[VHFcontesting] 222 Activity Night 04/27/2022

[David Olean]

Hello 222 ops,

I had been lurking around the station in the afternoon, and re organized 
the AC wiring with a new outlet strip bolted to the side of a relay 
rack. I have two separate AC outlet systems.One is directly run by the 
diesel generator. The second system uses an inverter that runs off solar 
power. The AC inverter is good for about 1800 watts.  The work cleaned 
up a lot of messy power cords.  While doing the work, I was monitoring 
the K1RT/b beacon on 222.060. It seemed pretty good in the afternoon, 
but by evening we had steady rain and drizzle move in and the conditions 
deteriorated a bit.  I was back on for 222 at 22:30 UT and things were a 
bit slow at first. John WW1Z was my first QSO.  More stations appeared 
after 2300 UT, and I was very pleased to see all sorts of action on the 
chat page. I was monitoring ON4KST and noted that there was activity all 
over the eastern half of the country.  It was quite impressive to see. 
KB8VAO and N8WMA were on in Ohio. I saw that AA9MY was on and looking 
for Qs along with K9MRI.  Walt, AJ6T near Nashville was on with 10 watts 
and made a few contacts as well. There was some activity down South as 
well. W4ZST was on and making noise. Terry N4TWX was also in there with 
N1GC and KC4AAW.   W5EME in Louisiana got on and was calling CQ and 
looking for any type of prop available as well.   I got a warm and fuzzy 
feeling knowing that such a group was there exercising the band and 
trying stuff out.

This is exactly what we need on a given Tuesday night. We need stations 
situated all over the place and outside of our normal range of 
coverage.It is only then that those anomalous types of long haul 
propagation will ever be noticed!  As we get into the warmer months, the 
chances of some good tropo as well as better meteors increases by a wide 
margin.    Don't forget aurora. We are getting a much more active Sun 
lately, and I hope we get some 222 MHz aurora too. I tried running some 
meteor tests with W4ZST for about 25 minutes. He heard me great right 
off, but I never heard a peep from Bob.  Mike, N1JEZ in Vermont was 
listening in and heard a nice ping that was long enough to get calls and 
a report from W4ZST.  It is amazing at how selective some meteor burns 
can be. I was using my 8 x 5 element yagis when calling W4ZST. While it 
has a very narrow vertical lobe, the horizontal lobe is very broad with 
a 3 dB point at 52 degrees.  It should be awesome for meteors. Still I 
heard nothing and Mike copied one burst that I could not detect.

There was some heavy QSB last night that I was seeing. W1XR called me on 
SSB and was a strapping S8! We started to ragchew and then noted that 
signals had dropped enough that we both got weak on SSB! Wow! It was a 
huge variation.  I tried calling Howard, WA3EOQ in FM09jo but could not 
pull him out of the noise. I guess it was bad conditions, but I did note 
that my noise floor was elevated in his direction by about 6 dB. I think 
I was getting preamp overload from the CH 11 transmitter that is 17 
miles away and pumping out 316 KW ERP. I need to get my tower mtd preamp 
in order. It gets clobbered from the TV station whenever I aim at 219 
degrees +/- 15 degrees, so Howard is right on the edge and I think my 
hearing was degraded last night.  More preamp work is needed here. A 
cavity front end is needed.


Some of the regulars were missing last night, but it was nice to hear 
the 222 denizens WZ1V and K1PXE making noise all evening. I seemed to 
hear so many K1PXE CQs all over the place!  That boy is dedicated!!   
Good buddy Ron WZ1V was heard on CW, SSB, and FT8! I listened a bit on 
FT8 and heard W3IP, and W1FKF, WB2SIH and N1BUG as well.   It was also 
great to hear N1BUG on CW, especially when he worked W1XR over an over 
500 mile path. That is always cause for celebration.

73

Dave K1WHS