[VHFcontesting] 222 Activity night

[Dave Olean]

Don't forget that Tuesday will be the first activity night for 222 MHz. 
Well, not really the first, but at least an attempt to build some local 
activity all over the country.  I will be on looking for contacts and 
using the ON4KST page along with HB9Q if there is activity there as 
well. I encourage everyone who has 222 MHz to make an appearance and we 
will see what happens. Conditions here in the NE are pretty punky now 
with no tropo condx in sight anywhere, but the SE always seems to have 
some tropo. This Tuesday, it will be slightly good in the gulf area.  As 
the warmer wx approaches, we can expect better results on 222, so lets 
try every Tuesday evening.

I went up to the shack today to look into my Channel 11 TV overload 
situation.  When an antenna is aimed at 219 degrees, CH 11 is in the 
pattern and overloaded something. I suspected the preamp.  I had it all 
working fine last fall, but the front end got wiped out by a winter snow 
storm with static, and I swapped out the preamp with a replacement. Now 
I had the noise and I suspected the preamp, so I changed the preamp and 
put the old one back in after I repaired it. It is an HP AT10135 
GaAsFET. The snow static had blown the FET gate along with one of the 
source bypass capacitors! After re building the front end, I put it back 
in line, and that noise seems to be gone. I see noise variations now as 
I rotate the beam, but the variation is slight. It was 3 S units 
before!  It looks like the overload is gone and ,my LVA antenna now 
seems to hear OK with stations at 218 degrees or so. The K1IIG beacon is 
on that heading, so it is a good test.

While I was doing these tests, my receive just died. It turns out the 
transverter had gone in to transmit all by itself. I unplugged the 
keying line and it remained in a transmit state.  I brought it down to 
my house and opened it up. I measured 1.5 ohms to gnd on the PTT input. 
Poking around there made the problem go away. Now I see 13 volts there 
when un keyed. I suspected a bypass cap had gone bad, but it seems fine. 
Heating and cooling it has no effect. I suspect I had some "schmutz" 
causing the problem....most likely steel wool strand or ? Anyway, I will 
put everything back together so I will be ready for Tuesday evening.

Remember APRIL 20  on 222.1 MHz  CW, SSB, MSK144, FSK441, JT65B, FT8.  I 
will draw the line with modulated oscillators and spark rigs.

Dave K1WHS