I spent my first evening this Spring in my remote hamshack running the 222
Sprint. The road has dried out enough that I can drive up with some gear. I
hooked the 222 stuff back up. The new antenna had spun around this winter in
some very high winds, so my first task was to climb the tower at 5:30 PM to re
align the antennas. What a shock to get up there and see that about 10 elements
are severely bent on the two bottom yagis, where ice fell from the top ones and
creamed the lower ones on their way down. The same ice demolished my newly
installed northeast 144 fixed array on the same tower. I can't reach any of
the 222 elements, so I had to run with what I had. It is very frustrating that
my new array scarcely lasted four months before it was damaged by ice and needs
a few new elements. In addition, the H frame bent slightly and the array is now
slightly elevated in permanent fashion! At 7PM I started out and there was
pretty good activity for the first hour, but things wen
t downhill fast. By 9 PM there was no one new showing up, and conditions did
not improve much either. I worked one station between 9 and 10 PM and no one
after 10 PM. My last QSO was with W1AIM who showed up shortly before 9:30 PM.
I managed to work only three of the eight grids that bortder my own grid.
Luckily I worked my own grid with WA1T and N1DGF. Missing all the other close
grids was frustrating however. Besides N1DGF just north of me, I heard no one
to my East, northeast, or north. No VEs heard. I spent a lot of time looking,
but heard nil. Not much to the west. KA2LIM was my only contact there. I missed
all sorts of easy grids due to lack of activity: FN10, FN22, FN23, FN33, FN51,
FN03, FN02 etc. I ended up with 37 QSOs and 14 grids. I ran about 1000 watts
output to either the four yagi stack or the 8 yagi 5 element LVA. Still I had
a lot of fun even if the activity was low and the DX was absent. Later in the
evening, when things slowed down, I removed the old trusty 2 x 2C39 1296 amp
and replaced it with my new solid state PA in the rack. It looks nice in the
small self contained 5" rack panel. It is about 1/5th the weight of the old
unit. Power is about the same. The old air cooled two
holer did between 110 and 140 watts. The new one does a steady 175 watts at
full output.
I did hear K1DS/R calling me with QRZ a few times, but he never got my
call. I never heard K3TUF. Ditto for K8TQK although I was calling that
direction at 45 mins past each hour. My only other DX worked was WS3C in FM19.
I did not hear FM18, 28, or FM08. Possibly the problem is the antenna damage
here, but really, the band seemed quite disturbed with lots of deep QSB. I
think the condx were just real bad. Still, a bad night on 222 MHz is better
than cutting brush or picking up downed tree limbs, so I'll take it!!
73
Dave K1WHS
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