Would you like to expand on that?
If my rig is wide deviation and yours is narrow then I’d expect:
This might explain why some of my chasers occasionally complain my audio is weak - their rig is set to wide deviation and my rig is TXing narrow FM.
it’s only a problem if a signal received has a wider bandwidth requirement than the receiver, then you get distortion or worse, the mute closes on deviation peaks. That’s something we got with the converted car phones transmitting to narrow bandwidth receivers on more modern rigs, mind you this was in the 60s… the adjustment procedure for setting deviation was to monitor the limiter current in the first IF amp, while the transmitter was adjusted by winding the tx deviation up until the grid current in IF amplifier 1 of the receiver started to drop on voice peaks. Try doing that with your modern radios, seriously deficient…. Receiver and transmitter have to be on opposite sides of the city of course making it a 30 minute operation, with all the helpful comments from those listening in. My misspent youth comes to mind. I modified a lot of commercial valved radios for 146fm.
Well that’s an interesting point. I know my VX170 handy can be set to narrow TX deviation for 12.5kHz channel spacing. But I never knew it doesn’t narrow the IF bandwidth which means 2 things, poorer adjacent channel performance and quieter audio. Yaesu dudes do have some clue because it automatically increases the audio volume to make up for the quieter audio levels of narrow deviation signals in a wide bandwidth filter when FM-N is selected. I never use it set to narrow.
I’d never considered what my IC705 would do. I have just spent 30mins scouring the basic and advance manuals and gave up and rang Icom. Took them under a minute to come back and say you can control the TX deviation by selecting the different IF filters. And there it is on page 4-5 in the basic manual, select either of the narrower filters and the deviation is reduced. So it does a better job of supporting 12.5kHz than the simple handheld. Hey it’s 15x the price of a VX170 so it should 
However, I don’t care. Life is too short for me to worry about people using 12.5kHz channels on 2m when the band occupancy is so very low. If they get disturbed they can pick another 12.5kHz channel! Hey they have twice as many as me to pick from so there must be something clear for them. And anyone who uses 145.4875/145.5125kHz in the UK (first 12.5 spaced channel down/up from 145.500 calling channel) deserves all the QRM they’ll get for having zero operating clue 
That is true most of the time. I have been on a SOTA activation where it was really difficult to find a clear channel and so 12.5kHz was necessary. It probably only happens when 145 Alive coincides with a lift.
Back in the 80s it was often really difficult to find a clear 25kHz channel. I left the hobby about 1990 when 12.5kHz channels were being talked about. Not sure when they actually came in and equipment was suitable. Having coming back to the hobby in 2017 the extra channels aren’t really needed much.
I envy you! There wasn’t too much overall activity on the last 145alive but I was on Burnhope Seat which has a poor take off and horizon for VHF.
I agree with what it was like, from 1990 to 1998 2m was busy when I lived on The Wirral. But as dialup internet took off from 1998 onwards you could see activity start drop off. The coup de grâce was CW free access to HF in 2003 when the VHF bands were abandoned with indecent haste.
I’ve downloaded the TR-2300 service manual and will give the TX stages a coat of looking-at as the TX power is a bit low at 800mW.
Call me an old cynic but I think the alleged benefit of introducing 12.5kHz FM channel spacing and narrow deviation (i.e. to double the number of FM channels) was largely for radio manufacturers as we were forced to scrap our perfectly-good 25-kHz/WD-only HTs for their new, shiny and more expensive ones.
I find it hard to believe that even with 2m events like 145alive that the approx. sixteen 25-kHz channels of the old band plan would not have been enough for there to have been some unoccupied channels in any one region.
You’re an old cynic.
As I said above, back in the 1980s it was often difficult to find a free channel so introducing 12.5kHz channels made sense.
That is what I have, Kenwood TH-28 is what I had my SOTA activity started with few years back. Now proudly sitting on a shelf, but still works as new and can be taken out in a Field when desired! The main beauty of it is that it can run as low as 20mW. On the background is my main FT-1000 HF rig.
While not exactly “old” for most of us, being over 30 years old those two perhaps qualifies to be at least named
I wear the badge proudly.
