Weston Rally and Worlebury Fort SOTA chase
Matt 2E0FNT and I went to Weston Rally, we met some other radio amateurs, this time neither of us bought anything. I was tempted by a vacuum capacitor, but I couldn’t determine its value and there was a lot of signs of arcing.
After a coffee we took the opportunity to visit the local HEMA site Weston Woods/Worlebury Hill.
HEMA fail, SOTA win
The AZ is quite large and includes the fort, about 1km away from the commercial radio masts. However, we failed dismally to raise anyone on the calling channel, but were monitoring and heard Matt MW0JSB/P on Cefn yr Ystrad SOTA summit GW/SW-008 on the Brecon Beacons, so we worked Matt, me with the FT3DE and rubber duck and Matt 2E0FNT used his Anytone 878 handheld also with the rubber duck.
Matt MW0JSB/P’s QSO with Matt, 2E0FNT/P/ Recorded on the FT3DE with the stock rubber duck antenna.
2E0FNT’s signal was a lot stronger than mine because I used a memory location for the calling channel at 5W, but flipped over to VFO to move to 145.525. I hadn’t realised that the VFO had its own memory for power setting, which was set on the lowest setting of 300mW. The FT3DE has a touchscreen interface which is too slow to adjust that sort of thing mid-QSO, so I was received at a 52 signal report as opposed to 2E0FNT’s 58. Note to self: firstly engage the VFO mode for calling and responding to SOTA stations in the first place, and secondly never buy another touchscreen handheld ;) Touchscreen is fine on a base rig perhaps, but no good at all on a handheld outdoors.
We had called out with the flowerpot antenna raised on some tent poles, and the lack of success made us wonder if the location wasn’t great for some reason, either due to blocking from the commercial radio mast which is 1km east or due to the trees.
Using the FT3DE stock rubber duck I copied MW0JSB in QSOs with G4FKI/M GW4ZYG and G4TCI, and 2E0FNT with the flowerpot antenna copied a couple more stations, so there’s nothing that much wrong with the location - indeed my QSO with MW0JSB/P was 34 miles on 0.3W FM using the stock rubber duck antenna.
So the site is OK, and perhaps the reason for the HEMA fail is that other amateurs were having their Sunday lunch or at the rally ;)
Operating position. Zoom out for Cefn yr Ystrad.