All my POTA activations so far have a common theme—all voice, all entirely or mostly HF. For a while I’ve wanted to push the boundaries more, and with a “433 Alive” event today, I wondered: could I do a POTA activation, only on UHF?

Positioning is everything, so I picked a hilltop for the best shot of a wider area of coverage, and I wondered if using an HT might be enough. But after missing out on a QSO with the new-to-me FT-817nd on Portland, I wanted another excuse to use that, and with it the Yagi antenna that doesn’t get enough use either.

But realistically I wasn’t optimistic about my chances of activating on UHF, so I decided to pack the 40m QRP antenna and try that with the FT-817 as well. And then I thought, what if that didn’t work out either? I didn’t really want a 45-minute drive to two new POTA parks, only to fail to activate. So along with all that kit, into the car went the regular pack with the FT-891, JPC-12 and 20Ah battery.

Along with my lunch, thermos of tea, and the camp chair, it added up to a lot of kit.

The main destination today was GB-4513 Ibberton Hill, a new one for me and picked for its great north- and westward view over Blackmore Vale and beyond.

Not 24 hours earlier I’d also read the story of the soldiers’ wedding and the fire in Belchalwell, in Tim Laycock’s Dorset Folk Tales, so that connection settled it as my destination for today.

Finding a space for a car to park off the road next to a dry grassy field, I started setting up, starting with the FT-817 and Yagi antenna.

Activity got off to a slow start, with my calls not attracting much attention for 20 minutes or so. I noticed some flakiness with the FT-817’s mic, occasionally not going into transmit and having the buttons not work or trigger unexpectedly.

I persevered and finally got a response from Reg M3LDS, also operating portable. But having suggested a QSY from the calling channel, as soon as I’d changed channels I could not get the mic to key up again. He’d called me, changed frequencies for me, and now I couldn’t get back to him at all!

Grateful that I hadn’t hiked too far from the car, I ran back to it for the Quansheng that I keep in it. My earlier decision to standardise all my RF connectors on BNC and power connectors on PowerPole paid off, and the Quansheng was an easy drop-in replacement for the FT-817. That at least allowed me—eventually—to find Reg again, apologise, and complete the QSO.

Over the next half hour I heard M1ELK, M1EYP and MW0USK, but sadly could not manage to be heard by any of them. Then I discovered that the Quansheng was set to Low power, which couldn’t have helped—although I’m sure the 10-element Yagi should have more than made up for it.

With high power selected, the following 10 minutes allowed me a QSO with M1ELK at last, and also GW0HKU for a personal UHF distance record of 127km.

But by that point I’d been in the field for two hours, two-thirds of 433 Alive’s scheduled run time, and I’d made only three QSOs. A park activation on 70cm was just not going to happen. With the FT-817 out of action due to the mic issue, I was going to have to bring out the Problem Solver.

Nothing sorts out a struggling activation like the 20m band and 100W of transmit power, and true to form, the next 25 minutes netted another 8 QSOs to complete the activation.

I did hear a couple of new callsigns on the 70cm calling channel while I was working HF, but unfortunately couldn’t get in touch with any of them.

So, it looks like even with 433 Alive in progress, it’s not enough—certainly in my part of the world—to get 10 in the log. I still want to try a VHF-only activation during 145 Alive or the RSBG 144MHz Backpackers contest over the coming months, but achieving an activation on 70cm goes back onto the “to do” list for another time and another hill.

To cap off the day, I decided to also activate the next POTA park up the road, GB-4460 Okeford Hill. I set up my antenna here just next to the car park, which conveniently has a couple of picnic benches so that I could make this another civilised and comfortable activation.

It was just as well, because this one was slow going. Between resolving a couple of high SWR issues, one a loose connector and the other a bad bonding to the ground radials, it took over an hour to finally make it to the 11 QSO total for the park.

I suppose even the QRO rig isn’t always a “problem solver” after all.

So, all in all, a successful afternoon—though it felt more of a struggle than most. I took part in 433 Alive, albeit with only three QSOs, and activated two new parks. The mic problem on the FT-817 is definitely annoying, and I need to sort that out, but at least I found out about it before the Backpackers contest in a couple of weeks!

Here’s the full map of all QSOs from today:

And here’s the detail on the 70cm contacts:

Many thanks to all my contacts today, see you on the air next time!