Time for apologies!
This was my first activation in a very long time and I was accompanied by Mr. Murphy having failed miserably on the most basic of activator duties: Check your gear before leaving home!!!
Microphone: PTT intermittent
Key: Will only send dah, no dits
4TOE: Remember how to drive your rig
Take a proper waterproof
So thank you to the handful of stations I worked on 40m SSB, my sincere apologies to all the Chasers that called after I sent CQ from the rig memory on 20m and all they got back were a series of dashes. I did work MM0FMF under his other guise of MS0TA for a S2S so all was not lost.
I will try to make it back up Knock Hill in the near future as it is a fairly rare 1 point GM
I meant to say that I suffered another failure today… the battery connector on the FT817 lead is a bit intermittent/high resistance. Just having a dram so we’ll solder that tomorrow!
Failed inside the insulation despite there being two layers of heat shrink to add resilience to wire. OK 10.5 years since it was made so not too shabby. I should get a proper crimp tool, it was probably soldering it that made a failure point!
The keyer in my MTR-3B did something similar on my last attempted activation. Had to cycle power on the unit to fix it. One disadvantage to using memory: You put your best foot forward, only to find your other foot is stuck in the mud.
Malcolm
sounds like the rig was in straight key mode. turn paddle over by 90 degrees and use dah paddle as a straight key. or if it is a broken wire, and the keyer is actually sending dahs, put rig in straight mode, repeat from step 1.
I think it was RF getting into all the wrong places - PTT was intermittent too and trying to drive the menu on a hilltop was not on… I have not had this problem before but this was the first time out with an internal ATU fitted so the clue may be there. Need to do some trials at home before playing with it on a hill again.
Should be the name for this one - really steep (and slippery) path and the approach road is no better than a cart track. Unfortunately it is called Knock Hill.
Next nearest to me is Bin of Cullen, that is probably on the hit list for this week
