[VHFcontesting] 144.200

[Jim Smith]

Alex,

Some time ago I tried to set up an FM Simplex mini-contest for our club 
members, most of whom know very little about ham radio outside the world 
of repeaters and Field Day.

It piggy-backed on the ARRL VHF.  The idea was to get them on the air 
for some FM Simplex fun and hope that they'd make contact with some of 
the folks in the real contest.  I advertised what we were doing on the 
PNWVHFS reflector to promote this possibility.  Unfortunately, I got 
very little response from the club members and haven't had the time to 
pursue it since.  Lots of support from the guys on the reflector, though.

The point of all this is that perhaps you could try doing the same in 
your area.  I would be happy to send you (or anyone else) the stuff I 
put together on this.

The Milwaukee Club (MRAC) tried a similar thing at the same time I was 
doing this.  You can find the rules for their FM Simplex contest (which 
are much better developed than mine) at
http://www.qsl.net/mrac/  They had several people working on this and, I 
believe, had some success.

I'm sure they, like me, would be happy to answer any questions you might 
have.

73, Jim	Smith VE7FO

Alex wrote:
> 
> I would love to introduce some of these folks on .52 FM to contesting during a contesting weekend when there's actually some activity. It's amazing how many people in my town are active on .52.  When there was a discussion about .52 not being active in the area, a lot of folks switched to simplex. The introduction of a few echolink simplex nodes helped quite a bit, too. On any given night (except during a net time) I hear more activity on simplex FM, especially .52, than on all of the 34 repeaters in my area together.
> 
> 73,
> --Alex KR1ST
> http://www.kr1st.com
> 
> 
>