VHF Experimenting and WWFF/ECA Activating

Years ago I made a roll up J-Pole antenna for 2m. I had never used this one in particular as it was a spare for a kit I was going to make (I never did). I recently, however, got a storage bin to keep some radio bits and bobs in my car so I don't need to keep them rolling around in the boot or lugging them in and out of the house whenever I want to operate. I figured that it was the perfect place for this antenna. Saturday morning I took my youngest with me to Thetford Warren Lodge to test out a 6m rubber duck antenna and this J-Pole. The lodge is an English Castles reference and within a World Wide Flora and Fauna reference. I had no luck on 6m but was not surprised with 6 watts and a rubber duck antenna. I hoisted up the J-Pole on my Sotabeams mast and managed 5 contacts on 2m simplex. I even checked into my club net using it and I usually can't get into the repeater from this area. Height is might. I logged the contacts for the 2 programs and packed up.

There was another question on my mind now: how will the results differ from FM to DSTAR? I regularly make contact with G4WXN while local as he lives in my town so we scheduled some time to experiment. I returned Thetford Warren Lodge with the roll up J-Pole, Sotabeams mast and linked dipole (more on that later). Being at the lodge, I wasn't sure how well Derek and I would make contact on simplex at all, but we gave it a go.

First on FM, we tried with my rubber duck 2m antenna... no issues but weak signal report. I switched to the J-Pole and was given 59+ with the 5 watt ID-51. We decided to check out DSTAR and see how well that would work. There was a little bit of dropout on the rubber duck antenna, but true to expectations, 59+ on the J-Pole. We did give UHF a go with the rubber duck, J-Pole, FM, and DSTAR back and forth but no luck. Of note: on UHF, I did hear Derek well enough on the rubber duck but he did not hear me.

With my experimenting over, I hoisted up my 20/40 linked dipole and started on 40m CW. It is no secret that CW is my favorite mode, and with the FT-818's low power, it really punches through. I operated for about 20 minutes and suddenly I was getting jammed. Someone was holding the dah paddle continuously with a 59+ signal. This continued for more than 10 minutes and could not make a contact. I moved up 6 kHz and in another 20 minutes I netted 10 more. Not bad for QRP.

I had heard from M0MJA that 20m was holding up well so I switched to 20m CW. I managed 14 contacts in 15 minutes which is wild because QSOs take longer on CW so I was pretty excited. I often hear that I should try SSB more, so I switched to sideband and in just 8 minutes I bagged 12 contacts with 2 from North America. Bob was right! 20m was doing very well! Unfortunately, time was not on my side and I had to pack up for the day.

From the 2 days, to include my experimenting, I logged 59 contacts. It had been some time since I had used my dipole antenna and had forgotten how well it really works. With the 5 watts of power, it worked incredibly well on both CW and SSB. This was ECA Winter Activation number 10 for me so I'm glad to have gotten another one!

de M0NZZ

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