It's Tuesday! 222 ops, you know what that means! Time to put aside
thoughts of winter for an evening and have some fun on the greatest VHF
band! Use those amplifiers to heat the shack if you've got 'em! But get
on with whatever you have, high power or low, big antenna or small! You
can work stuff... but not if you aren't on the air. Trust me, I am an
expert on the latter with regard to 222 Activity Night!
I am planning to be there for a change! Starting this week I was finally
able to move my exhausting Tuesday schedule to Mondays. Evenings are
still not a great time for me, I am always going to be very tired
then... but I've got a much better chance of being quasi-functional
Tuesday evenings now!
Since I haven't been a regular participant, it may take a few weeks to
find what works best for me. I can work a lot, but it is challenging to
know what to do from way up here in the boonies. Unless people are
pointed at me, I can' tell what frequencies are in use. For now, I will
CQ frequently on 222.100 CW and see how that goes. Maybe it would be
best in the future to pick a spot well removed from .100 and announce in
advance where I will be. But I'm not sure all who are active for 222
Activity Night see these weekly announcements? On the other hand, I bet
222 ops would spread the word! We'll just see how it goes for now. I am
open to suggestions.
I prefer to call CQ on CW especially when I am tired, but will very
happily switch to SSB when called on that mode. I have no issue with FT8
per se and may try that from time. I will go there by request. However,
it won't be a primary focus for me. I use FT8 on HF every day but it
takes away so much of what was truly special and unique that I loved
about VHF - hearing the shifting sounds of signals with propagation,
adapting transmitting speed, length of transmissions etc. to match
conditions. That was probably the biggest reason I fell in love with VHF
in the first place and have enjoyed it so much over the years. I will be
on the ON4KST R2 144/432 chat page.
73,
Paul N1BUG
FN55mf
800 watts, K1FO-22 at 115', preamp at the top of the tower
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