[VHFcontesting] 222 MHz Activity Night coming up.

[David Olean]

We have been blessed with some nice weather these last few days, and I 
am all set for another great night of 222 MHz activity on Tuesday 
evening. The good weather has made it easy to get my internet connection 
re established up to the remote ham shack. Last week, I was without 
internet, but managed to get it running the next morning. It required a 
climb up the 100 ft 432 tower to re install the Ubiquiti 5 GHz unit in 
the dish.  So, with any luck, I should be back in business and able to 
monitor some chat pages.

Looking at the Hepburn Map, things look great for stations in Virginia, 
Tennessee and points South of there. It looks bleak for us northern 
stations, but that should not hold anyone back. I am looking forward to 
some good activity. Last week, I did manage to work a bunch including 
KO4YC at 530 miles or so on CW. I heard Al, W9KXI and called but got no 
response. I think I was a tad late in calling and he moved along. At the 
start of the evening, I was monitoring K2DLL/b in FN23. It drifts around 
a bit and was over 222.050 at 22:30 UT. I also was hearing W2UTH which 
is very stable at 222.050. It is very weak here and very rough copy or 
non existent, so I figured things would be good to the West. Imagine my 
surprise when I had to work KA2LIM on CW and he was weak! W9KXI was not 
worked. It turns out, things went downhill fast on Tuesday, but there 
was some wicked QSB and signals would peak up to very strong levels but 
only occasionally. That was what I was seeing.

Another wrinkle about Tuesday night this time is that the Moon sets on 
the East Coast at 01:45 at my place. Moonset would be about 02:15UT in 
New Jersey. So there is possibility that some EME activity could happen. 
I will be monitoring ON4KST 144/432 Region 2 Chat along with HB9QQ 222 
MHz page.  Possibly K5QE could show up. He claims to have the biggest 
222 antenna in the USA (and probably the World)  The fun part about 222 
night is that it is a good time to try some things that are different.  
Meteor scatter and longish FT8 skeds can be fun along with JT65B on 222 
MHz.  I am still hoping to make my first Q65 contact. You might want to 
try an EME sked. If you have a long yagi and a few hundred watts you 
could be in the ball park. Generally working stuff on the horizon can 
pose problems if you are in a noisy location. The good news is that most 
spots are not that noisy on 222 MHz.  My house is quiet, but the hilltop 
gets lots of noise as many 34 KV xmission lines are LOS and always 
acting up.

I hope everyone shows up for Activity Night. The more who appear make 
for a better evening for everyone. I know that AJ6T shows up quite often 
from the Nashville TN area and scrapes around looking for skeds as he 
has no local activity.  He usually monitors the ON4KST Chat page. If 
anyone is within several hundred miles of Nashville, Don't forget to 
look up AJ6T!  Walt is becoming a die hard 222 fan!  With the expected 
good tropo in southern areas, it would be nice if the "BIG" VA stations 
got on. For my part, I will fire up things here around 2300 UT on 
222.100 and then move off the calling frequency as soon as people show up.

73

Dave K1WHS