It’s been a long winter in the UK - although living in the Lake District, the wettest part of England, brings it to a whole new level. Suffice to say, us Brits love to moan about the weather.
After a very windy affair on Gummer’s How a couple of days ago it seemed very odd to be ascending Loughrigg Fell G/LD-047 in a t-shirt. Very odd. My fitness is terrible so this was my ‘stretch’ goal today following the easiest summit Gummer’s How.
I’d bought the FT-817 with Palm Pico Paddles attached but also brought a Czech Army morse key - this belonged to Chris M0TES a member of the FARS club who unfortunately turned SK earlier this year. I thought it only fitting to dedicate a SOTA activation in his memory. He was the instructor over a weekend that helped me pass my Foundation Exam back in 2016. RIP Chris.
The key has a really nice action and I thoroughly enjoyed sending morse with it.
I jumped on 2m SSB to catch @G8CPZ Andy who was on Grayrigg Forest G/LD-038, and that was followed with some healthy activity including catching @MM7MOX Andy on GM/SS-122. I also caught Colin @M1BUU at home on SSB and subsequently he gave me a CW contact. When I switched to FM I provided his son Alex M7GTU a fourth contact on Arnside Knott G/LD-058.
Following on HF 30m, 40m and 20m were all working well with some more S2S.
I thought there would be some fast jet activity today, given the previous poor weather, but we were treated to a cargo plane instead.
Thanks for the 2m ssb s2s yesterday. I didn’t have quite as much blue sky on The Wiss GM/SS-122 but after the weather we’ve been having it was a very pleasant day out.
Hark! What is this, “blue sky” you speaketh of!? The sky is never blue! 'Tis a grey, miserable, torrid, affair. Moistened forever by endless precipitation twixt abject misery!
I’ve been in a bit of a mental health low point, mainly brought about by job seeking I suppose. My son had a work rest day yesterday and he decided to take himself off to do Arnside Knott via the train, I could have joined him I suppose but didn’t feel up to it. I spent some time on the computer doing a job search, and did a bit of laundry. My son had placed an Alert on SOTAwatch and I suddenly thought that it would be great to surprise him with a QSO. I don’t have a station at home but I do have plenty of SOTA gear.
I’m right in the valley bottom but thankfully there’s nothing much to the west, it’s pretty open towards Morecambe Bay. I set up my old SOTAbeams SB270 beam antenna on a fishing pole cable tied to my shed. I reckoned I would need the gain to work a HT on G/LD-058. I’d already worked out the beam heading of 292° so when Alex, M7GTU, called, I heard him at 56 straight away. I gave Alex his 3rd QSO and thought with his signal strength he’d easily work some more. Alex mentioned the nice weather, it remained mostly cloudy in Bentham.
I saw the Alert for Andy, G8CPZ on 2m SSB and as I had got the FT-817 already powered up, it seemed rude not to at least try for a QSO. I swapped the orientation of the beam to horizontal and pointed it in Andy’s direction. I could detect a faint whisper from Andy on 144.300 but it he was very weak. OK, maybe Andy was using vertical polarisation. I received a Whatsapp message from my son saying he was hearing signals from Andy but as he was using an FM HT, he had no chance for a QSO. I switched the beam back to vertical and now Andy was fully readable on SSB although my S-meter wasn’t registering anything. The difference in signal readability was dramatic - night and day. I managed to work Andy without a problem.
I then went hunting for you and was pleased to find you with good, strong audio. It was nice to work you and then you mentioned having a Czech Morse key with you. I had an idea to hook up my Czech key, but then thought it would be unfair to subject you to my straight keying. I grabbed my beloved Kent twin paddle off the shelf and plugged it in to the FT-817. Andy had mentioned doing CW, so I went looking for him and I managed to work him - the signals are so much better to work with on CW! I was pleased to find you calling CQ on CW, it was a real pleasure to work you. I was mightily impressed with our QSO, thank you.
