[VHFcontesting] The calling frequencies and roving

[Rick R]

Having lived in Lubbock, Texas for 2 yrs in the 70's, 2 meter activity 
seemed limited to local repeater FM, some occassional tropo FM, and one 
other guy in town who had a quad array of long yagis and about 500 watts, on 
which he periodically worked a station a few hundred miles away. Many of us 
also enjoyed 2m fox-hunts with Heathkit Twoers and vibrapack power supplies!
When the VHF folks are few and far between, everyone seems to leave their 
receivers on 144.2, cause there's not much else happening. Here in the East, 
there are so many stations on 2m that the big guns have really learned that 
they have to spread out substantially, and there is lots of activity up and 
down the band because there are so many stations. One of the top local 
rovers uses 144.237 as his calling and meeting freq. If everyone is on the 
calling frequency, and there is any kind of enhancement, only the big guns 
will work each other. If you call CQ  +/- 20Kc from the calling freq, and 
let folks know you'll be doing that, there is a reinforcement effect when 
they spin their dial and lo and behold, hear someone they've not heard or 
worked before. Admittedly, if contacts come only 1 every 10-20-30 mins, 
you're not gonna be calling CQ for long---but get a voice keyer, or CW 
memory keyer to help. Radio Shack now has a voice memory chip set with 
mike/speaker for only $10.  Don't get discouraged, building VHF activity and 
excitement takes time....but as one EME'er told me yrs ago, frustration is 
frustrating....so don't have expectations that are beyond the capabilities 
and willingness of the geographic ham representation, or the capabilities of 
your gear and antennas (ie--if you try to do EME with 250 watts and one long 
yagi, you'll only work a handful of stations). You can enhance scores with 
techniques such as meeting up with other rovers, building laser 
communicators, using FM on bands ABCD, and even pre-arranging scheds with 
other fixed stations, using WSJT for meteor scatter and other techniques. Of 
course, you could always drive a few hundred miles and get into the RF 
density of CA! 73 es GL.  Rick K1DS/R


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