Hello VHF ops and VHF phreaques,
I saw a few interesting things over the contest weekend. One look at the
Hepburn map showed that propagation would be very marginal, and that
turned out to be very true. I heard lots of complaints. It was sobering
with no propagation lift to help. I noted that being on only 222 and
432 poses a few problems for running the bands. I can't pick up stations
on 50 or 144 and then "run the bands". Yes it is my own fault, but I am
still clearing wreckage from the last 144 antenna farm. Waiting on 222
or 432 and trying to catch people 'passing through" is almost
impossible. I called AF1T at several times but never could get him to
notice as he was gone the millisecond after completing his contact and
moving to the next band. The fact that he was 59+20 did not help me.
Stations that are S4 or S5 are impossible with these circumstances. They
do not listen nor hear me and are gone to some other band. That leaves
sitting at the computer and watching chat pages to dredge up contacts.
I did try calling CQ on SSB and a bit on CW, but that was very
unproductive. I really have no idea how to operate the contest and still
have fun. I love analog contacts but the numbers are decreasing. The big
guns now have four or five bands operating simultaneously on FT8 even if
they are single ops. This maximizes FT8 contacts as the exchange is
slower than molasses in January, so having four or five band signals at
once can speed things up quite a bit. I went snooping around the chat
pages looking for stations to try with. It is very slow and hit or miss,
but that was the only routine that seems to work. CQing sure does not
work on 222 or 432. I remember 20 years ago we had a multi op station
and actually called CQ on 1296 and it was productive. Things are sure
different today.
I missed many contacts with a few rovers as they would never respond to
my requests for a sked. I think the problem is that they are very busy
pointing their antennas to the populated areas and have their hands full
with action there, so do not turn their beams elsewhere and cut their
score. Pointing to the populated areas will increase your score much
faster than trying to work someone 180 degrees away. I missed several
grids because of that. Some rovers were easy to find and responsive. I
want to single out VA3TEC/R. I am not sure what Mike was doing there
with his rover-mobile, but he was exceptionally loud on the two bands
that I worked him. I caught him in FN04 and FN14 on both 222 and 432. IN
each case he would respond to a request for a sked even though my beam
heading was not very productive. His major action area was SOUTH I was
East! Signals on both 222 and 432 were monstrous. Congrats, Mike.
I found conditions to be flat for the most part, but i did see a few
bright spots. On Saturday evening, N3MK was blasting in from Eastern
Shore of Virginia and FM27 between 0130 and 0200 UT. He was on FT8 and
was very loud. On Sunday evening I heard a few stations calling him, but
could not even detect him then. I did try working VA3IKE on 222 MHz on
Saturday evening and was surprised to work him with Q65B digi mode. He
was at -20, which is pretty good for his 25 watts. That is an insane
distance of 600 miles for 25 watts on 222 MHz. I think Ike religiously
uses antenna wax on his antenna. Other observations were the missing
grids that are always bugging me. No one was worked from FN33 that abuts
my grid square. On 222 MHz I missed four grids that border my own grid.
I did manage to work the other four grid squares that border FN43.
(FN42, FN32, FN34, and FN44 I missed quite a few easily workable grids
due to lack of activity. Others went missing because I could never find
the station to even try in the first place. KE8FD and N8LRG are two that
I would love to try but never got a chance. I missed EN80 on 222 and
432. I think I had a good chance on 222.
Now for the good news and positive results. I concentrated on working
grids on 222 and had a good result picking off the grids that are
extremely far away. I worked K3SK and W7JW in FM07 and EN82 via EME on
Sunday morning. Other stations worked then via EME were W4NH EM84, K9MRI
EN70, W6TCP CM83, W7TZ CM97, and NH6Y in BL10 N4QWZ in TN was worked
via meteors on Sunday evening. I was amazed that eight stations were
worked via the Moon on Sunday morning in a very short period of time.
Every contact was quick with no problem with Faraday rotation. W8ZN in
FM09 was worked on 222 & 432 on CW. VE3ZV was worked from EN92 on SSB
and CW. These are close to 500 mile distances. I did hear a bunch of
stations on DIGI mode who could not hear me. I kept looking at the
wattmeter as I figured that maybe my PA had failed. It never did and it
pumped out max power all weekend when I was on. Still I was amazed at
what I heard and could not work on the digi modes. I think some receives
could use an engineering update. I did snag KE4WMH/R on 222, who was
down in FM17 on early Sunday evening when the band was stinko. I had to
call for quite awhile to get his attention, but eventually he turned his
antenna and we completed. That was nice. I ended up with the following
score:
BAND QSO GRID
144 4 2
222 61 34
432 52 27
Due to the slow nature of the September contest these days, I was
participating with a half hearted radio effort timewise, and spent most
of Saturday and Sunday afternoon working on removing antenna tower
debris from the site. My hilltop now looks like a scrap metal yard with
all the bent and broken towers. when things seemed slow on the band, i
turned off the generator and went to work outside. I accomplished a lot
and rigged things up to get the last 90 ft of Rohn 45 out of the tree
limbs. I had 90 ft of Rohn 45 up about 25 to 30 ft in trees where it
fell. As of today, I was able to lower them all to ground level, all
90ft worth!! I used several boat winches and heavy aircraft cable. I
even hauled rocks to fill in the woods road up to the shack. So between
the manual labor and the contest, I was a busy boy.
73
Dave K1WHS
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