A SSTV /M Test with the Arrow hand-held yagi from 2 locations

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With the upcoming Hamworthy Park Festival I wanted to see if there was any chance I could reach the QTH. Previous attempts from Poole Harbour were unsuccessful with FM and the Bongos whip antenna, but having a new antenna in the armoury thought I’d give it a try.

I had already tested from the drive way of my QTH, then headed out to what is the nearest high point to my QTH in IO90BS, that of Ringwood Road near to the Matalan – IO90AS. A test of the SSTV repeater there worked well.

Received picture at QTH
replayed picture received
SSTV Testing from IO90AS

I then headed down to Hamworthy park, as I drove through Bournemouth and Poole the hills behind me which I knew would absorb my weak signal, but I’d thought I’ve got to give it a try.

hand held Yagi
RX at QTH
Hamworthy SSTV Test from IO80XR

I had the hand-held antenna quickly setup, it was fun to do it out in the field. I attached it to the THD7 and tried to reach the QTH station.

I was not surprised to not hear the pips back to transmit, but as I had driven there, transmitted anyway to see if anything would be received. I wasn’t expecting anything back as the replay mode hadn’t kicked in, so I would have to wait until I got home to see. Sure enough I had received something, albeit mostly static, but at least the application and radio could pull the signal out.

APRS Provided some interesting information. My route was entirely captured, this is due to the geography of where the APRS stations are located.

Route captured via APRS

If I compare my APRS packet reception to my location of the transmission from IO90AS, the APRS station is just down the road near to Bournemouth University.

APRS received via 2E0UXV

As soon as I go over the hill, all my packets are received from stations to the east.

G8TNU Digipeater

The hills between each location are clearly visible using the useful line-of-sight tool.

Hamworthy Park – QTH

Between Hamworthy Park and Corfe Mullen

A much better chance of reception

So it was great to go out and test, albeit the transmission back to the QTH from Poole was again not successful I was able to gain valuable experience and APRS packet data. I think I will be able to setup another solution utilising the Bongo’s 2M whip antenna and a small laptop for the actual Hamworthy Park Summer Fete, so will put those pieces together and test those out next !

Until the next time – 73s

2E0FWE