First successful SOTA activation at 1,3 GHz

Greetings to all hiking enthusiasts!

The main goal of our last joint trip with RX9WT and RK8A to the area of the Bolshoy Iremel massif and the Zigalga ridge was to activate the highest “10-point” peaks of this area within SOTA program.

The beginning of this mini-expedition was on the 4th of August and, provided we reached the summit by the start of the popular regional Ural Cup competitions, it gave chances for correspondents to be active on the VHF bands. It was particularly interesting for me to try making connections in the 1.3 GHz band, since outside testing , there are usually no correspondents in this band during activations in out area. Conducting at least one connection on this range over a distance of more than 50 km would allow to fulfill the conditions of the popular SOTA Microwave Award diploma.

The day before departure, I rented our club competition kit for this range used by the UD9W team for field trips. Naturally, I used only the irradiator from the parabola. The rest of the equipment was usual for hiking trips in the QRP version - a FT-817 transceiver with battery power and a wave channel 3 + 4 el. at 144/432 MHz.


Transverter in a sealed box


Parabola irradiator at 1296 MHz

The result was the following.
Due to the breakdown of the muffler of Volodya’s car Chevi-Niva, we spent a lot of time searching for the necessary part and replacing it in Yuryuzan city, so we arrived at the cordon of the national park rather late - at 6 pm. We went upstairs with a full set of camping equipment, ham-radio equipment and food at the fastest pace, overpassing all the hikers going in the same direction. On the way, we still collected 7 liters of water on the stream, as there used to be no water at the top. After two hours of ascending, we set up a tent on the pre-summit plateau and came out lightly on the summit itself - with a minimum of things and a light snack.


Muffler repair


At Volodya’s place


On the way to the summit

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Before reaching the pre-summit plateau


Refilling water in the last creek


On the pre-summit plateau


Acsending


Approaching the highest point

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On the summit

It was clear that the overnight stay at the top was no longer feasible and participation in the competitions was limited to the remaining light time. It was possible to assemble and install antennas and equipment closer to 9 pm. I started working in the FM test using the FT-60 portable station. I contacted immediately on 144 and 433 MHz with fellows from the R9WX team, but failed to make a connection on 1.3 GHz right away. After communicating with R9WDT/8, I switched to SSB.
It was quite convenient to work on the FT-817, since I connected the antenna at 144/433 MHz to the front connector of the transceiver, and the transverter at 1.3 GHz to the rear connector. Of course, when switching to microwave, we had to switch the antenna input of the transceiver through the program menu. The passage was very good, all correspondents passed on 59 on all bands, although I turned antennas at the very beginning towards the north-west didn’t change this position later on. In an hour of work, we managed to conduct 13 QSO, three of them at 1.3 GHz. The ODX at 144 MHz was 351 km, at 1.3 GHz - 148 km.

https://vhfcontest.ru/contest/120/view-report/UD9W

With the onset of darkness, the wind increased, it became cold and we had to go down to the tent on the plateau. We descended with headlights, and were able to find a tent only by tracking in Garmin.

Upon returning home to Ufa, it turned out that there were not a lot of videos made with VHF operating at the summit, but I remembered that one active hiker, while still on the ascent trail, noticed drawings and inscriptions on Volodya Angeli’s brand t-shirt and was quite interested in his stories of IOTA expeditions. The hiker, having ascended to the summit a little later, happily filmed at the RRC flag set by Volodya, and even took a selfie on a video with me while working on the air. Of course, we didn’t have any contacts information of him, not even name, but nowadays in the era of Internet I was able to find his contacts. Turned out, this guy Ilfat Islamov lives in Ekaterinburg and is an organizer of social media community “Higher than clouds” (vk.com/vishe_oblakov_ekb) and a guide for youth hiking groups that regularly conduct trips to Ural mountains. He gladly responded to my inquiry and shared his photo and video material featuring our work, for which I am very grateful to him!

With the use of some of his content I created a short film which is accessible under this link:

Also thanks to my daughter Kamilla for helping me out with some translation of this text!

73!

23 Likes

Thank you, Marat!
Thanks to everyone who is still interested in Russian SOTA.:smiley:
In general, I do not really like the microwave. Yes, and VHF/UHF too.) The “plates”, “pans” and “drums” I was very tired at work.
lift them on your own, install and then adjust them in the icy wind is a dubious pleasure, as it seems to me. Therefore, I was skeptical about the proposal of Marat to carry the microwave kit on Iremel, in addition to the main and indispensable HF radio.
Excess weight is undesirable not only in a backpack, on the ascent, but also in the car, when traveling off-road!
And then, who will work with us on the microwave in our wilderness?
But Marat was adamant.
To my luck, the “pieces of iron” were quite compact and not very heavy. The issue of transportation has been resolved. And when this set of Lego on the top still spoke with the voices of amateur radio operators, I thought that microwaves could be an interesting (and useful) thing ))))
Marat has already told about the walking part of our expedition to Iremel. I would like to add that there were a lot of interesting and sometimes difficult moments on this expedition. In addition to hiking and radio, there was a mountain road through forests, swamps and boulders …


I would like, if possible, to talk about all this. But, perhaps, not here, but in the topic RK8A “From Russia with love-2” From Russia with love-2 - #14 by RX9WT

Better late than never )
73!
Vlad
RX9WT

5 Likes

WELL DONE VLAD AND KAMILLA! Quite an effort, but you got it done!

All Best, Ken

2 Likes

Марат, спасибо! Очень интересная история! Может быть (если не здесь?) где-то в форумах есть этот рассказ по-русски?
73! Сергей / rn6k

1 Like

Сергей, рад проявленному Вами интересу к нашей истории!
Прочитать ее на русском языке можно на тематических ветках SOTA форумов сайтов: QRZ.RU, QRP.RU и УКВ портала по следующим ссылкам:
SOTA - Страница 6
RU-QRP Club forum :: Тема: SOTA (15/19)
Кубок Урала 2018 - Страница 3
73! Марат А. RA9WJV

1 Like