RadCom April 2024, Vol. 100, No. 4

58 April 2024 Regulars VHF/UHF I didn’t expect to still be writing this column, after I announced my retirement in January, but so far no one has stepped forward to partner with Paul, G8FVK. Please do let us know if you’re interested in taking over. I do always enjoy writing the column and I’m only stepping down due to family commitments. My wife is at her due date while I write this, so my radio activity has been somewhat curtailed and will probably be more so moving forward! The Lyrids meteor shower [1] is due to peak on 22 and 23 April, with around 18 meteors per hour from the trail of the comet Thatcher. The full duration of the shower will run from 15 to 29 April. The Thatcher comet was last seen in 1861 and won’t be visible until around the year 2283. Some years the meteor shower can produce an unexpectedly large number of meteors, but don’t get your hopes up, the next predicted occurrence is due in 2042. This month we have the usual series of UK Activity Contests running and the RSGB Machine Generated Modes (MGM) Contest running. As always, there’ll be plenty of activity on the bands if you know when and where to look. • Tuesday 2 April sees the 144MHz FM Activity Contest (1800 to 1855UTC) and the 144MHz UK Activity Contest (1900 to 2130UTC). • Wednesday 3 April sees the RSGB 144MHz FT8 Activity Contest (1700 to 2100UTC), this runs in parallel with the Europe-wide FT8 Activity Contest. • Tuesday 9 April sees the 432MHz FM Activity Contest (1800 to 1855UTC) and the 432MHz UK Activity Contest straight after (1900 to 2130UTC). • Wednesday 10April sees the 70cm (432.174MHz) leg of the European FT8 Activity contest take place (1700 to 2100UTC). • Thursday 11 April sees the 50MHz UK Activity Contest (1900 to 2130UTC). • Thursday 18 April sees the 70MHz UK Activity Contest (1900- 2130UTC). • Saturday 27 to Sunday 28 (1400 to 1400UTC) sees the annual RSGB MGM (Machine Generated Modes) Contest. This includes both the 6m and 2m bands and you’re allowed to use any machine-generated mode. Most activity will be around FT4 and FT8, but you may find FSK441 or ISCAT deployed, if they suit propagation modes (it’s the tail end of the Lyrids meteor shower so there may be some meteor scatter opportunities). While PSK and RTTY could be used, you may find activity somewhat limited on the bands. If there’s some early Sporadic-E propagation, then 6m could be interesting, but either way this offers you the chance of working quite a few stations using a variety of data modes on the VHF bands. The rules can be found via [2] . Activity on the 2m FM After reading Paul’s column last month, and the comments from Gary, M7PWT, regarding the lack of activity on 2m FM, I thought I’d throw in my ‘two cents’. I remember studying for my Foundation licence and buying a Baofeng handheld transceiver to see what was around in my part of North London (it seems Paul and I both became licensed while living in London). I remember turning it on and being mildly disappointed. Despite my location of Muswell Hill, up on a hill overlooking the whole city, I heard very little on 2m FM simplex (even less on the 70cm band). Programming in the local repeaters was dispiriting too. While starting to hear activity, it wasn’t the sort I expected, with good conversations being interrupted by repeater abusers. I think after this I decided that VHF/UHF wasn’t for me and I focussed on the HF bands. It was only a few years later, after I’d had much more positive experiences while portable and during contests, that I turned my attention back to the bands and found something very interesting. Gary and Paul PHOTO 1: The author holding a fibreglass mast with an antenna attached, while activating a SOTA summit called Stiperstones in the Shropshire hills, using 2m FM. Michael, G0POT was my partner in crime. We had a challenge of activating five local SOTA summits on a single winter’s day. Operating time was limited due to restricted daylight, and I remember from this excellent VHF location we reluctantly had to cut and run to the next summit, leaving a rather large 2m FM simplex pileup! PHOTO 2: Another SOTA activation here, this one using 6m SSB from the SOTA summit of Chanctonbury Ring. Again, I’d been busy that summer’s day activating five summits in the South Downs. This was my last one and I thought I’d try my luck on the 6m band and hopefully find some Sporadic-E activity. I used a 6m fibreglass Moxon to a Yaesu FT-857 and worked a lot of stations to the south in Spain and Portugal. I remember working a booming Yuri, UT1FG/MM, who was on board his boat in a wet square just off of the Moroccan mainland!