So I half-assed trying to participate in the VHF weekend.
I didn’t try to ham it up yesterday since we went hiking for a good part of the day and I thought hanging out with my fam was better than hamming it up.
Today on my Icom 7100 in my shack, I monitored 144.200 USB which is connected to my dual band antenna in the attic (vertical polarization) and was able to hear several contest QSOs on that. I think people were doing SSB on their vertical antennas, not necessarily reorienting them horizontally.
I made an FT8 contact on 2 meters which was awesome as well!
I also assembled my Arrow Antennas 3 element 2m Yagi and used it for the very first time. That was hooked up to my Icom 705. I had a contest QSO with aa0rs. Yes, 1 letter off from my call sign!
It was a little tiring holding up the Yagi and pointing it every 45 degrees both horizontally and vertically. I noticed again that signals from in my house came in better with vertical polarization.
Then I took my Icom 705 outside. It was chilly but I was able to kind of hear people on 2 meters trying to communicate. My position against the mountains isn’t necessarily great. When the clouds came over and I got chillier in my south facing deck, I realized I was unprepared to be outside – for several reasons.
I should have a jacket and a hot mug of tea to keep warm.
My gear was sitting on a dirty metal table. Now I understand why people have go boxes for even the smallest HT – because you can’t always control what your gear is going to be sitting on. If I was on a peak (which I thought to do), I could be sitting in snow, rocks, mud, or in a tree. Who knows.
I also need to up my connector game and commit to a connector type. I’m not really understanding the hype around the overpriced Anderson Power Poles. I keep thinking one day a light will go off in my head and I’ll see how they’re justified in their cost over more “traditional” connectors like SAE bullet-type connectors on my motorcycle stuff. Maybe I should just buy some cheaper Chinese knockoffs to see if I would like to join the bandwagon since there are other accessories for ham that only seem to come in PowerPole ends.
Finally, I need to buy some more BNC adaptors or cables so that I can use them on my 705 in places where PL-259/SO-239 is the native connector. Basically be able to connect my 705 full time to its own antenna system. I have several 49:1’s – at least one of which I can dedicate to the 705.
I really need to make a kit that is dedicated to my QRP 705 instead of trying to intermingle my QRO Icom 7100 and Kenwood 200w TS-180 rigs with it. Hmmm. Exciting. Mag loop?
Perhaps I should check out the Harbor Freight Pelican knock-off to make a good portable backard/sota/pota 705/HT setup. What am I thinking? I have a ton of outdoors backpacks that I’m sure I can wrangle camera compartment separators into to make a walkable man-pack that doesn’t make me look like an EMCOMM guy.
73,
ae0rs
