For the first time in a while I managed to get out to the /P spot in IO81VT for a 4m contest. I used my Icom IC-7100 with 50W into the 5 element Powabeam up at about 5m AGL.
I made 27 QSOs, activity seemed down on previous entries. Best DX was GM4ZUK/P but a nice surprise was to work an ON4 station early on. This was a new country on 4m for me. I kept CQing to the East but no more continental EU stations heard or worked.
Everything worked flawlessly, though it does appear that my LDG ATU that was in line (for HF mobile) wasn’t actually in proper bypass mode. I found this when the SWR on 4m went high. Looks like a couple of toroid coils got rather warm and melted the hot-melt glue holding them in place. Oops! Taking the unit out of circuit completely solved the problem and it still appears to work at HF but more testing required.
Hopefully there will be more activity next time, I had thought that with the prevalence of commercially available 4m kit that activity levels would have increased.