Another Tuesday night and another FUN time on 222 MHz with a goodly
amount of activity. I mentioned previously that as the warmer weather
approaches, we should start to see better propagation on the VHF bands.
That was definitely the case last night. I sensed a small improvement
in conditions. VE3DS had a fantastic tropo peak after we had struggled
to make a contact. He had been copyable all the time, but very weak and
he was having trouble hearing me due to man made noise issues. I worked
VE3DS last week with weak signals, and the week before that, we missed a
QSO as he could not hear me at all. So after our QSO last night, he was
calling CQ and was getting much louder. I listened to his signal
increasing, and in a short amount of time, it built up to 579 and was
actually loud! I called again and had a much better signal report to
give! VE3DS is 430 miles away from me. The same happened with KO4YC. I
was calling CQ on CW and had the bandwidth narrowed up to 400 Hz,
expecting to hear a weak and watery signal coming back (If at all) I got
a response on SSB that was very loud. I figured someone in Massachusetts
was calling me. Switching to SSB bandwidths I was surprised to hear
KO4YC calling. Cornell was peaking 5X7. He is 510 miles away. I have not
been able to contact KO4YC in the last two Tuesday sessions.
There was a pretty good group on looking for contacts. K1PXE had a great
signal on SSB even with his yagi stuck southwest. We had a nice chat
talking about the old days. (We were teenagers talking on 2M AM phone
back in 1962 with Heath Twoers and Goonie Boxes.) I looked at my log
after the evenings excitement and saw 16 QSOs. So thank you to all who
managed to get on. Thanks also to those who tried and did not have much
success. VE2XX had SWR issues that prevented any contacts. I hope you
get things fixed with some daylight and dry weather, Stu. Thanks also
to those who tried "impossible" contacts. W8RU and AA9MY were in there
trying. I heard some nice meteor pings on them both.
CU next week I hope.
Dave K1WHS
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