[VHFcontesting] 222 MHz night

[David Olean]

I am at my camp with very limited internet access. I plan to be in 
FN43mj at my shack on Tuesday morning in hopes of a little tropo. The 
Hepburn maps show a localized inversion. I am hoping it expands! In any 
event, I will be checking the band out on Tuesday morning and then at 7 
PM local time Tuesday evening for the regularly scheduled Activity Night 
extravaganza.

Circle your calendars for Tuesday evening 21 September for the weekly 
222 Activity Night.  People start showing up on the band at 2300 UT 
typically. With normal conditions, things slow down at about 0130 to 
0200 UT on the 22nd.  One of these days we will get some tropo up in the 
more northerly areas. I am still hoping! There was a pretty good CME a 
few days ago and the K index hit 5. I was monitoring 222 MHz at that 
time, but no aurora appeared. Being near the equinox, we have a better 
chance of catching an aurora, but things have been pretty slim 
aurora-wise for a long time.  Still, it pays to keep track of such 
things and be ready when the good conditions happen. One way to be ready 
is to get on for 222 night. It is a great way to test your setup. Many 
stations both near and ar are available and you can tell whether your 
gear is working properly.

I have been testing my two 222 preamps using real world signals and have 
the following to report.  Preamp #1 is a 0.7 dB NF GaAsFET with about 14 
dB gain and it is located in the shack after a 170 ft run of 1 5/8" 
coax. The coax return loss is better than 30 dB and the calculated loss 
is about 0.42 dB.   Preamp #2 is located on top of the tower and perched 
next to the 222 MHz power divider for my quad yagi array. There is a 
short  flexible 1/2" Superflex jumper with under 0.1 dB measured loss. 
The preamp is a DEMI commercial preamp with a SAW filter on the output 
that kills any TV station RF before it comes down the coax and overloads 
the transverter.  This preamp has about 17 dB gain and it is routed down 
from the tower using 7/8" Heliax. It is possible to compare both preamps 
with a switch at the operating position.

On the horizon, I have been using the W2UTH 222 beacon on 222.050. It is 
very weak here (330 miles away) and I see about a 2 dB improvement when 
using the tower mounted preamp. A few evenings ago, I compared the 
preamps on some EME signals when the Moon was in an area with about 100 
degree Kelvin sky temps. Looking at recovered EME signals on JT65B I was 
seeing better than 3 dB improvement on Moon reflected signals with the 
tower mounted preamp. This was achieved by eliminating about 1/2 dB from 
the feedline loss.  A 3dB improvement on EME is huge.  I would have to 
double the size of the antenna to achieve a 3 dB increase on receive!

Anyway, all this tinkering is possible if there are signals on 222 to 
play with.   So when Tuesday night rolls around, try to be on or about 
222.100 with SSB or CW and see what happens. If you are far away from 
activity areas, set up a sked via a chat page (ON4KST 144/432 Region 2) 
and see what happens with a long haul sked! You might be surprised. Last 
week I worked N4SVC in northern Florida using meteors and MSK144 during 
activity night. When things slow down with local signals up here, I try 
to set up a long try on FT8 or meteors.  222 is a remarkable band. It is 
a shame more amateur transceivers do not include it.

CU on 222

Dave K1WHS