Giving 144MHz and 430MHz a chance...

Activation Reports
1

At the end of last year, after having a lot of fun with the 10m Challenge, I decided that for 2025 I would prioritize 144 and 430 MHz, since for seven years more than 95% of my activations were on HF.
On my last activation, JA/HG-028 Kasagatayama, I was pleasantly surprised to achieve my first DX on 2m under very modest conditions. The QSO was with Taiwan and the distance was 1,800 km using an IC-705 with a Diamond RH-770 antenna and only 2.5 watts!
Also for this year, I decided to document the SOTA activations.
If you have the time and desire, you can see part of the activation at 27:33
Subtitles in English and Japanese are avaible and sorry maybe for possible bizarre translations. To avoid this I did my best editing my Argentinean slang
73, JP3PPL

18 Likes
2

Thanks Takeo,

Excellent DX. You have to be there when those conditions apply. Nice video. Always interesting to see another person’s activations.

73
Ron
VK3AFW

2 Likes
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Thanks Ron!
Yes, I did this activation right during the rainy season. But since there was a small window of “good” weather that Sunday, I decided to do an activation.
And if this summer’s heat doesn’t melt me, I’ll try to do the activations with a Yagi, since every year I listen to a lot of foreign commercial broadcasts above 100 MHz.
Would it be too much to dream of a transequatorial QSO on 144 MHz? hahaha
73, JP3PPL

4

Hi Takeo,

Yes a beam certainly helps.

2 m TEP contacts into Northern VK8 and VK6 and VK4 from JA have certainly taken place many times.

Sadly it has never extended into VK3.

6 m JA-VK TEP is of course more common covering all JA and VK and ZL call areas.

But TEP is hard to predict. Troppo dx is easier to forecast.

Good luck

73
Ron
VK3AFW

2 Likes
5

From the logs I saw of previous JA5 SOTA-activations, plenty were done in VHF/UHF only, so I guess if you’re not in the extremes of the country, your prioritization for these bands should be fine.

73, Martin - PE1EEC

1 Like
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Hi Martin
Yes, I live in Region 3. It might not be as central as Regions 1 and 2, but it’s not at the extremes either.
Hopefully, I will find the same fun on V/UHF as I did on HF.
73, Takeo JP3PPL

1 Like