Aurora is something we read about here in the south. These post about it
brought back some fond memories. I just to a trip down memory lane and flipped
through my VHF logbook from when I lived in OH (EN90). I worked a lot of
aurora contacts back in the last century (mid-late 1980s) when my callsign was
KC3CL. My last 220 AU was in Feb 1986 and I filled have a logbook page with
contacts. If I remember that was when the K-Index went off the charts at
something beyond K9. It was visible almost directly overhead at our place.
de K3SK
Dave
FM07
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul N1BUG FN55mf <paul@n1bug.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2023 3:12 PM
To: David Olean <k1whs@metrocast.net>; NEWSVHF@mailman.qth.net;
vhfcontesting@contesting.com; 222 >> 222Activity@groups.io
<222Activity@groups.io>
Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] [222Activity] 222 MHz Aurora Report
Thanks Dave,
It is as I suspected. I opened my eyes (sort of!) at 0150Z and decided to just
take a quick look to see if anything really interesting was happening. I
discovered aurora on 6 meters and made my first QSO at 0155Z. So I missed the
222 activity! This is not surprising since I have found over the years best
aurora signals generally happen in the late afternoon through early evening,
say 4 to 7 PM. It then usually fades for a while and re-intensifies later, but
by then a lot of people have shut down.
I have no solution for the problem of evening availability here, but I sure
hate missing a good aurora! It has been many years since I worked aurora on 222
(or 432, where I have insufficient power these days).
73,
Paul N1BUG
On 3/25/23 12:12, David Olean wrote:
> Hi Mr BUG,
>
> I noted that contacts were being made on 50 and then 144. I walked up
> to the shack around 23:00 UT and fired up the 222 gear. Starting at
> about
> 2345 UT, I was answered by VA3ELE who was running just 25 watts on CW.
> He had a good signal strength of 55A. A few minutes later, I worked
> his neighbor VE3DS who runs more power and was very loud at 57A.
> Another station worked was WX3K in PA, who also had a good signal.
> That was the first ever 222 aurora contact for WX3K! I hope there are
> many more. I worked WX3K between 00:00 and 01:00. Best DX heard was
> N4PZ in Chicago,
> EN52 at 950 miles, but Steve could not hear me. He was a good 55A at
> 00:44 UT and again later at about 00:57 UT. The band dropped out
> shortly after 0100UT. When things died down after 0115 UT I walked
> home in the dark. I was sure that the aurora would come back around 11
> PM, but having a shack 1/2 mile away covered in snow prevented any
> more monitoring.
>
> I figured out a good plan for a pair of 16 el yagis. I am going to fix
> them at 300 degrees as an AU detector.
>
> Dave K1WHS
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