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[VHFcontesting] 222 MHz Night

To: "NEWSVHF@mailman.qth.net" <NEWSVHF@mailman.qth.net>, "222 >> 222Activity@groups.io" <222Activity@groups.io>, "vhfcontesting@contesting.com" <vhfcontesting@contesting.com>
Subject: [VHFcontesting] 222 MHz Night
From: David Olean <k1whs@metrocast.net>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2021 13:36:35 -0400
List-post: <mailto:vhfcontesting@contesting.com>
Hello 222 ops!

I am pretty sure everybody in the northeast is awfully wet from all of the rain we have had from Henri plus all the other disturbances that have been passing through of late.  All of these storms have kept any East Coast tropo from appearing.  Of course, hurricanes can actually promote exceptional conditions by drawing warm and very moist air up into the more northern areas to mix with cool dry air.  When Henri blew in, all of the cooler dry air was off to the east so we missed any tropo enhancement. The band is wide open out in the Atlantic however!

So Tuesday is hopefully a drying out period and a good time to exercise your 222 MHz gear.  For my part, I have finished a tower mounted preamp system on the 222 tower, and have high hopes to swap out my old rotator before Tuesday evening as well.  (I have a derrick and pulley system installed right now)  Installing the preamp has complicated the antenna switching methods I was using. The new preamp has its own feedline coming down the tower, and I spent yesterday adding some relays to allow me to continue switching to other antennas while still being able to listen on these other antennas. I am hoping to install the new mods up in the shack today and test it all out before Tuesday night.

Last week was very interesting with several long haul contacts on 222 MHz to KO4YC in FM17 at 821 km,  WA3EOQ in FM09 at 806 km  and N4SVC in EM80 at 1797 km.  The last listed contact was on meteor scatter using MSK144 and took all of five minutes to complete. There are about as many digital DX modes as there are 222 MHz operators, so what better way to learn about them, than to run a sked or two using one of the Digi modes! It is easy to coordinate on ON4KST chat page and set something up that is a bit beyond your normal range. As local activity dies down later in the evening, there is still plenty of time to run a sked or two.  I am hoping to make a contact using one of the Q65 modes.

So mark your calendar  for Tuesday August 24. Activity starts up whenever you show up, but 2300 UT is a time I shoot for to be active on 222.100. CU there!

73

Dave K1WHS


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