Earlier this month I bought two TH-9000 222MHz transceivers.... and after the initial power-on tests they have sat in their boxes. That is, until last week.
A ham friend who has never been to the top of Pike's Peak thought a trip to it's summit would be just ducky. Its summer, the snow is gone, the columbines are all in bloom --and all nature smiles on the Rockies.
Having driven up there before I wasn't quite in agreement though.
I said we could do it, providing she do the driving to the summit (so I could huddle in a fetal position of fear on the back seat. Anyone who has driven the road up that mountain I hope can sympathize.)
The trip would be mostly for the thrill of the view, a walk about the summit, and the bragging rights that once again I survived that guard-rail-less drive. But also on the agenda was to eat the donuts from the visitor's centre, made at that high altitude ---and try our hands at 2 metre mountain topping.
Why not take one of the TH-9000's along too ?
So.... we brought along a Icom 35 watt two metre radio, a TH9000, and two curious little "squalo" antennas made by Gabil Radio- one for 2, the other for 1.25 metre's.**
Least the purists criticize that they aren't vertically polarized- we could flip them around to vertical if need be, but at 14,115 feet everything would be line-of-sight --and who cares ?
After a short hike about the summit - it was short, for although I live at near 10,000 feet that additional +4000 was leaving me light headed-- we ate lunch, ate donuts-- and set up the radios.
It was effortless to raise plenty of simplex activity on 2. We gave out frequent announcements of our frequency on 222 and we got four "takers."
Our best 222 DX was clear into Kansas with "Q5" signals both ways... this was over 150 miles, and like it was next door. The little 9000 worked flawlessly. If I had brought along a list of repeatesr it might have been interesting to see what we could have 'ker-chunked'--- but by then the time was getting on and we wanted to be off the mountain before the shadows lengthen'd.
A full day !
Lauri
**
From Amazon:
Harvest YG1443-2 219-225/420-450 Mhz Dual Band Square Loop Directional Antenna
www.remtronix.com
