Hi VHF Phreaques,
I would venture a guess that the tropo conditions last night were the
worst in the last year of 222 activity nights. At least it sounded that
way up here. Signals were very weak. I had to peak up good buddy Ron so
I could copy him reliably. The W3CCX beacon was very weak and, at times,
went into the noise and became inaudible. Part of the problem was that
the humidity levels were so low that power line leakage was very loud.
The noise floor was definitely up. I would love to hear about
conditions in other parts of the USA. I did see that W5EME and AJ6T
were able to work via FT8 with pretty good signals. That is a 460 mile
path, and a very notable QSO.
I worked some of the stations that WZ1V worked, but missed a few. I did
manage QSOs with WZ1V FN31, N1SV FN42, K1FSY FN31, N1JEZ in FN44, K1PXE
FN31, WW1Z FN42, K2AEP FN32, W1AUV FN32, WA1MBA FN51, W1UJ FN42, N1YCQ
FN41, WA3EOQ FM09, K1ZK FN34, W1GHZ and W1AIM in FN34, WA2OMY FN29, NF3R
FN20, and W9KXI in FN12. I did not hear KC2KAE, WA1PBU, and WB2SIH. I
knew that Buff was on and pointed my antenna towards Westchester County,
but did not connect up. WB2VVV was portable up North in Waterville
Valley, NH and I did work Chris with good sigs.
By 01:30 UT, things were slowing down and I went to check out 222 MHz
EME. The first thing I noticed was that the shack got quiet as the
antenna elevated. The background noise dropped many many decibels. It
was a stark reminder of how bad the power line noise levels were. The
temperature was at about 16F with very high winds up on the hill. As
soon as the antenna was aimed at the Moon, I started hearing all sorts
of signals and they were all strong. My first contact was NH6Y. Tom was
quite loud and a FB contact for activity night. W4ZST in Georgia was
also making noise. I am not sure what his secret is, but he always has
an outstanding signal. He is running just a single long yagi, but he
sounds like he has four of them all precisely tuned up! Anyway, Bob,
W4ZST had five contacts for the 222 MHz Activity Night and all of them
were via the Moon route with one yagi! I also worked N1AV in AZ, K3SK
in VA, VE6TA in AB, and W6TCP in CA. Everybody was good and loud. No one
was weaker than -21. I can easily hear a -20 signal in the headphones
with a 3 kHz bandwidth, so we are talking about very good EME signals.
PJ4MM was standing by waiting for the Moon to set in Bonaire. He started
transmitting about 03:30 UT. I did not transmit as a few guys were
trying to make an initial QSO for a new country on 222. Both NH6Y and
W6TCP were calling PJ4MM. Faraday Rotation was involved as PJ4MM was
hearing W6TCP pretty well, but Ian in California could not detect
Martin. It just happens sometimes. I ended up with about 25 contacts on
Tuesday night. Six of them were on EME. I am counting things up via
memory, as the log is up at the shack.
I have to hand it to PJ4MM. It takes a rather big leap to build up a
great station for 222 MHz in a spot such as Bonaire. There is
absolutely no local activity there whatsoever! Last year PE1ITR went to
Aruba and brought some 222 MHz gear and he worked PJ4MM for his only
local contact. There is no activity in any of the other South American
countries. If there were some stations on, it would be possible to make
very long VHF contacts via TEP. No activity, so PE1ITR had to try meteor
scatter with the USA. He also copied me very well on EME, but Faraday
kept us from completing a contact. So Martin PJ4MM is now embarking on
improving his 222 MHz station in hopes of working others on 222 MHz.
Today he starts removing the old small tower and single yagi, and begin
the install of a newly arrived tower that will hold a new dual long yagi
array with full elevation. I am sure impressed by his dedication. He
has completed contacts with VE6TA and myself with his single yagi on
the horizon. He hopes to have the new antenna operational in a few
months and I am sure that will add to the excitement on 222 MHz.
Last night, I was wondering what would happen with an attempt with
WA3EOQ in FM09 9502 miles), as the Packrat beacon was way down in
strength. I eavesdropped on a sked with N1SV and WA3EOQ trying on CW,
and did not detect WA3EOQ then. N1SV only called a few times and then
stopped. I waited a bit and then started calling WA3EOQ on the same
frequency. On the 2nd (I think) listening segment, I copied Howard for
the entire 30 second sequence, buried in the noise, but he was sending
calls and his FM09 grid. I answered and then copied RRR and I was very
surprised that I could complete when all the close in stations were
suffering from low signal strength that evening. That is the magic of
tropo scatter.
73
Dave K1WHS
On 1/7/2025 9:10 PM, Ron Klimas WZ1V wrote:
It was a good night to warm up on 222. Logged:
K1WHS FN43, N1JEZ FN44, WB2SIH FN31, KC2KAE FN20,
W1AUV FN32, K1PXE FN31, K1FSY FN31, N1SV FN42,
WA1MBA FN51, K1ZK FN34, NF3R FN20, W1GHZ FN34,
WA1PBU FN42, W9KXI FN12, WA2OMY FN20, WA3EOQ FM09,
W1AIM FN34, N1MIW FN41, N1YCQ FN41, W1UJ FN42.
73 Ron WZ1V FN31RH
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