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Spring is finally making an appearance in the Rocky Mountain region which means it is time to get on top of some SOTA peaks and transmit some RF energy. On Saturday, Joyce K0JJW and I had planned to drive through the Big Thompson Canyon to Estes Park and also sneak in a quick SOTA activation. Matt K0MOS suggested a few peaks and we chose Prospect Mountain (W0C/FR-069) just south of Estes Park. See Matt’s trip report for a good overview of the hike.

For a low hassle SOTA activation, I usually just take my Yaesu FT-60 handheld radio and operate 2m FM. Most of the VHF activity is on FM anyway and I usually rustle up some SOTA contacts that way. On this trip, I also brought along my Yaesu FT-817 so that I could operate 2m ssb, to provide better weak signal options.  For SSB operation, my 3-element Arrow yagi antenna was mounted on my walking stick for easier pointing, with horizontal polarization.

The above photo shows the FT-817 in its Sitting-On-A-Big-Rock operating position, using the AMP-3 carrying case with lead-acid battery inside.

I had arranged a sked with Stu W0STU who was located ~100 miles away with a group of Scouts at Peaceful Valley Scout Ranch. There wasn’t a solid radio path between our two locations, so I wasn’t sure if we’d make it or not. I did not think we could make the contact on FM but the efficiency of SSB should do better. He had a small yagi pointed in my direction driven by an FT-857 transceiver but we tried working on 144.200 MHz SSB without any success. Another station W6LEV near Loveland came up on the calling frequency so I worked him.

After working a few stations on 146.52 MHz using a half-wave whip on the FT-60, I decided to try to work W0STU one more time. I sent him a text message and confirmed that he was available. However, snow was moving into his location (welcome to spring) so  he had dismantled his yagi antenna and only had a vertical antenna on his truck. I told him to give me a call on 144.200 SSB and I’d try to find him. I flipped my yagi to vertical polarization and pointed in his direction.

At first, I heard nothing but noise. I was about to give up when I rotated my antenna around to see if the signal peaked up in another direction. Sure enough, when pointed S/SW, I could hear Stu’s signal rise to just above my noise floor. His actual direction from me was SE, so we were probably getting a reflection off one of the mountains to the south.  My signal was right at his noise floor, so we just barely completed a contact. Without the weak-signal performance of SSB and the gain of the yagi antenna, I am sure we would have never completed the contact. Another lesson is that it pays to point your antenna in different directions, since you don’t always know what the best propagation path will be.

Another fun day messing around with ham radio.

73, Bob K0NR

WSPR tonight. Best DX was EW1LN 1514 km. With QRP CW I worked YO7AHR and EA2CW/P sota station on 20 meter.

It seems to be a while since I stopped and wrote something here.

The simple satellite operation on VO-52 and FO-29, using the FT847, diplexer and the V2000 vertical continues. On VO-52 in particular, I have been surprised how well it works and have made a fair few QSOs, mostly on CW. Some passes are better than others, depending on the direction of the satellite and the vertical nulls of the antenna. I was interested to get decent signals through VO-52 the other day as it was over Greenland and the footprint of the satellite covered VE1 and W1 – so perhaps I may manage a QSO into North America when the time is right.

FO-29 tends to be a bit harder – just in terms of finding my downlink signal – again it depends where the satellite is, but I’ve managed a few contacts now, which is very pleasing indeed.

Nice to work GS3PYE/P – the Camb-Hams expedition to Lewis (IO68) on SO-50 this evening. I ventured out into the garden with the UV-5R and the Elk.

I’ve missed them both, but there have been at least a couple of Es openings on 50MHz. Earlier in the week, Ron ZB2B emailled to say that he had worked some stations in G, GW and EI in an Es opening and it looks like the band was nicely open yesterday morning (we were out, cleaning the local village church!).

Finally, apparently, this is my 1000th post to this blog. I enjoy writing it – and sometimes, enjoy looking back a few years to see what I was playing with then. It’s interesting to see how things change. Thank you to YOU, though, for reading it!

After a few more weeks of not getting on the air I managed to man handle the portable Hexbeam up to about 4 above ground level (Note: must get that tilt base sorted out) to compare it against the Cobwebb I have in the loft.

So before we go down the ‘It’s not scientific’ route. I’m ok with that, no big deal its just a bit of fun.

There are some significant differences between the two antennas that I hadn’t fully appreciated. Firstly the noise levels on the Cobwebb were quite a bit higher, which seemed to make the Hexbeam sound quiet, when in actual fact there was no significant difference on the higher bands when it comes to S points. But, the lower noise levels made it much nicer to use. The image below shows what I mean. There is a band of ‘mush’ slap bang in the middle where I switched onto the Cobwebb. Just so you know, the Cobwebb was way quieter than the vertical I had before.

It’s not a huge visual difference on the screen but the ears make it obvious. The gain on the Hexbeam made it easy to make contacts with C06LA answering on the first call, I’d never expect that on the Cobwebb.

You can also see that the signal strength is fairly similar, that was W4UH calling CQ.

So not much in it when the Hexbeam is really low, I’m sure it’ll beat the pants off the Cobwebb at 12m but interesting to see that the Cobwebb is ‘noisier’. Especially as I thought it was quite a quiet antenna.

Ok so not a radio related blog entry but its worth sharing anyway.

I have for the first time ever now joined the super fast broadband club. Using BT infinity2 I have for the first time broken through the “Up to” 16Mb/s download and jumped straight up to 76Mb/s download.

For the uninitiated this is accomplished by only installing Fibre cable to the nearest cabinet and then the existing copper to the house. The is known as FTTC. (Fibre To The Cabinet). and going forward its quite possibly the only large scale Fibre Optic roll out we will see in the UK. placing Fibre Optic to the home (FTTP – Fibre To The Property) is prohibitively expensive and the last large scale roll out nearly bankrupted NTL.

So how is it ? well to be honest I haven’t really noticed any difference browsing the web. But I have noticed a massive difference when everyone is using a piece of the internet connection. the upload speed has made a massive difference too. Being able to upload videos to YouTube and also working with files (day job) and placing them on remote servers is now much quicker.

The actual speeds I’m getting are not that different to the advertised connection – That being 76Mbs down and 19Mbs up. have a look at the before and after speed tests.