I fancy the idea, but I’m not sure it will work from a local summit here in south Cumbria. It’s ~300km and not line of sight, so it would probably rely on tropospheric scattering mode of propagation.
Would you be using a (horizontally-polarized) Yagi? And what kind of RF power for SSB?
I rarely take my FT857 on portable ops but - for what I’ve read about T.S. mode SSB - it would probably need more power than my FT817’s 5W. Experts please comment.
Will need to check (with spouse) if I’m free Wednesday morning/lunchtime. My gear isn’t waterproof so the forecast mustn’t worsen from light rain. G/LD-050 is my likely summit.
Arghh, I will be up at the /A location in Northumberland, but with virtually zero chance (due to family restrictions, err… commitments) of getting out to work you, unless of course it is teeming it down. Even then I will probably be dragged to a suitable indoor retail ensemble to be bored absolutely rigid. Deep joy.
Yes, I’m suspicious of these results for 250-300km. I wonder if some of these L-o-S models are not taking the Earth’s curvature into account (because they’re intended for relatively short distances between base station and mobile unit). For longer inter-station distances (100’s of km), one finds (using the proper equation) – even with no intervening hills, e.g. across the sea - that to maintain L-o-S one or both stations need to be on impossibly-high mountains.
The good news is, tropospheric scattering (troposcatter, for short) – not tropo-ducting - is a weather-independent 24/7 mode provided you can point your (H-pol) Yagi at a very low angle just above the horizon and your remote station does likewise [usually no problem for S2S QSOs]. Apparently, the amount of RF energy in the ‘shared volume’ is small hence the need (usually) for higher Tx power.
It seems that Google didn’t know best. This looks a bit more realistic so not LOS unless I manage a 900m mast… Better hope for some tropo, but just expecting just rain scatter…
Just put up an alert for Blencathra (G/LD-008) as the wx is looking good. As I don’t seem to be able to find my spare 900m mast fingers crossed for a lift to get a S2S on 2m. 73. Paul