W4DVE

January VHF Contest – 2017

This was a last minute decision to run during the January VHF Contest, but it turned out pretty good.

Another successful contest weekend. We had 4 of us up on a hill working portable.

Another test and general playing around with different modes.

My buddy Tim got a new radio and wanted to test out 2M SSB.

I was finally able to do a proper SOTA activation. And by that, I mean one that was planned. This was on Three Corner Rock in SW Washington.

We had been trying for hours to figure out why he couldn’t hear me when I connected to the D-Star repeater in Phoenix. We finally made it happen.

We wanted to try out 40 Meters and 80 Meters so I made a couple videos to show him how his signal was getting out locally.

My buddy put up a new 40 meter dipole so of course we had to test it.

I was able to make my first satellite contact using 2 radios – an Elecraft KX3 and an Icom ID-5100. Here’s the video…

My buddy WB7TIM did this video of us making contacts from Portland to Seattle on 2m SSB.