A very unusual evening on 222 MHz. Things started out slowly at 22:45
UT and I was calling and calling with no answers. I had a choice of two
antennas with my coax switch repaired. Having a wide beamwidth yagi is
great for activity night! I checked the weather and we had a dense line
of T storms moving into New England this evening. I worried that it
would kill the conditions, but I saw very little evidence that anything
was amiss. My first contact was "Good Buddy" Ron, WZ1V in FN31 then:
K2AEP FN32ow SSB Pete
K1BX FN43eb SSB Art
WA1NVC FN42hh SSB Roger
K1PXE FN31ke SSB Pete The Voice of Milford!
WA3EOQ FM09jo CW Howard Very steady and consistent
W1GHZ FN34uj CW Paul
WB2SIH FN31dd CW Buff pretty loud on CW
W9KXI FN12ne SSB Al very loud on SSB
N1GJ FN41rr SSB George 59+
KO4YC FM17gv SSB Cornell peaking 53 or 54 on SSB
K1TR FN42 SSB Ed
WA1PBU FN42jg SSB Kim
K1DS FN20id CW Rick 3 el
N1LHP FN42km SSB Doug quarter wave whip.
K9MRI EN70iu MSK144 Not complete. He heard me, but
I heard nil.
K1DS FN20id SSB & CW 2nd contact.
N1DPM FN32 SSB Fred very loud off the back of
his beam!
KE8FD EN80tj FT8 Gary I decoded him six times on
FT8. He could not decode anything from me.
I listened for KE8FD again several minutes later when he transmitted to
N1DPM and I copied Gary again a few times before he quit. I tried
calling but he could not hear me. That was quite frustrating as KE8FD is
about 630 miles away. He peaked at -18 on FT8.
I was very impressed by all of the activity in other parts of the
country. There was lots of 9 land activity and plenty of guys down south
all making contacts. W5EME was in there from Louisiana trying with
meteors. The little whizzers were problematic tonight. With K9MRI, I
heard nothing, while he heard quite a bit early on and then his supply
died off! Later on, I heard all sorts of meteor activity while KE8FD was
running FT8. I think I heard four usable bursts on Gary. W4ZST was
making noise on MSK144, but had poor luck with Joe, K9MRI. AJ6T near
Nashville now has 35 watts on 222 MHz. He needs an amplifier but is
doing quite well with low power so far. WA3EOQ seems to work everybody,
being far enough South and quite a way out to the West. There were so
many calls from out of my immediate area that I can't remember them all,
but it was good to see so many trying to make contacts on 222.
The storms seem to have bothered many ops with poor signals on many
paths. I know that WZ1V had trouble with WA3EOQ over a path that is
quite consistent. As far as I could tell, the storms had little effect
on any of my attempts. We sure do not know all there is about VHF
propagation!
73
Dave K1WHS
_______________________________________________
VHFcontesting mailing list
VHFcontesting@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting
|