Alex,
Using either a 4 ele beam or a turnstile will be very disappointing on 2m. A
rotatable dipole and a vertical on 6m will be even more disappointing. A Yaesu
Ft-897 is a good modern rig and with just modest antennas, you could hear and
work lots more. You need at absolute minimum a 3 ele 6m beam and a 5 ele is
better. These would be roughly a 6 or 12 foot boom respectively. On 2m, an 8
foot boom is minimum but a 15 -17 foot boom is better. Can you get the
antennas up 30 feet or more in the air?
To give you a measuring stick, from K8GP where I operated this past weekend in
FM19bb, I worked rovers using 8 foot 2m beams 300 miles with the best dx being
a rover in northern Indiana at over 400 miles!!! He was running a 150w amp.
From where you are located, you should have been able to work several hundreds
of QSO's.
73,
Terry - W8ZN
-----Original Message-----
From: VHFcontesting [mailto:vhfcontesting-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of
Alex
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2015 10:59 PM
To: vhfcontesting@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] ARRL June VHF QP Participation Question
Hi Terry,
A brief description of the setup can be found at:
http://3830scores.com/showrumor.php?arg=6haLzlfsmicc3
The FT-897 certainly is nothing to write home about when it comes to VHF/UHF
operation, but I couldn’t bring myself to try to find and unbox the IC-275H for
the amount of activity I was hearing. Signals from stations (on 2m) at 175-200
miles were consistently very strong (S9+, whatever that means on an 897), even
on a simple turnstile, which made me think that I should be hearing many more
weaker stations.
Now, I realize that there are a 101 things we can point out why I was not
hearing more stations, but at this time I’m mostly curious to know what folks
think what the contest participation seemed like this past weekend compared to
other years.
Thanks for describing your experience.
73,
--Alex KR1ST, FN21
From: w8zn54@verizon.net [mailto:w8zn54@verizon.net]
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2015 9:44 PM
To: alex@kr1st.com; vhfcontesting@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] ARRL June VHF QP Participation Question
Alex,
Before answering your question, it's only fair to see what you were running for
equipment and what band you were listening on. If you were on 2m with a loop,
then you probably didn't hear much. If you were on 6m, unfortunately, the
propagation gods didn't smile on the northeast. Why not describe your station
for the group.
We are in northern Va. and while activity wasn't as good as it's been in the
past, it wasn't that bad given conditions.
73,
Terry Price
W8ZN - ex K8ISK/WD8ISK
1.8 MHZ - 47 GHz - FM18dv
Member of the K8GP Contest Group
FM19bb
On 06/15/15, Alex<alex@kr1st.com> wrote:
I worked the ARRL June VHF QP to gauge what the activity level is in order to
determine if I want to bother investing in larger VHF/UHF antennas. I'm in NEPA
and live very near the top of one of the highest mountains around here and
should have a clear shot to many areas with high participation rates. However,
I was rather disappointed by the number of stations I could hear and work.
My question is, especially to those in the North-East, do you think that
participation in this contest was especially low compared to other years, or
was it about the same?
73,
--Alex KR1ST, FN21
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