QRM epiphany! W4C/EP-001

Activation Reports
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Yesterday on a day off traveling for work I spent the afternoon trying to activate Moore Mountain in NC. I was using my VX6R instead of my trusty FT60R which I am much more familiar with. I setup my Rollup Jpole as I have done numerous times and almost immediately received a 3/5 QSO so I thought wow this will be quick…2 hour later calling every 3-5 minutes nothing. I thought I may have some settings incorrect so I rebooted radio, tried a different spot all while enjoying a beautiful view which included a mountain about a mile away with lots of antennas! Surely those cannot be affecting my receiver??? Disappointed I packed up and headed back to town. From town I was getting into the local repeater fine. One person on the repeater said they heard me calling.

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Today I decided to give it another go and just like yesterday had 1 very difficult QSO in 15 minutes of calling. The wind kicked up and I moved to the other side of a stone tower (opposite) the radio towers on the mountain a mile away and…7-5/9 QSOs in 30 minutes! I am not sure if the FT60R would have fared better but I suspect it would have. It was a good learning experience. I am ordering a sotabeams band pass filter!
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Hi Eric,
Your experience is similar to many others, and the problem you experienced is frustrating because you cannot tell what is happening. It’s because the signals causing your receiver to “go deaf” do not create any sound on your dial frequency. The problem all happens in the early stages of the receiver without any impact on the sound out of the speaker, other than causing the receiver to become deaf on its dial frequency.
You mentioned that back in town you were getting into the repeater ok, presumably that means you were hearing the repeater ok. It’s hard to know what is happening when you are at a difficult site, but most likely lots of people can hear you because the interfering signals only affect your receiver. So you were hearing the repeater fine when the interfering signals were not as strong as they were on the hilltop.
A bandpass filter is most likely a good investment.
73 Andrew VK1DA/VK2UH

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Significantly better.

There’s an thread on here with a link to table showing which handhelds work well in RF dense environments.

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