Hi Al
That is a good idea to place the distances beside each contact so it
puts everything into perspective with contacts from different
geographical areas. Seeing those numbers is also a good way to gauge
how well your station is working compared to others. Times have changed
but I still hear the words of Sam Harris W1FZJ, as he pushed and prodded
VHFers in his VHF magazine columns in CQ and then QST. Rather than just
reporting the month's news, he spent time urging hams to improve their
stations and justify their existence on the band. His columns were a
treasure trove of VHF practical experience and knowledge. I would
compare him to the equivalent of a fiery southern Baptist minister
telling his flock what they needed to do to get to heaven. If your
receiver suffered from poor noise figure, fix it! If your transmitter
was low power, you should improve it. If your antenna doesn't block out
the Sun, it needed to be bigger!!He kept telling the 144 folks that they
should have a range of 600 to 700 miles. If you look at the scatter
programs available now,, you can see that he was, as usual, correct! If
you could not work 600 miles.....Fix it!
So with a single good yagi and decent power, (a few hundred watts) you
should expect to cover well over 300 miles with suitably equipped
stations on 222 MHz. Sam was always running skeds and pushing the VHF
horizon. It was infectious and others started running daily skeds over
impossible distances in an effort to judge how station improvements
affect the bottom line. After all DX = Distance! I recall that activity
always stopped on 144 late each evening as K2IEJ on Long Island, NY,
fired up his KW CW rig and skedded Art, W8KAY in Akron Ohio. The
distance was a tad over 400 miles, which is much more easily achieved
today with better receivers and more effective antennas, but in 1964,
400 miles was a great achievement. I used to marvel at how many of the
old DXers would tune in every night to see what happened. I would get
excited if I even heard W8KAY!
The Activity nights are serving a similar purpose, and have become a
great way to gauge your station and push everyone to want to improve
their station in the ways available to each individual. I heard W9KXI
pushing the envelope, sending many CW CQs later on in the evening around
222.100. It sure is great to hear all the activity and see so many
people having fun on the band. I am looking forward to the Spring
Sprints and better weather.
73
Dave K1WHS
On 4/5/2023 8:44 AM, Al W9KXI wrote:
8 contacts, 7 were SSB and One (K8TQK) was CW.
K1WHS FN43 312mi.
WZ1V FN31 233mi.
WA3NUF FN20 166mi.
KA3FQS FN20 152mi.
WA3EOQ FM09 216mi.
W1AIM FN34 235mi.
VE3DS FN03 170mi.
K8TQK EM89 370mi.
Generally, I found signals were up and down here, BIG swings on most
signals. The SSB signals were ALL Q5 here.
W1AIM. Chip called me on CW when I was calling CQ towards EM89. He was off
the back of my beam! I swung the beam around and worked him on SSB. Thanks
Chip.
VE3DS. I heard Dana when he and Ron WZ1V were try to work. I tail ended
their contact.
K8TQK. It has been a while since Bob has been in my log. I had been
listening Bob and Dave (K1WHS) trying to work each other. Visualizing their
path, I thought that I was on Bob's path to Dave, so I waited until they
finished and called Bob. The signals weren't the best (529) but we managed
to complete the contact on a "peak".
I'll be looking for everyone on the 2M Sprint next week and again on 222 on
Tuesday.
73,
Al - W9KXI
FN12ne
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group.
View/Reply Online (#1399): https://groups.io/g/222Activity/message/1399
Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/98081387/443943
Group Owner: 222Activity+owner@groups.io
Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/222Activity/unsub [k1whs@metrocast.net]
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
_______________________________________________
VHFcontesting mailing list
VHFcontesting@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting
|