It’s been a few weeks since my last activation and I wanted to go out. I didn’t have much time as I was meant to be sorting out the garage, so I picked a summit close to home, Cairn-Mon-Earn (GM/ES-080).

It’s quite an easy walk following the loggers roads up to the summit. There are multiple towers there for mobile phones and other networks. The local repeater, GB3GN, is also here. The weather was dry, and I had the occasional blue sky, but showers were forecasted.

It was windy too, so I hunkered down by the cairn, however, this probably wasn’t the best place being so close to the towers. I setup my slim G 2m on the mast and called CQ. I didn’t get any response so setup on HF. The ground slopes away with heather and bushes, so I decided just to go for the random wire vertical. It has a 5.5m radiator and 2 counterpoises. I started on 20m, and two stations replied, Spain and Finland. This turned out to be my lot on HF. I tried other bands and calling other stations but no one could hear me. It was a shame as there were several other summits I could hear.

I managed to get MM0EFI on the HT, and so I was at 3 contacts. A SOTA summit needs 4 to activate. It had been about an hour and the rain started to come down heavily. I dashed across to some nearby trees and setup underneath one of them. After trying all the bands I came back to 20m, put out another spot and the same Spanish station came back to me…well at least I knew it wasn’t operator error with the radio or antenna!

This was meant to be a quick activation and I’d now been there for over and hour, and so decided to pack up HF. I could see the TV mast in the clouds and so walked over to get a better look. I then found what would be a great spot to activate (if it wasn’t raining) as it had clear views all around. I thought I might as well call on 2m and see if I could get anyone.

I spoke to Fraser again, MM0EFI, now /M as he was driving to work. We made a contact with his intermediate callsign, 2M0EFI/M, so technically I’d activated the site. However, I was determined to get four different people, and in my next CQ, George, MM0SAX/M, replied.

George was driving up from Glasgow on the A90 and has a radio in his work van. We had a nice chat for about 15 minutes, and that turned my “this has been a waste of time ” attitude into a “that wasn’t so bad ” one!

I enjoy HF and setting up different antenna, but if I could reliably activate with just 2m/70cm I’d love to go up the hillside with just my HT.

It was back down and back home. The kids were soon home from school and the garage didn’t get sorted out. I’ll try again next week…

Bernie, ZS4TX reports that a new 144 MHz beacon has started in South Africa to investigate the possibility of Trans-Equatorial Propagation (TEP) to the Mediterranean and Europe.

Bernie, ZS4TX writes... "New ZS Beacon for 2M TEP tests in April from KG33XU. ZS6RVC has started a 25W beacon on 2M with a 14 element yagi 20M high on a mountain site with a clear shot to EU.

Analysis... As the 144 MHz signals are likely to cross the Geomagnetic Equator at right angles (90 deg), the most likely area for reception of this beacon is probably going to be the eastern half of the Mediterranean.

Back in 1981, there was a TEP opening on 144 MHz from this part of South Africa to the Athens area in Greece so it may be possible again.

My previous attempt ended with just listening to the astronaut, and whilst fun, it wasn’t what I was actually meant to be doing. I’ve since read the manual and, mostly, figured out the D72. As the radio is quite old there is both lots of info online and also a lack of it, depending on where you like looking. By that I mean there’s info in email lists but virtually nothing on YouTube! Anyway, with combination of the manual and the Kenwood TH-D72 groups.io, I’ve worked out the essentials.

The summary of it all is, you must transmit from VFO B and receive on VFO A, and you have to enable DUP mode through the F(function) button and 0 (zero).

I’ve got Gpredict on my computer and also ISS Detector app (with the amateur satellites extra) so it was easy to see what was coming up when I had a bit of time this past weekend. Next up was SO-50. My radio already had frequencies stored for SO-50, so I felt confident that I could do this. I keep meaning to add frequencies for most of the FM satellites but I’ve not got round to it yet.

I realise I never took any pictures of my setup, mostly as I had about 8 minutes before the satellite started its pass, so I was in a hurry. The equipment is the D72 radio, my Sony voice recorder, the Arrow antenna and a rats nest of cables. I wanted to record the audio on the voice recorder, I also wanted to use headphones. The D72 has a 2.5mm headphone socket and I don’t have a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adapter. However, the fist mic has a 3.5mm headphone out on it, and so I had that plugged into the side, the splitter out the mic with cables to the recorder and my headphones. Phew, what a mess.

