[VHFcontesting] 222 Activity Night

[N1BUG]

It's Tuesday! 222 ops, you know what that means! Time to put aside 
thoughts of winter for an evening and have some fun on the greatest VHF 
band! Use those amplifiers to heat the shack if you've got 'em! But get 
on with whatever you have, high power or low, big antenna or small! You 
can work stuff... but not if you aren't on the air. Trust me, I am an 
expert on the latter with regard to 222 Activity Night!

I am planning to be there for a change! Starting this week I was finally 
able to move my exhausting Tuesday schedule to Mondays. Evenings are 
still not a great time for me, I am always going to be very tired 
then... but I've got a much better chance of being quasi-functional 
Tuesday evenings now!

Since I haven't been a regular participant, it may take a few weeks to 
find what works best for me. I can work a lot, but it is challenging to 
know what to do from way up here in the boonies. Unless people are 
pointed at me, I can' tell what frequencies are in use. For now, I will 
CQ frequently on 222.100 CW and see how that goes. Maybe it would be 
best in the future to pick a spot well removed from .100 and announce in 
advance where I will be. But I'm not sure all who are active for 222 
Activity Night see these weekly announcements? On the other hand, I bet 
222 ops would spread the word! We'll just see how it goes for now. I am 
open to suggestions.

I prefer to call CQ on CW especially when I am tired, but will very 
happily switch to SSB when called on that mode. I have no issue with FT8 
per se and may try that from time. I will go there by request. However, 
it won't be a primary focus for me. I use FT8 on HF every day but it 
takes away so much of what was truly special and unique that I loved 
about VHF - hearing the shifting sounds of signals with propagation, 
adapting transmitting speed, length of transmissions etc. to match 
conditions. That was probably the biggest reason I fell in love with VHF 
in the first place and have enjoyed it so much over the years. I will be 
on the ON4KST R2 144/432 chat page.

73,
Paul N1BUG
FN55mf
800 watts, K1FO-22 at 115', preamp at the top of the tower