That’s the irony. As Andy (and others like Brian @G8ADD and I in the past) have pointed out, back then - before the abandonment of the Morse test - Class B licensees like me could not use the HF bands which is why on average 2m was busier then (and not just FM mode).
Since then many more amateurs have deserted VHF/UHF for easier hanging fruit on the HF bands - so we don’t need 12.5kHz channels any more - we have merely doubled the acres of silence 24/7.
And have you noticed all those 2m/70cm repeaters sending out their lonely ID calls every 15 minutes 24/7? Average utilisation must be less than 0.01%
Back in the 80s it was often hard to find a clear channel for SSB, let alone FM! Some of the local FM operators felt driven to operate at the top of the CW band and complained bitterly when SSB at the bottom of the SSB allocation crept past their wide filters! Its difficult to believe now, when often all that is happening on 2m is repeater IDs, but in those days the band was a mass of signals from end to end even in the absense of a lift, and if there was an opening you needed a good beam but not for the gain, just for its narrowness. Mind you, QRM on 7 MHz when it was only 100 kHz wide was beyond belief!
Another aspect of deviation became evident when Paul G4MD and myself activated the Orkney summits back in 2012. I took my old Standard C520 with me in case I needed quick contacts. It soon proved to be useless on the Orkney repeater as the deviation was too wide for the repeater. Most of the locals could hear me okay simplex, but I was unable to solicit contacts by calling on the repeater and I resorted to using my FT-817 instead.
More recently, during the group activation of Upper Park GW/MW-032 my Standard C710 was noted to have very loud audio, but I’ve never had any issues using this rig on 2m, 70cm or 23cm. Maybe it’s just my DX voice honed by many years of 2m SSB operating.
I know this repeater talk is sort of off the topic of SOTA but I’ll agree that the activity is really poor these days compared to a few years back. All VHF activity in this Northern California area is way down.
Nobody on SSB/CW/FM repeaters worth mentioning. It’s really sad.
I guess the SOTA activators in major population areas get enough VHF FM QSOs to count, but away from there it’s pretty slim pickins.
73,
John, K6YK
John,
As mentioned by others the activity on VHF and UHF fell off a cliff when code free licences for HF became available. Many of the VHF dxers seem to be running FT8 on the higher HF bands. Several of the diehard SSB VHF and up operators I used to work regularly are now SK.
The Sunspot numbers are crashing and propagation is dropping off on HF so maybe a few will come back to VHF. I see a report of an SSB 2 m contact this morning of 700+ km on AE. Good to see.
73
Ron
VK3AFW.
Dusting off his FT75 tcvr.
I got my original TEN-TEC Argosy 525 (analogue readout, SN #99) in early 1981 when they were first advertised. The digital model (525D) came out some time later. Don’t remember when the ii version appeared.
That’s probably the oldest rig I have left, since I sold by Argonaut 505 and HW-8 a few years back. I could drag it out for the occasion, or see what I could borrow from a friend’s substantial collection of older equipment. If we use a separate transmitter and receiver, do we get to add the ages together?
Unfortunately, my FT-290 display has died…thought I’d mention it in case anyone has a working spare!!
I’ve done a few SOTA activations with my PRC-2000, which which dates back to sometime before 1982, as that’s when I ‘acquired’ it. It weighs 8kg before you put a battery in it or carry anything else but it’s been up a few Welsh 8-pointers 
Goodness me, that’s almost an anvil. I thought dragging a Pye Cambridge AM10D weighing a mere 4.8kg up Kinder Scout was enough. Oh… I forgot about the 34AH lead acid battery. 
Does anyone market an all-terrain weelbarrow?
I built a JBS tx by GM3OXX and a sudden rx by G3RJV which I used in Snowdonia before SOTA started, I’ll have to dig it out and see if it still works!
I request you add more year intervals. My station is 90 years old … 1929 breadboard Hartley oscillator with type 10 tube and 1933 National FB-7 receiver with matching preselector and dog-house power supply. The 2m HT is a VHF-144 from 1959, with 4 crystal channels, all a bit off-freq.
Elliott, K6EL
Brian,
Search for Quad Bikes. 4WD ones are used on farms.
73
Ron
VK3AFW
