[VHFcontesting] Farthest FM Contact

[Art]

I worked the big 2 M E-Skip opening from Maine a few years back. It 
lasted quite awhile and my wife and I took turns. When it was all 
over, I was amazed when I saw the logs. She had worked many stations 
that I didn't and visa versa, leading me to realize just how variable 
and always changing sporadic E was. I managed to work Texas, but the 
station was loud enough that we could have worked on FM!

The opening was wild, and both my wife and I spent lots of time 
listening without hearing any stations at all, only to have a new 
state pop up 5 minutes later........this continued for several hours!

During the entire event, I never thought of switching to FM simplex 
and trying a CQ. I will not make that mistake again! Virtually all 
the stations worked on SSB were S9 and Q5, the few that weren't S9 
were Q5, so I have to assume all of them would have been workable on FM.

I read a few accounts of the event later, and never heard of any 
station that worked any other DX station on FM! I wonder how many 
more grids and/or states I might have worked if I had just switched 
to 2 meter FM simplex once in awhile and announced that I was in 
Maine and 'listening'.

The sheer numbers of stations listening on FM probably mean many Q's 
were missed because I never switched to FM and called. For every 
station active on SSB, I bet there are 200 or more stations listening 
on FM simplex! Like i said before, I will never make that mistake again.

Regards,

Art