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Exactly! Why not?!?!

Thanks Chris. No plans for any trips to America in the foreseeable future. Looking into some remote operating options though (the primary reason for getting the FCC licence).

Yep. I don't think they're keen on it (hence the requirement for a US postal address) but it's the only way if you want to operate a remote station in the US because unlike a lot of countries, unfortunately the US doesn't allow foreign operators to operate a remote using CEPT.......it's a bit daft but that's how it is.

Yes. But you cannot operate that licence in Canada because their agreement states "reciprocal operation for US citizens". PITA for me as I'm a Brit living in the US. I hold Extra here but have to roll back to limited CEPT whenever I go up to Canada.

@markphillips8019 Good to know. I haven't actually looked at the implications of using the FCC licence under CEPT. In reality I would likely use my OFCOM licence if I was looking to operate under CEPT.

@@AmateurRadioUK You cannot use your US license under CEPT. If you are not a US citizen you'll have to use your UK license. I assume you have a "full" license? CEPT explicitly states you need a class 1 or 2 license. When I was G7LTT (technically I still am) I could only operate abroad (including the US) on V/UHF (class 2) and only then where my native privileges coincided with the local band plan. So in the US no 220 or 902MHz and limited access (by comparison to the UK) to 1.2 and 2.4GHz. You also have to adhere to the local rules so no phone on 40M below 7.1MHz etc. Canada is a little better in that they allow phone below 7.1MHz. Indeed, one will often find the C'nucks hiding from the Americans down in the "digital only" section of the band. And don't get me started about how repeaters here have inputs outside of the Region 1 band plan. You hear it every Christmas time. Brits come over to NYC for shopping etc and operate on the local repeaters. Which would be fine except that the input to most repeaters are above 146MHz. Likewise for the 70cms ones which are mostly above 440MHz. And then there's the those "license free" radio's that the UK has on 446MHz - right in the middle of the US 70CMS band. I cannot tell you how many people I hear on my travels in Florida using them. Brought over from the UK for use on holiday to keep in touch with the kids around the parks.

Yep. I did all three in a row. You have to do them in order but as long as you pass they will let you try the next tier/level of licence. The actual exams took around 30 minutes or so to complete. The whole session with the examiners was around 45-50 minutes by the time you've done all of the admin.

Yep. Unfortunately America hasn't quite caught up with the rest of the world when it comes to using the metric system. A bit of a pain but there's only a few questions where you need to know imperial units. Easy enough to remember those questions after you've seen them a few times.

@@AmateurRadioUK Ha!!! Not only do they insist upon imperial measurements but they do not use SI conventions either. V(voltage)=IR in the rest of the world is E(electromotive force)=IR here.

@markphillips8019 Good point. That threw me the first time I saw it.

​@@AmateurRadioUKOh you mean like the UK that still uses miles? The hypocrisy is palpable.

@mediocreman2 We'll get rid of that eventually.

Yeah, that's a problem. I would suggest getting a chainsaw as part of your QO-100 setup......but I don't want to be sued if you cut down a tree that you shouldn't or if it goes wrong for you!!!!!

@@AmateurRadioUK I don't think they would appreciate that... :O

Yeah. You can see why I changed frequency. It completely wiped out everything! Even an S9 signal would have struggled to overcome that!

Hope it was a good display? Maybe catch you on the next livestream.

If you were looking for G stations I assume you we're on 40m? This is a great little antenna for portable ops. Especially SOTA where hiking with a backpack is necessary. Having said that, this is a vertical antenna, so it is going to perform better at low angles of radiation (ie DX). As you probably found, you are likely to do better slightly further afield on the higher bands. It is very short for 40m, making it somewhat inefficient. That said, I have used it for SOTA many times with great success and had many NVIS contacts around the UK. It's strength is how small, light & portable it is. For NVIS contacts around the UK, you will find your linked dipole will likely perform better. The downside to that is the requirement for a separate mast to support it.....more to set up & carry. Also takes up more space on a summit which may have other hikers on it. Swings & roundabouts as they say. Everything is a compromise in radio. You can't beat the laws of physics!

Hi Jan, it depends on the type of antenna you are using. On this specific antenna I am using an EFHW with a 49:1. My transformer has a ground lug on it, so I'm taking that direct to ground. Failing that, I could just ground the braid of the coax (clip my earth to the outside of the PL-259 connector). This works for an EFHW because "at DC" the antenna is shorted directly to ground (you can confirm this by doing a continuity check with a multimeter). If you are using other matching arrangements where the antenna doesn't connect directly to ground, you may need a bleed resistor. To be honest, although good fun, it isn't the most practical solution for SOTA. This definitely isn't my regular antenna for SOTA activations. Most SOTA summits here in the UK get quite busy with hikers and often don't actually have that much space to play with. Trailing around long wires & bits of string for people to trip over or strangle themselves on probably isn't the best idea! I reserve this activity for larger/quieter summits with few people & more space.

