Sunday, 9th February, 2025

I’ve finally routed the coax into the office and today I did my first SOTA chase from the warm office. The antenna is still terrible but it worked. Not sure what I’m doing with VHF though. I’ve put up the antenna and attached some random coax I have, which is 19m long. So long but not long enough to be useful. It’s also super thick coax, so low loss but terrible turning circle. However, HF chasing will be much more useful. I mostly want VHF setup inside so I can use it and also play about with packet radio or ASL or APRS etc.

The best solution would be to run coax into the loft and then down into the office. However, that’s going to be difficult. I could just buy more and run another route…the HF one is 30m. Or I get another antenna on the chimney or somewhere else but that’s a hassle too.

Another option is getting a radio that has a remote head (like what you’d put in a car) and then run the cable to the office. Some seem to be able to work with a long cable. Probably the ultimate is then this setup with the base in the attic, and a short run of coax and then a long cable to the office. But there’s no power in the loft.

So for now…nothing…and I run outside to use it with the radio and battery.

I did go through a big journey of buying some other radio which may still be an option but I thought it would be better to use what I have… there is a nice icom radio IC-7100, that can do HF and VHF and has a remote head. So I could run both antenna back to garage then a long cable to the office. It would be a nice head on the desk too. However, the radio I have is a better performer. Anyway still waiting for the other one to sell.