AmateurRadio.com

Someone – ‘G7 in Northampton’ – just posted a comment to an old post asking where I got my DVAP. I can’t see where your comment has gone! Anyway…

I got my DVAP through HRO in Atlanta in the US. However, they are now available in the UK and I have heard that Waters and Stanton, Martin Lynch and RadioWorld have all had stocks – quite likely other stockists too.

Hope that helps…

The hills are alive with the sound of “CQ SOTA” and “CQ WOTA”. These two adventure radio programmes are becoming so popular that anyone trying to make contacts from a hilltop this last weekend on 2m FM had trouble finding a clear frequency. The sight of radio amateurs on mountain summits is becoming so commonplace that soon it will be the ones without radios getting the funny looks.

On Sunday morning Olga said to me “You should go for a walk”. Needing no further encouragement, I tossed the VX-8GR and a few bits and pieces into my rucksack and off I went. I parked at Thornthwaite near the old Swan Hotel and made my way up through the forestry roads to the minor summit of Barf. I didn’t go up by the direct path from opposite the Swan as it is very steep and slippery – I came down that way once a few years ago and it was enough for me.

On the way up I had a contact with top Wainwrights activator Phil, G4OBK/P on the summit of Brandreth. Phil is well on his way to completing the challenge of activating all 214 Wainwright summits in the English Lake District within two years and reached the half way mark this weekend. Visit Phil’s Wainwrights blog if you get a chance.

Shortly after contacting Phil I saw two ospreys circling over Bassenthwaite Lake and calling to each other with their high-pitched cry. I stopped and took the picture shown above of the view towards Keswick. About ten minutes later a small red deer came out of the forest about 100m ahead of me and trotted into the distance. Perfect!

It was cool but humid, but the misty weather creates a special atmosphere in the forest that is very pleasant. However once on the top of Barf a drying breeze was experienced. I made another contact with Phil, who was now en route for Great Gable, so he could tick Barf off on his “worked” list, and made another contact with Geoff GM4WHA. I also received an APRS message from Colin 2E0XSD, who unfortunately couldn’t hear me direct due to the amount of rock between us.

I then set off for the higher summit of Lords Seat, which I reached in about half an hour, where I stopped and had my lunch. By then Phil had reached Great Gable so we had a summit-to-summit contact. I made numerous other contacts, including Geoff and Colin and a couple people on SOTA summits outside the Lake District. I received a lot of comments about wind noise in the microphone, despite trying to shield the radio with both hands. The VX-8GR is the only one of my 2m hand-helds not to have a speaker mic, due to the fact that the only option is the expensive original Yaesu version. I should probably carry the VX-8GR just for the APRS and take the Motorola GP300 for voice contacts.

Simon, M3IWN/P called CQ from the top of Scafell Pike in the Lake District, which is England’s highest mountain. He was doing a SOTA activation and had a beam antenna with him. On a clear day I could probably see his summit from where I was, but he had so many callers that after 10 minutes of trying he still hadn’t heard me. I decided to move to another frequency and make some contacts of my own, checking back on Simon’s frequency now and again until eventually he got my call and we had a contact. At the time I worked him Simon had filled two and a half log pages with contacts including several summit to summits.

The QRM up there had to be heard to be believed. I was only using a 2m helical. The VX-8GR receiver tends to die in the presence of strong signals and I have heard strange things when using anything better than the stock antenna. Another reason for taking the Motorola, which has a better receiver. First, though, I will need to reprogram it to cover 145.300MHz, the frequency Phil likes to use on his activations.

Over the weekend I think something like 20 Wainwright summits were activated by around half a dozen different operators. Scafell Pike was actually activated twice on Sunday! Later in the afternoon after Simon had left I saw a spot had been posted for another station on the same summit.

I returned to the car via the forestry roads for a very pleasant walk with a lot of radio fun as well. If you want to join in, come to the English Lake District on a summer weekend – you won’t regret it!

My weekend is wrapping itself up and NAQP CW delivered a lot of ham
radio fun. I’m also grateful for the friendships that follow our
hobby. Whatever one’s passion there is another who shares the same
albeit RadioSport or chasing DX or logging grid squares on 2 meters
when the ‘e’ goes plasmic on very high frequency.

I had fun this weekend sitting in front of a high frequency
transceiver pumping radio frequency toward destinations unknown. A
local ham opened his station for guest operation and my cans jumped to
the next level when monoband antennas surfed some serious radio waves.
It felt tubular and hang ten like while Q after Q went into N1MM
Logger.