So, I ended up with 5 chaser QSOs on 2m, all within minutes of each other, it was pretty intense!
I ended the day on a further high by going out with some Mountain Rescue friends to do a dog night search practice session in Kingsdale. The dogs found me. It feels pretty crazy just lying down on a hill in the dark, by yourself!
Thanks for that comment. I figure polarization’s biting my efforts to chase SSB and CW activations badly. My score’s still a very round Zero, entirely because I can’t readably copy the activator. My 2 metre antenna’s presently horizontal, and it takes a dry day and a couple of ladders to get to it, so polarization swaps aren’t that simple. Time to try and figure out an antenna system that can be swapped remotely…
I have been sceptical about the difference in the past, but for Andy’s signal there was a huge change - I guess the difference is more pronounced at very low signal levels. From what I see written on the reflector, some activators are looking to make the switch to horizontal polarisation in the coming, warmer, months. Working with portable beams in windy weather isn’t fun, so I can understand sticking with a vertical omni antenna for now.
I learned that the difference was real and large many years ago, when I worked a guy who could rotate his beam between horizontal and vertical, later this was confirmed when I worked a guy who had crossed yagis and a phasing setup that let him select horizontal, vertical and both senses of circular polarisation. I also worked a guy who had a motorised tilt on his array, this showed that a few degrees of tilt could increase the gain. Later I obtained a folding dipole for 2m on the end of a 50cm tube, wingnuts allowed the arms of the dipole to fold back on the tube, This was doubly useful for SOTA, besides easy to pack, I could use it horizontal with the tube slipped over the end of my roach pole or vertical with one arm slipped down the inside of the pole. In the early years of SOTA there was enough 2m SSB activity for me to change orientations and work new chasers.
My attitude is that there will be occasions where polarisation will be effected by reflections, but normally like to like polarisations will be almost essential. YMMV but that is my experience.
We could form a FT-817 activators club! Perhaps a Palm Pico club too. It’s good these old rigs are still doing the business [After Yaesu recently repaired the PA in my early-model 817 I will NEVER use an internal battery again let alone let it discharge torturing the final transistors for weeks until death as the Vcc drops lower and lower]
At this time of year quite a few activators – including me – are unwilling to mess around with a Yagi on a pole on every activation to participate in the 2026 Challenge. No doubt, come a warm, dry windless summer’s day – yes, we do get a few even in Cumbria – I’ll get the 4-element portable out. Until then I’m happy to get moderate dx on 2m SSB with a vertical (roll-up) J-pole. I was even a little surprised to work Andy @MM7MOX on The Wiss GM/SS-122, 125km away: good reports both ways with both of us on 5W and much stronger than nearby Mark @M5TEA and Colin @M1BUU. One of the many oddities of VHF radio. It shows what can often be achieved with QRP VHF SSB with simple vertical antennas.
Same here. Nothing on my 817 S-meter so I gave a subjective 5/1 [though some have written on this reflector that 5/1 is not possible, maybe 5/2 then]. The point is (as I wrote recently about another contact) I’m getting S0 noise (my perception as well as the S-meter) on 2m SSB so even very faint stations are completely readable, unlike HF where you usually hear some atmospheric noise.
The pleasure was all mine. It was good to work you and Mark on SSB and then again on CW. It was a useful comparison. I went on to do 30m CW but I have to say I enjoyed the 2m CW more, perhaps it’s the rarity factor.
All good fun especially with bright sunlight (at least for the first hour).
I would say yes. I’ve not seen an 818 ‘in the flesh’ but apart from a slightly shinier black paint finish, I understand the ‘look and feel’ is much the same as the 817, but no doubt with some minor design improvements.
I never use the loudspeaker on my KX2 but I am happy with the sound of the 817 LS both on SSB and CW.
