[VHFcontesting] Magic in the September VHF Contest

[jon jones]

Todd, KØKAN EM19 worked AA4ZZ EM96 in the VHF contest on 144, 222 and 432 MHz Saturday night Sept. 14 (15th UTC)
 on a narrow tropo duct. He found AA4ZZ "the old fashioned way" -  by tuning his radio. 

"Absolute high point of the weekend... Heard AA4ZZ *calling CQ* on 2 meter SSB
 Saturday evening. I called him, he called back but had trouble with my call, so I called
back on CW. Made the QSO, moved to 432. Then moved to 222. Also worked on CW. 
EM19 to EM96 on 144, 432 and 222 MHz... " - KØKAN
 
To me these contacts Todd made are the magic of VHF/UHF and what make the contest special. 
 
 - NØJK


> When you show someone ham radio - a lot of the magic is that you can
> tune around the radio and hear stations and call them and make
> contacts at random with people that you do not know.
> 
> If you have to send an email or call someone on the phone to get them
> on the radio so you can show the radio off kind of takes the edge off
> the magic.  It sends the message that you have to have the internet or
> the cell phone or something to even make a radio contact. That just
> seems wrong.  We already have a lot of hams that think they have to
> use DX spotting systems to find and work DX. - K5TR