There is still snow in the woods here, and I just managed to get the truck up
the road for the first time this past weekend. I hauled some diesel fuel in
anticipation of running in the 222 Sprint. (Gotta have fuel to make
electricity!) On Tuesday evening, I loaded the truck with an exciter, boxes of
gear etc. and started to hook up the 222 setup. I got the reciver running about
7:45 PM. Imagine my surprise when I turned on the preamp supply and saw S9
garbage all over the band. It peaked on my heading towards New York City and
all points down along the East Coast. It sounded like video buzz. My 222
receiver has a large bath tub style bandpass filter ahead of everything so it
is not overloaded by out of band signals.. The filter passes just 222 to 225
MHz and attenuates everything else. Still the video was there and covering up
everything to the Southwest. I was ready to quit right there. In checking with
the locals, KU2A, AC1J, and AF1T all hear it as well. It was really
a mess. Dale and KU2A verified that it is Channel 9 video from Manchester, NH.
Well, needless to say I could not hear much through that wall of noise and
raspy buzzing. I parked my beam with a null fixed on Manchester to knock the
noise down. My heading was out toward Western PA, about 245 degrees, but I
still managed to snag a few stations down the coast including K3CB, WS3C, and
K1RZ. I am not sure how I managed that through S8 to S9 crud! Nothing worked to
the Northeast of me save for Neil, N1DGF about 20 miles away. I did manage a
few grids out to the West like FN12, FN13 and VE3ZV in EN93. I managed to work
three out of the eight grids that abut my own grid. That is a bit pathetic. We
need more activity, but we seem to keep getting less!
I ended up with 41 Qs and 19 grids, but if I cannot get that S9 video
interference fixed, the 222 band will be useless here. Between the powerline
noise and now this video garbage, I am ready to slit my wrists.
73
Dave K1WHS
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