Hello boys and girls,
We live in exciting times. A portion of that excitement happens with
many of us on Tuesday nights. The last couple of weeks showed a
distinct bump in activity on the 222 band. There is now a reasonably
sized group of operators so that it is possible for Good Buddy Ron,
WZ1V, to make 30 contacts for two weeks running! That was with K3SK
missing due to antenna refurbs and VE3DS, KO4YC, and others not being
able to get on and make noise etc etc.. So the activity is
spreading!! I just delivered two boom to mast plates to Jay, W1VD. He
is revamping some old 220 Boomer yagis and I expect that we will hear GB
Jay soon on the band. Both K1TEO and W1VD are in fantastic locations in
SW New England and can make those long DX contacts South and West, and
can detect those miniscule openings that might be missed by a "smaller"
station. Having such beacons on the air should really improve activity
even more and provide a realizable goal for stations that are far away
from the high activity areas of Washington DC up to Southern New England.
I am always excited when Tuesday rolls around because you can get on the
222 MHz band and make some nice SSB or CW contacts and spin your rtators
all around looking for stations to work. This is just like the good olde
days and you are guaranteed to make a few contacts. If you are in an
area with zip, zilch, nada activity, then it is up to you to talk up the
band and try to enlist others in your operating area to get on. W7JW
worked a nifty meteor scatter contact from Michigan when he was only
running 25 watts a few weeks ago! Being in a far away place with no
local activity does not mean that you are out of luck. It is just a cue
for you to explore the DX modes and see what is possible. Ant distance
out to about 1000 miles is typicaly possible on 222 with a normal VHF
setup. It will not be simple and easy, but who likes "simple and easy"?
..... Well maybe we do like "simple and easy", but you get my drift.
I am at the far end of the activity corridor that extends from
Washington DC up to Boston. I am maybe 80 or 90 miles North of Boston. I
can work lots of stations but things slow down after about 00:30 UT. By
01:00 UT most of the activity has dried up. It sure would be nice to
extend that time by utilizing MSK144 skeds and even Q65B-60 or 120 skeds
and play around with digging signals out from the noise. I always try
long haul skeds after about 00:45 or so. Last week, I stopped at 02:30
UT as there were a few long haul skeds involved. Get on the ON4KST chat
page and set something up with another station out of your immediate
area. The worst thing that will happen is that you don't make a contact.
N1JEZ and I have been discussing a tropo path that affects both of us. A
few times we have found very week tropo enhancements extending from
Northern New England out to Indiana. After finding this path open
occasionally over the years, when other paths are not viable, I am
convinced that the two Great Lakes, Erie and Ontario, have a lot do do
with it. We suspect that the path loss drops when conditions are just
right over those water bodies. More investigation is needed, but Tuesday
night skeds are a good way to look into it. A quick look at the tropo
scatter models shows a path loss of over 265 dB, and some of the models
are out of range at 750 miles, but all it takes is about a 15-20 dB
enhancement (reduction of path loss) and we are at 245 dB which is
possible with the amateur power limits and a god setup. I am sure there
are other paths worth exploring.
So fire up the gear. Turn off Tik Tok, and spend some time on 222 this
evening. Let us know what happens.
73
Dave K1WHS
_______________________________________________
VHFcontesting mailing list
VHFcontesting@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting
|