WS1SM Team Activates Douglas Mountain, W1/AM-140 for SOTA
Sebago, ME

On the morning of the 22nd, the rain was so heavy it was hard to imagine any sort of outing would take place. We decided to delay our 8AM base meeting till about 10, hoping for a clearing a few hours later, but to our surprise, we arrived to a drying parking lot and clear blue skies above. Arriving at different times, some of us (W1CPS, W1CJS, W1WMG, KB1FGF,  KB1ZLV, KB1YYC, and myself), took the "Eagle Scout Trail," to the summit, which winded more than a mile through the woods. Some parts of the trail were easy going, while other places saw creeks and steep inclines. Rick, K1OT, took the shorter and much steeper "Ledge Trail," and beat us all to the top by several minutes.

The view from the summit was spectacular, and we all thought ourselves lucky as far as the weather turned out, considering the morning we had. Douglas Mountain is well know for the often-photographed stone tower at its peak, and we made use of this by hanging a 20 meter G-Whip Zepp from the side. We also setup our 2 meter station there, using a Yaesu FT2900 on battery power and a portable J-Pole. The HF stations we used were an Icom IC7000 and a Yaesu FT857, both on battery power.

Lost on a Mountain in Maine

About an hour into operating, while W1WMG was working SOTA chasers on 2 meters, he heard a desperate call by Dave, KB1FGF, who had lost track of trail markers and got lost in the woods. We quickly got a search party together, including KB1YYC's mom Annette, and Thom W1WMG, who went off in Dave's direction. While keeping Dave on the air, asking him to describe what was around him, Thom used a simple direction finding technique, which involved holding the radio close to his chest to attenuate the signal, to track him down. Once close, he told Dave to yell, and they were able to follow the sound of his voice the rest of the way. Before long, Dave joined the rest of the party and made it to the summit.

Despite this excitement, we had an awesome outing on Douglas Mountain and look forward to activating another summit soon.

Rubber Duck Antenna Comparisons 

Using Rick, K1OT's new Comet CAA500 antenna analyzer, we first checked the resonance of each rubber duck, and then tried them out on various radios.

        

The monoband 2 meter antennas we tested ranked as follows:

First Place was a tie between the Smiley SMA and Nagoya NA666. Both were 1.1:1 on 146.500, and both performed well on radios. In fact, on W1CPS' Yaesu VX7R, there was a noticable increase in performance over the stock antenna.

The next was the Pryme 1/4 wave BNC. This is marketed as an "extended range" antenna for 2 meters, but it was resonant at only 1.5:1 on 146.500

, and offered no noticeable performance increase over the stock antenna on a Kenwood TH22AT handheld.

Most of the antennas we tested were of the dual band variety. Some of these tested well on one band, but not the other.

        
  
The best of these were the Nagoya NA626 Dual Band, which is 1.1:1 on 146.500 and 2.2:1 on 446.000, followed by the Diamond SRH519, which was 1.5:1 on 2 meters, and 2:1 on 446.000.

The best stock antenna is from the Yaesu FT60, which is 1:1 on 146.500 and 2.5:1 on 70 cm. 

Another notable is the Jetstream Dual Band, which was 2:1 on 146.500 and 2.1:1 on 70 cm.

Not Recommended

The MTCUV-X4 - Not only is it a stupid name, but its also a bad antenna. It measures 2:1 on 2 meters, but wait... that's the good news!  On 70 cm it's 5.2:1! One can only conclude that unless your HT has a built-in matching network, this has the potential of causing irreparable damage, which is probably what Kenwood had in mind when they designed our next two antennas: The Kenwood D72 stock antenna does reasonably well on 2 meters, with a 1.2:1, while the 6.5:1 on 70 cm is not good by anybody's standards. But if you think this is bad, the Kenwood D7 stock antenna is slightly worse. 1.5:1 on 2 meters is acceptable, but on 70 cm it measured off the charts!

Our conclusion

The stock antennas which come with many high-end handhelds are terrible to say the least. If you're considering an upgrade, try an aftermarket one by Nagoya, Smiley, or Diamond. The Smiley antenna company offers one of the most user-friendly websites, and they will custom build an antenna for just about any frequency range and connector type. We've found the choice of connector type to be unique in the marketplace. Nagoya antennas are excellent for the price, and are readily available through online distributors, and Diamond antennas, though pricey, live up to thier name in quality and performance.

September Exams Yield  new Licencees and Upgrades

---

QSL Corner

On page 1, we show a card received by W1WMG for a 20 meter QSO with Z81D in South Sudan. The QSL's below feature PA2WO, of the Netherlands, a French DXpedition to Guadeloupe, (TO22C), and a Spanish QSL card featuring Formula One driver, Fernando Alonso, of Spain.

If you received an interesting QSL yourself that you'd like to show off, please send a digital image to [email protected] and we'll be sure to publish it in an upcoming issue.

PA2WO - 20 meter SSB contact by KB1HNZ at 1359 UTC on 24 August 2013.  TO22C - 20 meter SSB QSO by W1WMG on 2 March 2013 at 0342 UTC. (French DXpedition) EC8ADW - 20 meter SSB QSO by KB1HNZ at 1853 UTC on 23 December, 2012.