[VHFcontesting] 222 Activity night

[alex at kr1st.com]

I'm glad you mentioned that about channel 11 last week. During the 222 
sprint I noticed a lot of noise in a certain direction. I put the TinySA 
on the antenna and noticed I got new neighbors on channel 11 and 12. 
That must have happened with a frequency move last year. They're on a 
mountain about 20 miles from me, and I'm on a mountain as well. I guess 
I'll have to build a bandpass filter to put in front of the transverter. 
No pre-amps here.

73,
--Alex KR1ST
FN21fk

On 2021-04-18 12:47, Dave Olean wrote:
> 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
> 
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