[VHFcontesting] 222 MHz Sprint

[David Olean]

I spent my first evening this Spring in my remote hamshack running the 222 Sprint. The road has dried out enough that I can drive up with some gear. I hooked the 222 stuff back up. The new antenna had spun around this winter in some very high winds, so my first task was to climb the tower at 5:30 PM to re align the antennas. What a shock to get up there and see that about 10 elements are severely bent on the two bottom yagis, where ice fell from the top ones and creamed the lower ones on their way down.  The same ice demolished my newly installed northeast 144 fixed array on the same tower.  I can't reach any of the 222 elements, so I had to run with what I had. It is very frustrating that my new array scarcely lasted four months before it was damaged by ice and needs a few new elements. In addition, the H frame bent slightly and the array is now slightly elevated in permanent fashion!  At 7PM I started out and there was pretty good activity for the first hour, but things went downhill fast. By 9 PM there was no one new showing up, and conditions did not improve much either. I worked one station between 9 and 10 PM and no one after 10 PM. My last QSO was with W1AIM who showed up shortly before 9:30 PM.
    I managed to work only three of the eight grids that bortder my own grid. Luckily I worked my own grid with WA1T and N1DGF. Missing all the other close grids was frustrating however. Besides N1DGF  just north of me, I heard no one to my East, northeast, or north. No VEs heard. I spent a lot of time looking, but heard nil. Not much to the west. KA2LIM was my only contact there. I missed all sorts of easy grids due to lack of activity: FN10, FN22, FN23, FN33, FN51, FN03, FN02 etc. I ended up with 37 QSOs and 14 grids. I ran about 1000 watts output to either the four yagi stack or the 8 yagi 5 element LVA.  Still I had a lot of fun even if the activity was low and the DX was absent. Later in the evening, when things slowed down,  I removed the old trusty 2 x 2C39 1296 amp and replaced it with my new solid state PA in the rack. It looks nice in the small self contained 5" rack panel. It is about 1/5th the weight of the old unit. Power is about the same. The old air cooled two holer did between 110 and 140 watts. The new one does a steady 175 watts at full output.
    I did hear K1DS/R calling me with QRZ a few times, but he never got my call. I never heard K3TUF. Ditto for K8TQK although I was calling that direction at 45 mins past each hour. My only other DX worked was WS3C in FM19. I did not hear FM18, 28,  or FM08. Possibly the problem is the antenna damage here, but really, the band seemed quite disturbed with lots of deep QSB. I think the condx were just real bad. Still, a bad night on 222 MHz is better than cutting brush or picking up downed tree limbs, so I'll take it!!

73
Dave K1WHS