So after a rather nice lay-in I headed off to hengistbury head with Sweety, Kenwood TH-D7 & VC-1, Baofeng UV-5R and with the IC-705 setup to receive and upload photos at the QTH.

It was a lovely start to the day with great weather. Coming later in the day sure does get busy down there, but it was nice to see so many people out and about.

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It was great that everything fitted nicely into a compact box, which I carried on a backpack with some water. I think i will bring a small box/bowl for sweaty next time as well as some ‘treats’.

Here is setup video, apologies for the windy noise, goes with the area and using a phone. My bag tried to make an escape as well, but i caught it ok 🙂

The other reason i come to HH is that it has enough hills and a decent length walk to give me some decent exercise, i don’t mind saying my knees and legs really feel it, but I’m glad to push myself that little bit and am rewarded with some great views and operating conditions.

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We reached the far-end of HH (from the car park perspective) and I set about checking the results of the SSTV` broadcasts I had made, unusually I couldn’t see any at all ! Not even static.

I packed the Kenwood equipment away and kept the UV5R in my pocket for any simplex contacts. I called CQ on 2m (145.500) and had a great QSO with G3TOI who was working thu his great 2M VHF home-brew antenna. We had made contact before but when i was at home on the IC-705 and Diamond X-30, it was great to make a simplex contact on 5W /P.

Coming home it was clear what had occurred ! I must of knocked the transceiver when leaving and it was set to 144.375 for receive – doh ! Anyhow, glad it was a simple issue rather than anything untoward.

I headed back out in the afternoon as XYL was at a training course, which gave me 2 hours to do some local tests. I headed out to West Howe and made a good contact back to the QTH

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Whilst not P5 quality, i can at least see the picture and where I am, so I’d say that was pretty good on 5W and about 2-3 miles from the QTH.

I then headed off to Poole Harbour, sadly (and predictably) no SSTV contacts, i think 5W and the dip is asking a bit too much, however i did have a great QSO via the GB3IW repeater on the UV-5R

Having driven around west of Poole to higher ground, i could still not make contacts, it was interesting trying tho. In some locations i could still make out the GB3IW repeater as well, and this well in-land. My first good retest was at the Kwik-Fit at Bear Cross.

The image came out pretty well from about 2.2 miles away.

I then continued driving towards Hurn and the final test location of Ringwood.

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The results from Hurn are very good, a P5 image quality from about 2-3 miles away. Heading to Ringwood did get a receive, but only static in terms of the picture. As I know where it was taken I can make out features, but with no call sign and clear image, its not useful as a radio amateur.

Results 2nd time out with the TH-07 and UV-5R was much better than in the morning now that the IC-705 was in tune to the /P transmit frequency. Optimal results seem to be around 2-3 miles currently based on the reception of images.

I think the best/quickest upgrade will be swapping out the TH-07 stock rubber duck antenna and returning to the locations where I had static to see if there is any improvement in reception from the QTH.

Thanks again and 73 ! 2E0FWE