The night started badly as one of the beagles had gotten loose right at 6 PM,
and was running around howling in the woods. Her radio collar seems to be
defective so she got out and I was running after her instead of hooking the
gear up for 432. I finally gave up on the canine caper at 6:45 local time, and
hooked all the gear up in the shack. I turned on the receiver and eventually
coaxed some noise out of it. I turned on the tube amplifier, but when I kicked
on the HV I was greeted by a popping noise and then a big bang and the circuit
breaker let go. I bypassed the amp and started the 432 Sprint with 100 watts
from the driver amp. So much for possibly good conditions. The band was flat
and I had trouble attracting attention of the guys down south with their beams
pointing away from me. After less than an hour of that I figured I would try to
find the problem in the high voltage supply. It turns out the supply worked
perfectly when the amp HV cable was unscrewed. I eventually
traced the problem to a shorted HV cable between the supply and the amp. I
stole another cable off the 222 MHz rig and fired up the 432 amplifier. I was
back in business! It did not seem to help much as signals were frew and far
between from out west and even down to the southwest. I think the storms out in
western New York killed much activity there. I worked nothing there. Best DX to
the southwest was FM19 and WS3C and K1RZ. I really looked down the coast for
N4MW and K1MAP, but nothing heard. I spent an awful lot of time looking between
NW and SW for VE2, VE3 and FN12, FN11, FN02 etc but nary a signal was heard in
that direction.
I ended up with 37 QSOs in 13 grids. That is even worse I think, than 222
MHz as far as activity goes. I was very happy to work the few northern guys who
got on. N1JEZ in FN44, W1AIM in FN34, and K1DY in FN54. Now if we could just
populate a few more grids around here, it would be even better. (Like FN33,
FN35, FN25, FN41, FN53, FN55, FN56, FN64, FN65, FN45 etc The list is a long
one.)
It is amazing how problems creep into electrical things over the winter.
The high voltage cable was fine last year and was never touched.I left the
amplifier connected over the winter. I guess I should be happy that I got
everything running again. It still was a bunch of fun to work stuff on the
higher bands again. Thanks to the sponsors for a great night of trolling in the
noise. No whoppers caught, but there is always next time.!!
73
Dave K1WHS
_______________________________________________
VHFcontesting mailing list
VHFcontesting@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting
|