I don't know for certain. MFJ specify a maximum power of 150 watts but that will be SSB. As with everything, I tend to de-rate it fairly significantly when running FT8. For example, I won't run more than 20-30 watts on FT8 from my 100 watt radios. Some might consider that a little overzealous but I like to be a little sympathetic with how I drive my equipment. I'd guess you'll probably get away with 50 watts on FT8......possibly a bit more. I routinely ran 20-30 watts on FT8 & 100 watts on SSB on this antenna until I upgraded my antenna system (this is quitrme an old video now). The biggest problem you're going to have is arcing in the tuning capacitor if you overdo it. That will be your point of failure.

The ground station is currently selling on the DX Patrol website for 1k euros (not sure how that converts to UK pounds). If my memory serves me right, I think it was supplied with an LNB but no 2.4ghz antenna for the uplink, so add around another £100 for that. Then of course you need a satellite dish (these can be found fairly cheap) and coax. You need some really decent low load coax for the 2.4ghz uplink because losses are significant at ghz frequencies. You also need 75 ohm coax for the LNB. This is used for satellite TV & also by some cable internet suppliers and is cheap to buy. Getting a QO-100 system up & running isn't cheap! There are absolutely cheaper ways of doing it than this, but as I said in the video, I consider this to be the easiest "out of the box" solution.

Yep, I'd agree with that. The 705 is a lot of money but it's worth it in my opinion. Absolutely love my 705. Will be curious to see what the new Yaesu has to offer when that comes out next year. I currently use the 705 as my driver for QO-100 but the new Yaesu may be a better option for that if it genuinely is full duplex.....all the literature that I've seen so far suggests that it probably is.

This was filmed quite some time ago so I forget the exact wording in the book. I think it was to the effect that radials are as important to a 1/2 wave vertical as they are to a 1/4 vertical. If that is the case, then we would expect to see better TX (and by default probably better RX) with more radials. Plenty of people have done experiments with 1/4 wave verticals to prove this but I've not found anything to show this for a 1/2 wave vertical. Commonly accepted wisdom amongst the majority of the amateur radio community (which isn't always right to be fair) seems to suggest that radials are not important for a 1/2 wave vertical, as long as you have some sort of counterpoise (in some cases, people just use the braid of the coax). While the author of the book is a highly respected DXer, what is in the book goes against what I have been taught & my (admittedly very basic & probably quite flawed) experiments seem to suggest that having a number of radials makes very little difference on a 1/2 wave vertical. I'm wondering if I've misunderstood what the author was trying to say? I'm really not sure what to make of it if I'm honest.

It was an interesting challenge/experiment. A bit quieter than normal (ie less callers) but I think that was down to the antenna......it was definitely a compromise & not as effective as my home station (to be expected with the setup I was using) but it was fun to livestream from a different location on a temporary setup.

Maybe next time! Great to meet you face to face at Callum's open day. You asked about doing another Megastream. The biggest challenge is finding a time when everyone is available. I will have a chat with the guys to see when we can get everyone together.

Likewise. It was nice to have a chat & match up a few faces with the callsigns I often hear on air.

Yep. No nonsense, tell it how it is. I don't have any sponsors to upset, so I say what I'm really thinking!

I purchased mine on Ebay but that was quite a while ago. I haven't seen any listed on Ebay for quite some time and I seem to recall the company website being dormant as the last time I checked it didn't appear to have been updated for a while. This leads me to think that they may have stopped trading. There are similar 1/2 wave (T2LT type) antennas which regularly pop up on Ebay from other people that make them.

Hi Karl, some very good points. As you said, this is a fairly old video which was filmed just before Yaesu released the radio. From memory, I think one of my complaints was the price but £200 actually doesn't sound too bad for a 2m/70cm FM radio. I can't remember how much it was selling for when it was first released but I guess they must have dropped the price since then because I don't think I would have been quite so critical if it was selling for £200 Ultimately it's still in production, so presumably people are buying it. I don't see myself buying one but I find myself agreeing with you as it seems to have found a place in the market.

Hi Duncan, it was good fun. 40m was in good shape and it ended up generating a bit of a pileup, so it was pretty busy.

I did manage to rig up a solution using relays switched from the PTT but it was a bit of a faff. If you have a radio that has a separate RX antenna input (which my current radio does) that simplifies things a lot as that eliminates the need to switch the coax between TX & RX antennas. I believe MFJ do (or did) a box which would disconnect the antenna from the radio & remove the bias power on transmit but I didn't get round to buying one. I eventually ended up putting a different antenna up & my current antenna does a lot better on receive, so I decided it wasn't worth the added complexity to switch it. Might end up revisiting this idea at some point......who knows?!?!?