This is a friendly reminder that another Tuesday is upon us, and Tuesday
means 222 Activity Night. So grease up those antennas with your best
formulation of RF grease and and recharge the liquid nitrogen cooled
preamps and get on 222.100 starting at about 00:00 UT and look for other
222 denizens with similar thoughts.
I will hopefully be on a bit before 00:00 UT but I have noted that
things are getting tough with winter approaching. A few days ago, I put
my tea mug on the back step of the house. When I came back and brought
it inside, the tea had frozen solid. It was there for about an hour. I
have been trying to re work my VHF ham shack and the cold temperatures
really slow me down. Having no real AC power is also bad as the shack is
very dark now . The building started its' life as a CATV head end
building and windows were not a high priority. I substitute LED work
lights instead. So I am stomping around in the dark and temps in the
shack hover around 30 degrees or so. It isn't much fun, but I am slowly
moving my 144 station into the room with all the other higher bands. My
144 MHz 8877 amplifier uses cooling air from remote blowers that are
mounted outside the building in small wx proof boxes. Moving the
amplifier is not a simple ask as the remote blower must be moved as
well. All of the gear gets hauled down to the house and cleaned up.
Much mouse debris is in evidence as the 144 station is not a mouse proof
building. I had to wash all the connecting cables and do considerable
work on the 8877 to clean it up. All that stuff is now in the other
building and is clean and almost ready to go. All I need is a 144 MHz
antenna!! With the cold temps, I find that I last about an hour or so
stumbling around in the dark and then have to go home and warm up a bit.
It is slow going.
The weather promises to be rather OK tonight. Temps are forecast to be
about 26 degrees and cloudy. I still have to contend with a very cold
shack when I start up. I have an electric baseboard heater, but it takes
about an hour to get comfortable. I also have a small space heater to
warm up my toes! I need to investigate a way to preheat the shack with
propane. The problem is to limit condensation. A kerosene stove was
terrible in that regard. I am thinking of an un vented propane heater
that mounts on a wall. All of this stops when the snow starts piling
up. I will have to quit around mid December, only 2 or 3 weeks away!
So the drill is to get on 222 and see who you can work. There is
activity spread out all over the place lately. Fellows such as N1GC,
W5EME, AJ6T, K9MRI, K8TQK, and AA9MY are usually there and present an
opportunity to see how well or poorly your station is doing with some
long haul sked attempts. W5EME usually tries some meteor scatter and it
is fun to see if you can hear a return of his signal from a falling
piece of space dust as it enters the atmosphere. WA3EOQ is usually on
and has a unique position from a geographical standpoint. He is quite
far west and can work stations in the midwest as well as along the east
coast. Hopefully the ice has melted off Howard's antenna. Most people
use the ON4KST chat page for setting up contacts. See :
http://www.on4kst.info/chat/login.php?band=8. You want the 144/432
Region 2 Chat page.
CU on 222
Dave K1WHS
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