Hello Good Buddy Ron and 222 fanatics
I was very happy to just be able to get on the air. The storm really
wound up as it moved into the Gulf of Maine and I was without AC power
at the house until 9 AM this morning. It is always unsettling when you
look out the window and see a large 28-30 inch white pine snapped in
half about 20 ft up off the ground. When I lost my 144 MHz tower due to
downed trees, I have been extremely worried about the other towers on
the hill. Most of them are in the same boat. I removed some trees, but
there are many more capable of wide spread destruction. The water
running off the hill was amazing on Monday during the height of the
storm. The two wheel ruts at the base of the hill were a torrent of
white water. There was also a tree down across the road. I walked up to
the brand new culvert and I saw that it had gotten plugged with branches
and leaf debris. So I started pulling out stuff to un clog things. While
doing that I stepped back and caught on a stump and fell down. I did not
realize it but my cell phone pouch was dislodged and my cell phone fell
to the ground. My glasses were all fogged up and I continued work to
unplug the culvert then went home. The cell phone stayed out in the rain
over night.
The next day, I grabbed my chainsaw and walked up the hill and cut up
the large tree trunks across the road. There were three of them. When I
got up to the shack, all the towers were still in one piece, and the
only casualty was one of my 222 MHz yagis is now pointing about 40
degrees off of boresight. Of course it is on top of the H frame where
you cannot reach it easily. At the house, I dragged out my small
inverter generator and powered the house while the AC lines were down. I
am using a Yamaha 6300 watt inverter type. It is a low cost alternative
to the big Honda unit that is the standard of the inverter type gensets.
One thing I noticed was that all my streamlining of the electrical
system has made life easier for the generator. I have a mini split
heating system for my shop building and a hybrid water heater to replace
the electric water heater. All this allowed me to keep everything on
while running off a 6000 watt generator. It will run the deep well pump,
the hot water heater, the electric stove, freezer and even the electric
oven. The XYL baked some banana bread while the power was out.
So I made it up the hill Tuesday night and used the damaged 222 array.
It worked OK and I worked some of the guys worked by Ron. I missed W1AUV
as he QRTed early I also missed N1LHP for some reason. I did work
W1GHZ who did not appear on GB Ron's list . I tried FT8 and Q65 with
K3SK, but nil heard in either direction. That is a 575 mile path and we
have not had much luck with tropo. I think we have only worked one time
on a Tuesday night, and we needed Q65 as I recall. The folks who I
worked all had good signals but lots of QSB here too. Signals could
start off very weak and then peak up to S7 on SSB. N2SLO peaked at S7 on
SSB but at other times would be rough copy on SSB. It was that kind of
a night for me.
So now I have to figure out how to straighten the twisted yagi. It is
simple with ratchet straps to move the H frame, but takes a lot of time
as 1/2" LDF cabling has to be undone and eight sets of U-bolts need to
be loosened, and it takes a long time. The other method is to stand on
the H frame and hope you can reach the nuts on the mtg plate. That is
scary and dangerous. I quit 222 MHz at 01:30 UT with about 15 QSOs,
and headed home to check on the generator and the XYL. She had no clue
as to how and what to shut off. I am hoping next week goes better than
this time around.
Dave K1WHS
On 12/19/2023 9:31 PM, Ron Klimas WZ1V wrote:
222 was a sleigh-ride tonight with lots of QSB. Logged:
K1WHS FN43, WB2VVV FN41, WA1RKS FN32, WA1MBA FN51,
K1ZK FN34, N2SLO FN30, K1PXE FN31, K1MAP FN32,
K1FSY FN31, W9KXI FN12, W1AUV FN32, WA3NUF FN20,
WB2SIH FN31, W2BYP FN13, K3SK FM07, N1LHP FN42,
W1AIM FN34, N1GLT FN42, WA4YA FN42, and K2RMX FN20.
TNX for the QSOs and Merry Christmas !
73 Ron WZ1V
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