Indeed Viki, all part of the learning curve. More than once, I have to admit, I have called and called on the FT-817 with a beam, before giving up and trying in desperation on the handheld with RD. Then it is suddenly easy to make contacts! In my case, it was something like a feeder in need of repair or such.
Jimmy and I were in a group of six calling you from North West England at one point! Sorry we weren’t able to hang around until you had fixed the problem. Roy G1NUS and Karen 2E0XYL were two others that I remember were trying to answer your calls - did you work them in the end?
Yes, the VX7, having a wideband receiver, can be prone to picking up lots of unwelcome rubbish from nearby commercial masts. One possible action, as you discovered, is to disconnect the bigger aerial and return to the supplied helical antenna. I should also think that a beam would give you more chance of avoiding QRM, rather than a dipole. You can play around with the beam, changing direction headings and even polarisation. Although 2m FM is traditional done using vertical polarisation, so is a whole bunch of commercial stuff. So you can find that working with horizontal polarisation can significantly reduce this kind of disruption.
The irony is that most people trying to work you will be on vertical as well, so your logbook won’t be as full, but it is another way of beating the mush.
Hi Viki. I really felt for you knowing what that silence can be like but at least it was just a short walk to Beacon Ring. Glad you qualified it in the end.
We were very keen on getting a VX7 until we read about its ‘barn door’ properties. We decided to go for the monoband VX-170/FT-270 for that reason + apparently pretty well indestructible and submersible IPX7 rated. If the weather is really bad the FT-270 and the DJ-G7 are the only radios that come out of the rucksack. They are heavier and bigger than my TH-F7E and not quite as convenient being monobanders but they work better than most with transmitters and we are told the audio is very good.
I own one of the very latest AND very expensive Yaesu VX-8GRs, which I attached to a collinear when activating G/SP-013 Gun, about four months ago. I wanted to see how far I could get using just 50mW. This turned out to be an utter nightmare and a huge disappointment. The front end is much wider than any barn door i’m aware of, in fact, I thought I’d driven to GW/NW-070 Great Orme, by mistake
Another problem I found, was just how complicated this rig is to operate. A fact borne out by a 164 page manual compared to the 128 page manual of the FT-857. There are more menu items on this rig than a string of Chinese restaurants, with 25 on the GPS side alone!
Never taken it out of the box since…
Having said all this, it may well be worth a try with a simple dipole antenna.
I’ll give it a try and report back to you, Viki.
