We have been blessed with some nice weather these last few days, and I
am all set for another great night of 222 MHz activity on Tuesday
evening. The good weather has made it easy to get my internet connection
re established up to the remote ham shack. Last week, I was without
internet, but managed to get it running the next morning. It required a
climb up the 100 ft 432 tower to re install the Ubiquiti 5 GHz unit in
the dish. So, with any luck, I should be back in business and able to
monitor some chat pages.
Looking at the Hepburn Map, things look great for stations in Virginia,
Tennessee and points South of there. It looks bleak for us northern
stations, but that should not hold anyone back. I am looking forward to
some good activity. Last week, I did manage to work a bunch including
KO4YC at 530 miles or so on CW. I heard Al, W9KXI and called but got no
response. I think I was a tad late in calling and he moved along. At the
start of the evening, I was monitoring K2DLL/b in FN23. It drifts around
a bit and was over 222.050 at 22:30 UT. I also was hearing W2UTH which
is very stable at 222.050. It is very weak here and very rough copy or
non existent, so I figured things would be good to the West. Imagine my
surprise when I had to work KA2LIM on CW and he was weak! W9KXI was not
worked. It turns out, things went downhill fast on Tuesday, but there
was some wicked QSB and signals would peak up to very strong levels but
only occasionally. That was what I was seeing.
Another wrinkle about Tuesday night this time is that the Moon sets on
the East Coast at 01:45 at my place. Moonset would be about 02:15UT in
New Jersey. So there is possibility that some EME activity could happen.
I will be monitoring ON4KST 144/432 Region 2 Chat along with HB9QQ 222
MHz page. Possibly K5QE could show up. He claims to have the biggest
222 antenna in the USA (and probably the World) The fun part about 222
night is that it is a good time to try some things that are different.
Meteor scatter and longish FT8 skeds can be fun along with JT65B on 222
MHz. I am still hoping to make my first Q65 contact. You might want to
try an EME sked. If you have a long yagi and a few hundred watts you
could be in the ball park. Generally working stuff on the horizon can
pose problems if you are in a noisy location. The good news is that most
spots are not that noisy on 222 MHz. My house is quiet, but the hilltop
gets lots of noise as many 34 KV xmission lines are LOS and always
acting up.
I hope everyone shows up for Activity Night. The more who appear make
for a better evening for everyone. I know that AJ6T shows up quite often
from the Nashville TN area and scrapes around looking for skeds as he
has no local activity. He usually monitors the ON4KST Chat page. If
anyone is within several hundred miles of Nashville, Don't forget to
look up AJ6T! Walt is becoming a die hard 222 fan! With the expected
good tropo in southern areas, it would be nice if the "BIG" VA stations
got on. For my part, I will fire up things here around 2300 UT on
222.100 and then move off the calling frequency as soon as people show up.
73
Dave K1WHS
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