SOTA Activation Ditchling Beacon G/SE-006

On Saturday 26 July I activated SOTA summit Ditchling Beacon (G/SE-006). Although there is a bus from Brighton to Ditchling, I enjoy walking so I took an early train to Lewis followed by a 10km walk along the South Downs Way.  My plans went slightly awry when the Southern train broke down at Haywards Heath, but after a 30-minute delay we arrived at Lewis.  This section of the South Downs Way is well signposted and so I did not get lost this time. My pack was a little heavier than usual. It was a very hot day so I carried extra water, not knowing that there would be an Ice Cream van, also selling water (but two quid a small bottle!), at the Ditchling car park. The walk took around 2 ½ hours, including a short sandwich stop.

M0BGR/P at Ditchling Beacon, G/SE-006. July 2014

 

I have never suffered a catastrophic failure on one of these expeditions but today was the exception. I use a small plug box (in the foreground of the photo) so I can quickly connect several items to my  lead-acid 7.2Ah battery. I wired up the FT-817 and switched it on while I set up the Super Stick HF antenna. After about 5 minutes there was a bang from the vicinity of the plug box and the 817 reverted to internal batteries. I quickly disconnected the lead-acid battery and began to investigate, thinking something had shorted. All the external wiring seemed OK so the problem had to be in the plug box.

I carry a small tool kit but I had omitted to include a small Posidrive screwdriver, required to open the plug box, and a multi-meter which would have been helpful when fault finding. I could have carried on by either using the FT-817 internal batteries, which would have lasted about an hour, or directly connecting the 817 to the battery – a little inconvenient as I could only power one item at a time. I decided to investigate and was able to open the plug box, carefully, with the tip of my pen knife blade.  The inside was a complete mess! It used to have an electrolytic capacitor but this had blown itself apart. As this was not required for battery operation I surgically removed it, cleaned out the wreckage, put the box back together again and re-connected everything (carefully!).

The 817 was still not receiving power but checking fuses without a multi-meter is difficult and none had obviously blown. I am a bit fanatical about fusing everything and there were three fuses in the 817 circuit. Fortunately I carry spares, taped to their respective leads so I opted to replace them all even though only one should have blown. I had been some time since this plug box had been used. I powered it up before leaving home, but only for a few seconds, so I guess this was not enough to reveal a weak electrolytic capacitor even though this was adequately rated for the job (100 uF, 25V).

 Next time – check tool kit, test everything properly, before leaving home, and carry a multi-meter!

Finally, I was on the air and firing on all cylinders. This was the day of the IOTA contest so I spent most of my time on the WARC bands, with occasional calls on 2m and 4m FM. This was the first real outing for my new Wouxun KG-UV6D – it performed well.  Band conditions were not great but I quickly worked the four stations I needed for a valid activation, thanks to Mike, G6TUH, who I worked on several bands and also spotted me on the clusters. I was on the air for three hours and worked 14 stations, including 5B4KH in Cyprus (Asia-004 in the IOTA contest). During the afternoon lots of people stopped to ask what I was doing. Although this interrupts operating time, I always take the opportunity to explain amateur radio and why it is relevant today.

I packed up in time to catch the last bus to Brighton, but it was such a lovely afternoon I decided to walk back to Lewis, after pausing for an Ice Cream! The walk back was uneventful, apart from getting a painful blister on my right foot with about a mile to go which I had to stop and sort out (I always carry a basic First Aid kit). On the walk back I was passed by lots of Ghurkha soldiers who were doing a 100km run along the South Downs Way that very hot day, which rather puts my 10km walk into perspective, but they weren’t carrying an amateur radio station!  

Wouxun 2m/70cm Radio - Initial Review

 

 

Wouxun KG-UV-6D

 

 

I have recently purchased a new KG-UV6D Wouxun radio, for 2m & 70cm in addition to the 4m KG-699E I already own and like. Martin Lynch (www.hamradio.co.uk) had a special-offer ‘Pro-Pack’ package that was too good to resist and as my Yaesu VX-5R is getting a bit long in the tooth I decided to invest. I have not yet had the chance to do a major field trial with the new radio so this is a first-look review.

The package came with the KG-UV6D radio and lots of accessories that are compatible with my KG-699E. See photo:

 

Wouxun KG-UV6D and Accessories

The package included:

·         The KG-UV6D radio

·         Two Li-Ion batteries, one 1300mAh and one 1700mAh capacity

·         A dry-cell battery case

·         A battery-replacer with a cigar lighter plug.