Sometimes I wonder if ham radio forgets to emphasize friendship from
across the miles. I enjoyed making new friends this weekend especially
when a QRP operator in Texas mentions in his e-QSL, “Good ears. I
enjoy reading your blog.”

I want to say you are welcome and it is my pleasure sharing a personal
journal about ham radio. Our hobby is not for everyone that is okay. I
would like one Texan QRP operator committed to their passion instead
of ten Paris Hilton types committed to nothing other than nothing.
What will those new numbers translate into over the next five years?

It was great to meet with Dave, G4BUO last night. Though we have pretty regular QSOs in various contests, it was ages since we had met up for a beer and a chat, and very enjoyable it was.

Dave had been part of the UK team, with Andy, G4PIQ who’d achieved a brilliant 9th place in the recent World Radiosport Team Championship (WRTC) held in Moscow. It was interesting to hear how they’d achieved such a high QSO total in the contest, by using two radios on one aerial, with some fancy switchgear, allowing them to ‘interleave’ QSOs, ie one person transmitting whilst the other one was listening. Clever stuff.

As always, propagation varies from the different part of the world and the Great Circle paths took a bit of getting used to; UK is west, France and Germany is southwest and so on.

Temperature at their field day site was extremely hot, rising to around 38C at time, but the winds got high as well, with the tent almost blowing overnight; it being held down by the support team and referee whilst Dave and Andy kept on operating.

The heart of ham radio beats strong and the next level awaits. The
North American QSO Party CW is less than 24 hours away when operators
will compete for Box positions. Our high frequency spectrum will
ignite with signals juiced by the awesome power of solar Cycle Twenty
Four. The competive spirit of RadioSport underpinned by good
sportsmanship will certainly drive the beginning of our fall and
winter season.

There is something to be said about being in the right place at the right time.

I logged a station in Mexico this afternoon on 10m and it is a first
since my re-entry into ham radio. The numbers are steadily improving
with glimpses of epic high frequency conditions. I’d like at least one
of those memorable events worthy of three cups of Starbucks and better
than the best fish story. Perhaps?

Strategy is straightforward that is be in the right place at the right
time. I’m looking forward to moving to the next level and having a lot
of ham radio fun through Saturday evening. Also, the biggest secret in
RadioSport that does not require a non-disclosure statement is, call
CQ a lot.

73 from the anywhere, anytime shack.

Dan, KB6NU, often claims that he has the #1 ham radio blog because it tops the Google search results for “ham radio blog”. Today he posted a review of the top ham radio blogs according to Google. I was disappointed to find that mine wasn’t even mentioned.

I ran the search myself and found that Dan’s blog came third, while G4ILO’s Shack came right after it. I guess Dan didn’t mention it because the result wasn’t a blog. Curiously, my actual blog doesn’t appear as a search result in its own right at all, at least I hadn’t seen it by the time I got bored paging through the results. Google moves in mysterious ways. I wish I understood it, especially as my entire living depends on the fact that I own a website that ranks #1 for several quite profitable key phrases. The fact that this is completely out of my control gives me sleepless nights sometimes.

While I was trying various searches to see if my blog appeared I stumbled across a site called Biznut, which values G4ILO’s Shack at £23,517.27 – considerably more than the value of the contents of my actual shack! I don’t know how Biznut comes to that conclusion, but if anyone wants to pay me that they are welcome to the site. I’ll even knock off the £17.27!

Who rode the storm to destinations unknown? I was surprised when Cycle
24 decided to awaken its fury for benefit of some and the
consternation of a few. The coronal mass ejection was enough of a
sensation that it snatched a few brief minutes on the nightly news.

However, ham radio operators surfed some of the best VHF conditions
yet seen much like a powerful southern hemi arriving along the central
coast of California.

I called Fred, KI6QDH and he was stoked because 10m delivered point
break like surf with strong signals arriving from the midwest. VHFDX
was lit up east of the great propagation divide and why so? I wonder
what factors contribute to this difference between west and east coast
propagation? The ‘e’ MUF map intensified across the south while barely
a flicker was seen in the south west.

The storm raged above yet I could only look at the map while the magic
band went aggro for a day. It was one to remember for riders on the
storm.

73 from the anywhere, anytime shack.