain summits, and he was joking that Thursday was garbage pickup day! He sees them quite often in the neighborhood… Was glad this bear looked smaller, but got my heart going just the same 73, James WA7JNJ
Thank you Josh for the QSO… I almost switched to my FT3D thinking it might work better?
Interesting to hear about you and Darryl running into one up there earlier this year…and in the back yard!
I have found the FT-65 to be notably susceptible to RFI, much more so than the three other 2 m FM rigs I’ve used for summit operation.
It’s a great HT in other respects, but after having a few activations nearly spoiled by being unable to hear all but the S9+ callers, I’ve permanently retired it from SOTA duty. (I’m not interested in carrying a BP filter if I don’t have to and I’ve found my other rigs work well enough at comm. site summits.)
I have to wonder if the FT-65 receiver having coverage of the FM broadcast band contributes to the problem.
Thank you so much for feedback about your experience with the FT65!
I’ve recently bought a few lower priced HT’s (Icom V86 and now Yaesu 65) and want to review in future after getting more experience. Initially like the look, feel, battery life, etc of 65, but a few experiences now where nervous about receive performance…and need to do a few side by side tests. Thanks again! 73
73, James WA7JNJ
