Let me preface this by saying that I can hardly get enthusiastic about VHF
contesting while my VHF/UHF tower and antennas are still piled in the back
yard. I took everything down 5 years ago to move to my retirement location
and still don't have the serious VHF/UHF stuff back up in the air. Hopefully
it will be up for be June contest.
But I do have the 50MHz 6 element yagi up as well as a dual-band 440/2m 5
element vertical for repeater work and a 222 omni 15 feet off the ground. So,
I "dabbled" with the contest off and on during the weekend operating SSB, CW
and yes, FT8. I spent most of my effort on 2 meters, where, even with my
"wrong polarization" propagation seemed to be pretty good. I managed 42 QSOs,
mostly FT8 (2 SSB). I worked 27 Grids in 9 states. This even amazed me!.
On 6 meters I had 15 QSOs. Five (5) were SSB. 222MHz with 25 watts and my
omni I made only 1 SSB QSO. 432MHz was a bust. I had a partial CW contact.
I could hear the other station but he told me via 2 meters that he could only
hear my signal every few dits and dahs.
Although this was not my type of contesting, I did have fun and it gave me a
chance to exercise some of the equipment and discover new issues with my
30-year-old rigs (TS-790A & IC-375A) that need some attention. It might even
be time to think seriously about replacing the TS-790A with a shiny new Icom
IC-9700. However, I'll need to do some investigation on the IC-375A since
there are no new 222 multi-mode options except transverters. And, although at
one time I used transverters on most bands and still have one on 903MHz,
transverters are not favorite hardware solution.
Look for me in June ....... maybe.
de K3SK
FM07th
_______________________________________________
VHFcontesting mailing list
VHFcontesting@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting
|