I did find it hard to figure out how to do everything at once. I was using my phone to try and see where the satellite was, I was holding the arrow yagi, I had the radio in my pocket, but also needed to hold the mic, had the voice recorder in my other pocket and headphones on my head.

Like most people, I only have two hands so I was juggling between everything and couldn’t find a good process, and struggled to track the satellite very well. I did eventually copy some calls and QSOs on the satellite for a brief period during its 14 minute pass. I’ve edited my recording to just the best parts.

At one point I had a lovely clear copy on OH1ON calling, but then it degraded into static and I was only getting weak signals as I mis-aimed the yagi.

A call I heard was G6UST, and looking at his QRZ page was interesting from satellite tracking. He has a nice picture of a homebrew tracker with PVC pipe and yagis mounted at an angle. Although looks like he’s moved on since then to a lovely G-5500 az/el rotator.

Overall some progress, but lots of room for improvements. Even though I didn’t transmit, I am thinking about how I manage the VFOs and changing frequency to manage doppler on the 70cm side. This means I’ll have to press buttons on the radio to do so, and that’s not feeling very practical with the fist mic. One option is to skip the mic, get a 2.5 to 3.5mm adapter for the headphones and use the PTT on the radio. This keeps it in my hand and then I can hit the A/B and up/down to manage the frequencies using the memories. Alternatively, Kenwood make a mic with three buttons on the top, the SMC-34, and you can use MCP-4A program to set these buttons. The idea being I can hit A/B, then press up or down, and A/B again ready for transmitting, or just up and down depending on what link 70cms is on.

The other factor is seeing where the satellite is. The ISS detector app has the AR mode, but I don’t have a hand left to use it. Thinking either mounting the phone to the arrow antenna, or mounting the antenna on a tripod, and maybe still mounting the phone to the antenna. The tripod also saves me having to hold the antenna the whole time. It is quite light but be nice not to have to hold it, plus it’s better at keeping still than I am.

So a few more improvements and plenty of practice needed. Not sure when I’ll next get out to try, and the weather doesn’t help. Still interested in building a rotator for satellite work, with elevation as well. Trying to avoid having to buy a G-5500 or equivalent as they’re very expensive, even used. They’ve been kits over time but they’ve all stopped and probably something like the SatNOGS rotator is a good build but it’s quite involved for me, plus a lot of 3D printed parts. It would be nice to set something up on the roof, so when it is dark and raining, I can sit inside and still try them out.

A while ago I managed to pick up a Kenwood D72 from a SK sale for a good price. This is one of the few handhelds that do full duplex, and is also packed with features, including APRS and GPS. This makes it ideal for FM satellites. I recently picked up an Arrow II handheld 2m/70cm antenna to use with it. This is a fairly lightweight dual band yagi, with built in duplexer. All the elements screw together through the boom and so it makes it quick to put away and assemble.

I do still need to read the D72’s manual as I was struggling to set up the memories and I think it only works in full duplex in a certain way. I presume A VFO as TX and B as RX but I could be wrong! I also realised the headphones use 2.5mm port and not 3.5mm.

Anyway, I thought I’d mess about with it at lunch time. I’ve been investigating apps for tracking satellites and to find what’s coming next. I’ve found ISS Detector with the Amateur radio satellites add-on to be a good option on iOS. I do have to manually add all the birds I want to use. Whilst it shows you the mode, there’s no filtering for it, and in fact when it shows FM, that doesn’t necessarily mean a repeater for use. I need to reconcile the list against this tracking site, or this status site.

It just so happened that the ISS was in view, and the radio already had the voice frequency saved in the memory. So I started the recorder and tried to get my antenna in the right direction. It didn’t help that it was where the sun was and so it was hard to read my phone but the AR mode in the ISS Detector app makes it fairly easy to know where to point.

Turns out I was tuning into a planned school contact with Valley Stream South High School in New York state, who were talking with astronaut Andreas Mogensen, KG5GCZ, aboard the ISS. This is their livestream, although not that exciting to watch . They had a ham, IK1SLD, who was co-ordinating the radio part and the school were patched in via the internet. His QRZ profile is quite interesting regarding the ISS and the telebridge ground station.

As I didn’t have a 2.5mm jacket for the radio, I balanced the voice recorder on my arm whilst trying to hold the radio, antenna, and phone to see where the ISS was. The pass over me didn’t last long, maybe 5 minutes max, and I managed to record a couple of minutes of the astronaut’s answers to the kids questions. Obviously I don’t hear the kids transmission.

I ended up having to go and run errands and never got to work anything, but it was fun listening. I also need to sort out the handheld’s memories and RTFM!

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