Coyles of Muick - a wee bit of 6m action

[GM4JXP]

Even though the bands are pretty dire right now, it seemed a shame to stay at home on a great SOTA weather day, so yesterday I opted for a favourite local hill GM/ES-050, Coyles of Muick. Having listened to the bands earlier, hf didn’t sound promising so I took my 6m moxen along, as well as a new Gp with linked radials for 20/17 and 15m.

Equiment: KX3, PA50+ amp, Gp with 1/4 wave verticals for 20/17/15, 6m wire moxon. Sotabeams 10m travel mast and Tactical 7000hds mast

Arriving at the top, I saw a Whatsapp on our Deeside group saying that 6m was open, so I quickly got the moxon up. First itl was Fraser, MM0EFI, for his first 6m chase and also the first 6m QSO from the summit. The opening was limited and was very up and down, disappearing after I got 3 more itl (OE, DL and another GM, GM0PWS off the back of the moxon). With 6m having gone quiet, I put the GP up for 20m.

A spot brought a reasonable run of 18, given the current conditions, with Chris 2M0RVZ first itl. There was some decent short skip to G-land, with 5 including Denis MW0CBC.
Moving to 17m got 6 more itl, including another local, Alex, GM5ALX.
A final hf spot on 15m put 5 more itl, then it was back to 6m, which at first seemed empty apart from some French beacons and a 59 FT8 warble. Then found HB9HLM at 59, followed over the next 45m by 5 more, all from the same limited geographical area.

6m QSO map, courtesy cqgma.org

All in all, a very nice day out. Could have stayed longer, but the XYL was preparing supper, and I had to yomp back to the car to get home by 8-15pm.

73 all.

Views from the top
Loch Muick

Some nice overlapping hills

[G7ADF]

I don’t know why, but 6m seems to be one of the most underused bands for SOTA. A quick look on the database at random summits, and on the 5 or 6 I looked at, it was the band (of ones with worldwide allocations) that had the least QSOs. Even top band and 23cm had more on my not very scientific look.

Shame really, as it works for local stuff all the time, and when open it can be spectacularly good.

Is it just the antennas are just the wrong inbetween size? Too small for wire and too large for beams?

[MM0FMF]

@G7ADF

Too small for wire and too large for beams?

This probably is the crux of the issue. I was talking to Andy MM7MOX @MM7MOX this week and he told me of a work colleague who had made a 6m flowerpot and was having great results. But, most of the people I know who are active on 6m have horizontal beams so a flowerpot is sub-optimal for those cases. All a bit chicken & egg for “local” working but no problem for Es. Or F2 even!

Probably what is needed is someone to spend a moment with the 3D printer and make a suitable mount for a fishing pole that fits high enough up and allows easy assembly of 2 elements to make a horizontal dipole. Maybe also a joining block so the elements don’t need to be 1.5m long but assembled from 4x 75cm lengths. A bit like the things in Tim’s @G5OLD offcentre Yagi.

[G5OLD]

Fits on a tactical mini, or is configurable to any diameter with a plastic compression bolt.

This prototype is currently somewhere in the Fisherfield forest if any cares for a free one

[G7ADF]

I did construct a dipole while on summit of G/WB-005 from 2 telescopic whips and the base from one of those vertical thingies, but thats because I knew there was E’s around. would I have bothered if there wasn’t, I think I wouldn’t.

I guess, like most things, it will take a dedicated set of people to do stuff and shout loud to generate interest,

[G8ADD]

When I got my first FT817 it was my first rig with 6m, so I decided to put up an antenna for the band. I looked around for a quick and easy antenna and on the UKSMG site I found the GW0GHF long wire antenna. This is a 19.81 wire with a 1.4 metre counterpoise fed by a simple tuner comprising a 9 turn coil tapped and fed at 2 turns, tuned with a 25 pf trimmer (its an old design!) and a series 25 pf trimmer in series with the long wire. This antenna was said to have four major lobes with 4dB gain and some minor lobes. When I strung it up at about 5m high, the first station I heard was in Cyprus. At the end of that first summer Es season I had worked 34 entities with that 5 watts of SSB. It has since occurred to me that this 19.81 m long wire is very similar ro the popular 20m end fed, I have one somewhere, I will have to try it!

Of course a long wire is not very convenient for /P for V/UHF specialists. At that time I was using a 2m dipole for SOTA, so I improvised a couple of lengths of very stiff wire with croc clips at one end, clipped them to the ends of the dipole and trimmed them for lowest SWR on the 6m SSB band. This was very successful for when I was camping, but unfortunately I never coincided with an opening when on a summit.

[MM0EFI]

Superb photos Simon. That last one is sublime! Might nick it for a desktop background.

[GM4JXP]

@G7ADF

too large for beams?

I don’t consider my moxon too large, and its sized for both 10m and 6m. The whole thing weighs 1.5kg (including both 10m and 6m wires) and takes 5 minutes to assemble once the mast is guyed. The trickiest part to construct is the hub, which is the design shown by MM0OPX on his Youtube channel. The rest of my build differs from his in having spreader tensioners and BNC banana plug adapters to directly connect my Airborne 5 coax. feeder.

[MM0FMF]

@MM0EFI

That last one is sublime!

Not just me then

[GM4JXP]

@MM0EFI

a desktop background

I’d be honoured!

[G4OIG]

Great report Simon and some superb phptos. Well done on activating the right bands under tge conditions. The lower bands have certainly been dire during the day.

If I recall correctly, I’ve only seriously activated on 6m from one summit. I must say that working Es didn’t really float my boat… okay from home though. To my mind, when I’m activating a summit I much prefer to work other SOTA enthusiasts and finding one on 6m is nigh impossible.

73, Gerald

[MM0EFI]

Pop me an email with the original please. Mo loves that kind of photo - the layers of hills and the haze.

I’m sure she won’t mind too much, me replacing this one…

[GM5ALX]

What a big … point.

[MM7MOX]

No takers on 6m today from Ben Vrackie, in fact only one QSO on HF full stop.
A very hot day but 2m was good.
Andy
MM7MOX