Hello all, not sure how many reads my blog, since haven’t been updating for looooong time.

Work amd life takes so much time and energy, so writing a blog been totally forgotten… so i try to activate myself more with this.

So for the hiking people who reads my blog, this update is 99% ham radio related. For my shame, i have spend only one night in the tent…none in hammock. This is because i have gain too much weight! I weight 150kg now, so that causes some problems.

Gear

End of the year 2022 i manage to get enough money to buy ICOM IC-705 with mAT-705 tuner. This cost me quite a lot, luckily i got goos discount because of Black Friday. These i bought from Koneita.com, which also opened TX for 5MHz for example. Paid it advance because otherwise i spend it elsewhere and they told me to get new units in january.

Jyrki called me (owner of Koneita) early december and told me that they get two units in a week, do i want one? Heck yeah! So my christmas came a bit early! Yay!

I manage to get all the money saved, because i sold most of my gear like, Anytone UV-5888, Yaesu FT-90R, ICOM IC-7000 etc. Still have to Xiegu G90, alltou i might sell it soon this year. I also sold some hiking gear which i didn’t use anymore.

I like verticals mostly, because they are easy and and fast to setup. I have also have some endfed antennas like Chameleon Hybrid micro (with MPAS vertical), HFKit 80m-10m EFHW and OM2JU diy 3D printed 20W tiny portable EFHW antennas. Check his site for instructions.

HFKit came in parts which i assembled last summer for cottage station. It is still there. Needs some tuning thought.

Tiny portable was basicly first my builded antenna which works! It has 0.5mm wire and 2,5m long RG-174 coax. Been using it lately a lot, because i also bought a Spiderbeam 7m mast. Which i broke quite soon….spare parts are on the way 😀

It is small compared to verticals, but needs a bit more time and space. I am really bad what come to throwing cable to the tree etc… So inverted V works for me.

JPC-12 came from Wimo, I like it, because i don’t need tuner with it. It is a simple antenna tu use and spare parts are available from AliExpress easily,

Been using APRS devices a bit lately. I have two X1C3 APRS trackers, one will be QTH location marker and other one on the go. This device came with cable, which controls Baofeng, Wouxun etc with Kenwood plug on it.

Since local iGate has a large network here where i live, i bought LilyGo tracker for local tracking. Works well, althou it needed a bit of a googling that i found nessary software etc. Thingiverse offers lot’s of 3D printing files, found a case for the LilyGo.

Digital Modes :

Been running a lot FT8 and some FT4 also in the field. I bought SDR Control app for the iPad, because it works also wireless with 705. Great addons there, PSK reporter etc. Also Ham-ToolBox from same developer.

Other software FT8CN is free for the android, but it needs to be install directly. So not available from Play Store. This might have issues with security, but so far i haven’t read any issues with security.

I like it more than iPad version, because i find it easier to use. Also some things are seen same time for example waterfall. I can see where i have room for myself to get qsos. With SDR control, this is not as easy, bacause you have to look for free slot from sub screen and change it. With FT8CN, just tap slot and its done.

Also FT8CN seems to decode deeper, with better reports.

SDR control and FT8CN both work wireless with IC-705, but FT8CN is sometimes hard to get connected with radio. Specially audio doesn’t want to connect. Today there is a new version (0.91) so maybe it has some fix to it.

Logbook is a problem, because you have to use ip-address to get out the .adi file from FT8CN. With SDR Control, it works with Ham-ToolBox so everything is available immediately and i can also download it directly to LoTW and QRZ and vice versa.

And what come to price point, it is easy to find cheap android tablet (works also in cellphone) and software is free, so my choice is FT8CN. SDR control gets many updates comparing to FT8CN, so possibly i might use it as well more. Good to have a backup, don’t you think? 🙂

Field Days :

Hailuoto Arctic Lighthouse Marjaniemi, OHFF-0642 / POTA OH-0194

This year i wanted to be more active in the field, because now i have good QRP radios. Also FT8 is easier now, because of wireless possibilities with tablets. Charging can be done in the field.

On our vacation at north, i activated one WWFF/Pota reference. Got 38 qsos, so need to go there again someday. And by the way, you can see the reason why my new Spiderbeam mast broke down…

Vehoniemi locates quite near my QTH, so drove there. Bad luck, only 4 qsos…this was because propagation was really bad. ALso place where i sat, got really crowded. Nice beach here and people were swimming this place.

Pyynikinharju is almost next to my QTH, so took only 15 min to walk there. I found a place for activation day before, so this time i knew where i set station and antenna. I wanted to use Only Xiegu G90 this time, but took 705 with me also. This was good because i had problems with G90. Possibly antenna didn’t work well or something, but switching to 705 and all worked. Logged 52 qsos this time, so activation was an success.

Pyynikinharju is really popular place, and even i looked place from side and more hide…lot’s of people came to talk and ask what i do. Also i had to constantly warn people from antenna wire. Luckily nobody complained.

And also went some place without references too. Used FT8 here, but also hunted WWFF, POTA and SOTA stations.

Autum 2022 i drome to Naumi beach. I had quite a lot of gear so had to carry three times stuff from parking place. Luckily it was only 200m away.

I drove here on Friday, my friends were coming next day. Weather forcast didn’t promise good weather at all… high winds and rain a lot. But had an idea and wanted to take a risk.

I had Chameleon MPAS 2.0 with me and Xiegu G90. Tablet PC was working back then and i use it with WSJT-X.

Tent was quite high so had to use big pegs, so it won’t fly away. Also had 4m x 4m tarp, which i set up top of the tent. This was good, because it was raining a LOT later.

I had cozy place to stay, but winds started to got stronger and stronger. So i checked pegs and tied some extra cords to the trees nearby. These holded well whole night. But man it was noisy because of winds.

Got quite a lot qsos from FT8, Japan, USA and so on. So good trip! Next day my friends came also, and weather turned really nice and warm. We had great time BBQ and hanging around.

So, last but not least… i moved back to my own apartment in Tampere finally. My girlfriend lives here also, but she is gone somedays because she works in capital area for now.

I don’t have base station on my current location unfortunately, but have an idea how i could use radio here. Local repeater and club house (OH3NE) is only 700m away.

There you go, some ”small” updates what i have been doing. Hopefully i remember to write more often from now on…i think i have said this few times already! Well, i do my best.

73 de OG3E Marko