[VHFcontesting] New to VHF/UHF Contesting: Next Steps

Sat Apr 2 13:38:50 EDT 2016

 Lu, 

That is a tremendous offer and would be thrilled to see what you thinkabout  the location I wanted to operatefrom.  The one I was at in January wasseverely compromised.  The January  location was 1,400 feet below my desired siteand was ringed by mountain tops 1,000 feet above me on 3 sides.  I will be going to the desired site (FlagPole Knob, 38°30'35.99"N, 79°11'2.90"W 4389 feet ASL, FM08JM) in Juneto see how well the radio system performs before making any major changes.   That location should let me reach an arcfrom Pittsburg around through DC, Norfolk and into North Carolina.  I managed one 164 mile contact from the "bad" compromised spot at 3300 feet so I am optomistic about what I could do from Flag Pole at 4400'.  You are absolutely correct in saying that SSBwould dramatically increase range. However adding SSB takes me out of the FM only category and would put meinto 3 Band which requires thousands of points just place in the middle of the pack.  However using a 6M rig to generate FM contacts (allowed) and to ask SSB operators to hop over to FM for 2, 1.25 and 0.7M contacts seems like a universal suggestion.  Cant really afford to run H & V antenna's and I dont want to run just H and cut off the thousands of V pol only rigs.  Setting antenna's at 45 degrees and taking the 3dB hit might be worth it.

Question:  Is there anything I need to add about the FlagPole location that is not included above to take you up on your kind offer?  

My email is nosigma at aol.com

73, John, KM4KMU

-----Original Message-----
From: Lu <n2sln at frontiernet.net>
To: nosigma <nosigma at aol.com>
Sent: Thu, Mar 31, 2016 3:59 am
Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] New to VHF/UHF Contesting:  Next Steps

John,

The easiest next step is trying a different location before making any 
changes to equipment.  Let me know what grid you want to try and I'll start 
by sending you any info I might have in my database already, then I'll spend 
some time researching the area in more detail and send you some 
possibilities that you can investigate further.

After that, the next step is getting SSB capability and immediately tripling 
the distance you can reach. You'll be going from 10 KHz wide FM to 3 KHz 
wide SSB.  The narrower the bandwidth, the farther you can reach at the same 
power level.

If your yagis work on the SSB portions of the bands, then spinning them to 
horizontal polarization will open up tons of activity since 99+ percent of 
SSB/CW activity is horizontally polarized.  Leaving them vertically 
polarized will cost about 6 S-units (and many stations will be missed 
completely).

73

Lu
N2SLN

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Young via VHFcontesting" <vhfcontesting at contesting.com>
To: <vhfcontesting at contesting.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2016 9:32 PM
Subject: [VHFcontesting] New to VHF/UHF Contesting: Next Steps

> Looking for some advice on what to do next when it comes to improving my 
> expedition type set up.
>
>
> Background:
> I picked up my Technician and General license at Dayton in 2015.  Last 
> fall I decided to combine my love of off roading (rock crawling) with 
> amateur radio and take part in the January VHF/UHF contest.  I decided to 
> enter the FM only category since it does not require a high level of 
> sophistication or a huge investment in equipment.  Living in Northern 
> Virginia I am near several large population centers.  Since FM range is 
> LOS dependent and altitude is king I felt I might just have a big 
> advantage in setting up my Jeep Cherokee to carry my radio gear up to 
> 4,000+ feet in the dead of winter to either of two locations that would 
> give me access to between 12-15 grid squares and hopefully 800-1200 
> points.  The big snow fall put 6-8 foot drifts on the trails I needed to 
> use, I am OK with 3-4 feet but 6-8 feet just wasnt doable so I ended up in 
> a highly compromised location with mountain tops 1000' above me on 3 
> sides. I did get a couple of 150+ mile FM contacts but I got totally sh
> ut out of major population centers.  As a result I got "smoked", around 
> 100 QSO's but only 60 points worth of contest contacts.  June, September 
> and especially next January beckon.
>
>
> Current Set Up:
> 15 foot fold over mast mounted through roof that drops into a manual 
> rotator attached to the cargo floor of the Cherokee.  Mast cross arm is 15 
> feet above the roof, 23 feet above ground level.  Cross arm support a 
> Cushcraft A14810s for 2 meters, a Cushcraft A44911S for 70cm and a Diamond 
> X-30A omni. All antenna cabling is LMR-400.  Connectors are UHF.  Cables 
> run inside the mast down into the vehicle.  Radio is a Yaesu FT-8800 (50W 
> 2M, 35W 70cm) that is mast mounted inside the vehicle with the remote head 
> on a work table for logging (all manual).  I was using a diplexer between 
> the two Yagi's and a two position switch to select between the Yagi's and 
> omni.  I have since deleted the diplexer due to losses and run the cables 
> to an Alpha Delta 4 position switch.  I am adding 220MHz using an older 
> Kenwood radio (35W 1.25M) and switching out the dual band monopole for a 
> triband omni of higher gain.  I will probably modify the mast cross arm to 
> add a 220MHz Yagi once I settle on a
>  design for the cross arm and antenna locations that dont have interfering 
> capture areas and decide if I want to phase in a second set of Yagi's.  I 
> have spent quite a bit of time minimizing cable and connector losses 
> (under a dB on all bands from radio to antenna connector and minimizing 
> VSWR which is 1.2 or less at 144 & 220 and under 1.5 at 440.
>
>
> Here is is link to some photo's of the set up if you are interested: 
> http://s49.photobucket.com/user/nosigma/library/XJ%20Radio%20Rig?sort=3&page=1
>
>
> Questions:
> Where should I go next for the next performance improvement for this FM 
> only system?
> Phase a second Yagi at each band for 2-3 dB?  Add an RX pre amp on each 
> band (if you cant hear them you cant work them)? Add a TX amplifier to get 
> up to the allowed 100W for 3-4 dB?  If the answer is amps then should I 
> mount them at the antenna for minimum loss or are my losses low enough at 
> under 1dB that its not worth the extra set up hassle?  If the answer is 
> RX/TX amps can I get away without having to run a sequencer? Am I missing 
> something more basic, like the radio or driving up to north eastern PA for 
> the next contest?   A KX3, transverters and amplifiers are NOT in the 
> budget, maybe someday but I want to keep this as basic and as simple as 
> possible for now.
>
>
> Looking for some suggestions.
>
>
> 73
> KM4KMU
> John
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