·         A mains charger, which has 12V dc input and an adapter.

·         Hand microphone

·         Earpiece/microphone

·         Two antennas – a stubby and a short whip.

·         A protective case and lanyard

·         Handbook, radio programming software and a computer lead with its driver.

The KG-UV6D radio appears to be well made and robust. It is IP55 rated so it should be OK to operate in the rain but this may not apply to accessories. It looks like it will survive fairly hard knocks, but do not try this at home! The antenna connector is an SMA male (same as KG-699E) and I had to buy an adaptor to BNC (which I use on all my equipment).

The KG-UV6D has a couple of extra buttons, that are not present on the KG-699E and this makes operating a bit more flexible. It includes a lamp, activated with one of the side keys – useful if you get lost in the dark, and a stopwatch. (I have no idea why you would want a stopwatch on a radio). The handbook is intelligible and the radio is easy to operate as most of its 32 menu functions are self-explanatory and most work the same way. I have had a few QSOs and audio reports are good.

The charger will charge both a radio and one battery together (or separately) and works with the both the KG-UV6D and KG-699E. Unlike the KG-699E charger, which is mains only, the KG-UV6D uses 12V DC so can be used with mains or in the field from a car battery, for example, if you have a lead for this.   

It offers two scan modes, frequency or channel. Unfortunately, Wouxun got this part of the design badly wrong and neither are much use for amateur radio operations.  In frequency mode, enter the start frequency and press the ‘Scan’ button. So far, so good but the problem is there is no programmable stop limit so the radio just keeps scanning on up and up and up! It is possible to reverse the scan direction, manually, with the tune knob but there does not appear to be any way to limit scanning to a range of frequencies (eg. 145.000 to 146.000). I can see no reason why a radio would work this way and scan limits need to be added.

In channel mode, the channels can be programmed either manually which, like most radios is tedious, or with the software. However, selecting whether a channel is scanned or not is “strictly via KG-UV6D programming software”. So before going out into the field one has to decide which channels will be scanned and use a computer to set these. So if you change location and want to add extra repeaters to be scanned, or remove those that are out of range, you can’t unless you have a computer and the Wouxun software with you. If you programme a new channel manually then you cannot designate it as a channel to be scanned.

 I can see why radios for commercial applications would work this way but for amateur use it is ridiculous. An additional feature, to allow selection of channel scan or not scan, without software, is required.

The radio connects to computers by a USB adaptor. The adaptor driver and programming software loaded OK and runs on both Vista and Windows 8.1 but do run it as 'administrator'. The programme allows you to download the current radio configuration and save it to a configuration file. It can then be edited and uploaded back to the radio. There are a couple of problems - the programme uses virtual COM ports, with a maximum port number of COM 20. Sometimes Windows 8.1 assigns a higher port number so the programme cannot talk to the radio. Sometimes uploading produces a 'Write Error'.  For both these, the answer is to disconnect and reconnect the adaptor and radio and restart the programme. The software should really work better than this - virtual COM ports are so last season.

 

Wouxun KG-UV6D Software 

The KG-UV6D includes an FM radio, which works well with the whip antenna and gives reasonable audio quality. When in FM mode, the radio still continues to monitor the ‘normal’ channels. If a signal appears on these then the radio switches to the active channel and there appears to be no way prevent this. So, if you don’t want to miss ‘who dun it’ when listening to a radio play on FM then set the squelch to maximum before switching to FM to minimise the chances of the play being interrupted at a critical moment.  

Overall, I am pleased with my new radio; it is robust and easy to use. The scan function is the only bad feature I have found so far and the software could work better. The only extra I needed to buy was the SMA-BNC adaptor. I will comment again after I have used the radio a bit more.

My Wouxun KG-699E has been reviewed previously, see:

23 July 2011 http://m0bgr.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-max=2012-05-10T15:01:00%2B01:00&max-results=7&start=7&by-date=false

30 Jan 2011 http://m0bgr.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-max=2011-07-12T16:15:00%2B01:00&max-results=7&start=14&by-date=false

26 N0v 2010 http://m0bgr.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-max=2010-12-13T14:58:00Z&max-results=7&reverse-paginate=true&start=14&by-date=false