Due to construction projects I have had on the go for a while I haven’t been out to do much actual radio lately. But I recently purchased a Baofeng UV-82HP 144/432MHz handheld as I am driving up to the top of two 14,000feet+ SOTA summits in Colorado later in the year and thought it would be rude not to activate them. I got the handheld as the trip is with non radio friends and is for sight seeing so I wanted something small and quick to deploy. So when myself and YL found somewhere new to go for our weekend jaunt up the mountains I quickly checked if it was a SOTA summit and turned out it was, so I grabbed the 82HP and took it! I have not used it as yet so at least I could check it worked!
We parked at the start of the very well defined track leading us most of the way to the summit:
The day started cloudy but dry but turned out beautiful later. This picture was actually taken on the way back but is on the early stages of the track. That is Fan Gyhirych on the right in the distance:
I had 3G coverage on Three network along the track which was handy as I could revise my rather hopeful estimation of arrival time on my SOTA alert! The view whilst updating my alert:
Once on the summit I was able to spot myself and my call on 145.500MHz was quickly answered. Moving down to 145.475MHz to carry on. First QSO I was a bit weak with the other station but after a call for QRZ when we closed I had a good strong station return. The wind was quite keen on our bare hands, my YL was logging for me as we were stood up. With 4 QSOs in the bag to qualify as an activation my further QRZ calls went unanswered so it was time to move on.
Heading back down the views from the summit ridge were great today:
All in all quite pleased with the little UV-82HP as people could hear me pretty well on its supplied rubber duck antenna. I did have an issue where it seemed to be slow in opening receive after transmit and as a result I often missed first couple letters of a returning call but I found some squelch tail delay settings to turn off which will hopefully correct this.
Only 4 QSOs but enough to qualify.
