After complaining about trying to hold a yagi, the microphone and write down contact details at the same time on SOTA summits, and receiving much advice, I set out to convert my 70cm beam to work on a squid pole! Relatively simple, drill holes for the u-bolt, and put on a coax socket so I can have an extended run of coax up the pole from the radio. And then the use of some PVC pipe so the squidpole doesn’t get smooshed!

So having done that I got set up ready for the midday start of the VHF-UHF Field Day. It was a relatively quiet contest, I heard 5 stations total, and contacted a few of them multiple times to get myself 335 points. Furthest distance was 49km to VK2UL near Yass.

The few stations I did manage to contact appear to call on 2m, then go to other bands as they can. I think for the next one, I’ll build a bigger 2m yagi so I can hear and be heard better on 2m. Perhaps some sort of amp, or a 100W rig might also be in order, as my 5w is really quite low for this stuff.

I also have dreams of getting onto the 23cm band, and maybe 10GHz at some point too, but the higher you go in GHz, the more expensive, and homebrew you have to get!

All in all, a bit of fun! I’m travelling back from LCA2015 for the summer field day, but I hope to be able to actually get out in the field for the winter field day.