I went up to my first summit, GI/AH-008 Big Collin, using FT8 & FT4 on the Icom 705 5w. The first issue was on transmit, the WSJTx would stop working. All tested in the garden no issues, is that the USB lead? Antenna was a vertical whip with counterpoise, same distance to antenna in garden as on hilltop.
Second issue was the WSJT-x format.
If you answer a call and then add SOTA summit ref at end of call, as I had read on here, when uploading the adif file, it rejected them. Can you record an answered CQ message as SOTA.
it also rejected my own CQ SOTA calls, 14 in total.
CQ SOTA 2IOGOK Grid locator
custom GI/AH-008 sent after RR73
Can someone point me in the direction of video or resource for the FT8 message format for SOTA.
The ADIF file generated by WSJTx does not contain all the info required for uploading to SOTAdata.
For correct upload the file needs all but one of the fields shown below.
The <COMMENT:3>FT8 field is optional, although I like to include it for information only.
The first QSO would be a normal FT8 QSO, with someone resting their legs on a foot stool, sipping cocoa, while watching the computer complete the QSO, while the second QSO is a SOTA operator enjoying the sunshine on a SOTA summit.
The additional fields can be added using software like ADIFmaster, or, once you understand how ADIF is formatted, a plain text editor like Notepad.
https://www.adif.org/ has all the info about ADIF, although it can be a little confusing at first.
I donât usually send the SOTA reference when I am doing FT8 and rely instead on the SOTA chasers seeing my spot on SOTAWATCH as my CQ call is CQ SOTA VK3ZPF QF21 where QF21 is my summit gridsquare.
If I am answering a normal FT8 CQ from others, then they will probably never know I was on a summit
If you are seeing unexpected behaviour from WSJTX when transmitting, then adding a clip-on ferrite to each end of the USB cable or looping the USB cable through a ferrite ring should help.
I experienced the same issue with my IC-705 and had to reboot the laptop and the IC-705 each time.
Solution is to place three ferrite clamps on each end of the USB cable.
Hi Andrew, With those clip on ferrites, does the casing colour indicate anything? For example Gray are using a mix that suppresses HF and the black ones (often seen on PC accessory leads) are only for VHF?
Rather than focus on the colour of plastic shell it would be prudent to read the product data sheet. The product data sheet will specify the impedance at a given frequency range.
The ferrite clamps in the photo are genuine TDK ZCAT1325-0530A. This product is designed for 3 to 5mm USB cables.
But when one buys these clip-ons at a rally or find them in your junk box - and they have no markings that I can find, how can you refer to the data sheets? I have however more often seen the grey encapsulated ferrites on HF radio gear and the black ones only on household electronics / PCs etc. It would be nice if there were a simple colour standard - it seems (unfortunately) not. 73 Ed.
What I get from that video is that, in general, his best results were with the wire wound several times through the cores or the split, clamp-on ferrites. The problem being, however, that the clamp-ons are meant, as he said, to be clamped onto existing, in-service wires, so putting the cable multiple times through these cores isnât practical, and in fact, if we are talking about coax cable, thereâs not enough room to loop it through multiple times. Nice use of a Mini or NanoVNA (which I have), to compare solutions.
I was referring to coax, not USB cable. however OK, the point is made, if the USB cable is what in a particular case is acting as an antenna, this seems like a good solution.
I have the following on my feeder used on both the KX2 and 705 with end fed antennas. This is a 13mm diameter split core and I have 3 turns of RG58 passed through.
There is a part no. on the plastic, EO4SR241336A and you can find all sorts of online info but I couldnât find a spec other than the inductance rise as the square of the number of turns. So 3 turns has 9 times the inductance of a single turn.
I didnât have any RF feedback with my end fed antennas but found this in a box of âstuffâ at a rally. I think it cost me 50p. The list price is about âŹ6 each in boxes of 50. Whether I need it or it works, I donât think it is causing a problem.
Since my question was how to tell what the clamp-ons in my junk box are capable of (i.e., which frequency range), I donât have the luxury of looking up and purchasing the correct part number in the correct size. The NanoVNA solution answers what I need to do, to test out (and possibly throw out) the clamp-ons in my junk box.
Hi Stuart, regarding your first issue, if youâre an iOS user, have you tried the app designed for the ICâ705, SDRâMobile? Iâve used it from 430 MHz down to 7 MHz with zero problems. Except for a couple of timesâif I remember correctly on 144 MHzâwhen it âfrozeâ, but I solved it simply by moving a bit farther away. The app is paid, but itâs worth every cent