I spent £1900 in a short period on a KX2 (new) and IC-705 (9mths old) and my Sporran was having palpitations, it couldn’t breath. I sold 2x 817, 300Hz CW and 500Hz CW filters for £975 to help the poor thing cope with the fiscal drag
I think you told me once you sold the much sought-after CW filter separately rather than bundled with the radio to yield more cash. I might leave similar instructions in my will assuming I don’t decide to have the 817 buried with me along side my broadsword, long bow and other grave goods.
Can I join too? I have a Pico in the limited edition fluro green and love it! Oddly enough I had it with me today on a POTA/WWFF twofer. I never got to use it though as I ran out of time on SSB (which I’ve not been on in ages).
Got an ATAS this week after being fed up with the bad weather and not being able to get out so much.
Gave it a first test run today on 40m (which worked perfectly, some nice 59 hops across to the UK as far across as Lincoln, whoever started that nonsense about the ATAS being a load of old pony on 40m is talking cobblers!) and 20m.
First QSO was over in Snowdonia, not a SOTA chase alas, a few more on 40 then over to 20. About 5 seconds in to it I got absolutely MUTILATED with an endless pile up. It had all the hallmarks of pile-up excellence in it. Italians destroying the ionosphere with 527 billion jigawatt stations, flattening anyone who dares stand in there way. EA stations competing in the power stakes so when Italy and Spain were jumping in after QRZ the noise was so loud it was 599+1 million it nearly blew the speaker on my 891. Lots of short and sweet Scandinavia QSO’s. Even got 59 over to New Hampshire, USA!
Dunno if anyone else has got this one but a hunter called me from a German radio club where I got 3 QSOs in one. A standard personal callsign of the ham, their club callsign aaand a special Winter Olympics callsign!
DD2026OWG is the special call if anyone is looking for that one.
The Pico stayed in it’s little travel case as I had to go QRT quite quickly to be somewhere else. I didn’t even get to chase any SOTA (which I always try to do) as the 45 mins I had to get in and out of there simply flew by.
57 QSO’s in 40 mins including the QSY from 40 to 20. The ATAS worked like an absolute champion and it is not mounted anywhere special, just the lip of an automatic boot on a Passat GTE Estate - note, there’s nowhere else to mount it, not with a K400 anyway.
Just thought to mention, while filling in my application form to join the Pico club!
Lovely stuff! The green is a great colour. I think it was made in collaboration with Hans to match the QMX apparently?
And is your ATAS a load of old pony on 40m? I bet you minus 57 Pesetas it isn’t!
I’ll be out at my favourite 145/433 Alive chase spot by the sea chasing some CW stations later tonight hopefully so will take a snap of my ATAS and Pico Green (the best colour!) for KYC application form purposes later on so!
It’s not the best antenna on 40m, but then you just got to look at the piece of wire in the air to see that. However, I’ve made plenty of contacts on it on 40m. Haven’t tried something like a POTA, that is definitely a good test.
I do however have a confirmed QSO with Roger ZL1XR on 17m at a distance of 18,107 km from the Lake District!
Oh undoubtedly. But there seems to be this big thing about it being the worst antenna in the entire world on 40m. Then all this stuff about grounding the car and so forth. Yes okay, but out of the box it just works. I’ll admit it does have a slightly higher SWR but it is still under 2 and nowhere near the chaos and blood curdling screams you hear YouTube hams going on about regarding the ATAS on 40.
After today’s test, I can confirm it works!
Dunno what was up with 20 today. Scanning the band it seemed to be lacking activity. I called CQ POTA/WWFF and just got battered to smithereens. It was like World War Z but being piled on by endless waves of hams!
Thankfully mopped up the pileup just as I had to go. Never seen anything like it (in my personal experience).
Was that 17m QSO on the ATAS? Very nice!
I’m hoping to get my first ever VK, ZL or JA contacts tonight. Fingers crossed. Will be on 100w SSB and 50w or 25w CW later if I can get out.
I have a Pico in the limited edition fluro green and love it! Oddly enough I had it with me today on a POTA/WWFF twofer. I never got to use it though as I ran out of time on SSB (which I’ve not been on in ages).
