What use is an F-call?

Troubleshooting is a skill that has to be learnt. Part of getting my Foundation License included a module on the skill. I've been working with complicated equipment for decades and to me, an amateur radio kit really isn't that complex.

As you might know, I've got a portable kit. I've set it up at least 50 or so times in the last year. I know this system backwards, still every now and then something unexpected happens.

Twice now, my own gear has surprised me. A couple of weeks ago I went on air to join a regular net. I tuned to the appropriate frequency and made my call, but I couldn't hear anyone. I called again, still nothing. I looked at the frequency, all as expected. The voltage was fine, I could see my SWR meter working as expected, when I keyed the mike, all was normal. I looked at the clock to make sure that I wasn't on the wrong time-zone. I turned up the volume, still nothing.

I tuned to another frequency, nothing. In fact, apart from the fact that I knew the volume was up, there was remarkably little noise to be heard at all. Then I checked the squelch. Hmm, well, if you turn it all the way, then it won't let anything through. I fixed it, and low and behold, there everyone was.

This morning, my tranceiver surprised me again, in a completely different way. My normal antenna mount is a mag-mount, but the connector came off last week, so I used a bracket instead, ran my normal RG58 back to my radio, plugged it in and had a listen. I tuned to the local Air Traffic Information Service to get the local weather and heard nothing, thought nothing of it, changed to my memories and hit scan. After a bit, I heard someone on the local repeater. I keyed my mike and the SWR went through the roof.

That's weird.

I thought about my antenna connection, I knew that the bracket end was tight, I'd just climbed up a ladder to make it so, but what about this end? All I'd done is plug in a BNC. What about the adapter that goes from BNC to N-type? Turns out it had come loose in transit. Tightened it up, tuned to the ATIS, heard that, tuned to the repeater and all was well.

Just because you know it's right doesn't mean it really is.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB