[VHFcontesting] [NEWSVHF] 222 Activity Night

Tue Jun 15 23:43:15 EDT 2021

Well I was very happy that Fred N1DPM showed up for 222 activity night. 
We had a nice rag chew and signals were 59+ each way. Fred's signal was 
outstanding.  I listened to Fred run with KO4YC near Richmond, VA.  
K04YC was peaking up really fine, hitting a good 559 on the S-meter. 
That is pretty impressive for over 500 miles away. I tail ended KO4YC 
and called Fred. I had worked Cornell earlier with my driver amp at 80 
watts. It was a squeaker, but while I was ragchewing with N1DPM, KO4YC 
heard me OK on ssb with my 80 watts, so there were definitely some good 
tropo peaks going on. You should not be able to work 525 miles with 80 
watts on 222 normally.

A try with VE3DS was not successful with my 80 watts. Still it was  a 
great evening on 222 with 13 stations worked including

KA2LIM Ken in FN12

W9KXI  Al also in FN12  Ken and Al seem to be FN12!!

WW1M Bruce in FN43 (just down the road a few miles)

WA1LWC in FN42   5 watt power house!

VE2XX    Stu near Montreal in FN25. I could hear him working KA2LIM. 59 
when we aimed at each other!

N1SV Les in FN42  One of the 222 night regulars

WZ1V  Good Buddy Ron.  Always shows up for 222 night and stirs up the 
pot with lots of contacts.

N3RG Ray way down at the bottom of FM29

K3WHC Steve in FN10pa.

K1PXE  Pete in FN31.  The voice of Milford! and a staunch supporter of 
activity night.

WA2VNV in FN30 on Long Island with a booming signal up here in Maine.

K2AEP Pete in FN33 Vermont. One of the few people who keeps a briefcase 
full of alphabetically organized jokes.

KO4YC Cornell in FM17 near Richmond, who must have a fantastic takeoff 
angle. Just a phenomenal signal up here every week.

I had some excitement here. Not too long after I got on the air, There 
was a very large explosion and a flash behind the rack as the 222 MHz 
8877 amp decided to arc over. I hate it when that happens. The high 
voltage fuse is about 4 1/2" long and is a phenolic tube with brass end 
bells. When it went off. The two end bells were blown out of the tube 
ends and one of the brass end bells shattered into little pieces. It 
even blew up the beryllium copper fuse holders!  This could be serious. 
At a minimum, I probably have shorted diodes in the metering circuit. At 
worst, the tube might be hosed. I dragged it back to the house and will 
look it over in the morning.

I recall this happened another time many years ago with this same 
amplifier on Pack Monadnock Mountain in New Hampshire during a June 
Contest. The 220 rig was set up in a cargo van and I had built up an 
eight yagi array of NBS 4.2 wavelngth design for EME. The group was W1FC 
and there was an aurora on both Saturday and Sunday evening. We were 
cleaning up on 220 MHz and our section total was way ahead of the 144 
station. I remember working Iowa and Minnesota that weekend along with 
EME to California. Word got around that we were doing so well, and a 
crowd formed all poking their heads in the van door to see what we were 
doing. At that exact time, the 8877 amp decided to arc over and that 
same HV fuse exploded. It sounded like someone shot off a M1911 45cal 
pistol inside the van and to add some spice to the effort, the two end 
bells went ricocheting off the walls of the van. The crowd instantly 
thinned out and we replaced the fuse and got back to working DX.

Thanks to all who came out to play, including Marshall, K5QE from Texas. 
He ran some MS schedules. Thanks Marshall!

73

Dave K1WHS

On 6/15/2021 9:59 PM, Fred Stefanik wrote:
> I was able to get on 222 here tonight for about 30 minutes.  I worked 
> VE3DS at 369 miles, KO4YC at 385 miles, and K1WHS at 125 miles.
> Hopefully I can get on more often on Tuesday nights.
> Thanks Dave for drumming up the activity!
> 73
> Fred
> N1DPM
> FN32qb
>
> On Tue, Jun 15, 2021, 5:18 PM David Olean <k1whs at metrocast.net 
> <mailto:k1whs at metrocast.net>> wrote:
>
>     Just two days after the big June VHF Contest. I know everybody is
>     probably sick to death of working 50 MHz DX. You would most likely
>     rather do anything but more ham radio, but it is 222 Night! I will be
>     on starting around 7 or 7:30 PM local time or 2300 UT and will be
>     making
>     noise on 222.100 thereabouts.  When we quit contesting Sunday
>     night, I
>     am sure that the diesel generator was running on fumes. I will
>     drag up a
>     6 gallon can of diesel fuel to make sure I don't run out.
>
>     I hope to see you on 222 MHz
>
>     Dave K1WHS
>
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