[VHFcontesting] [NEWSVHF] 222 activity night

[David Olean]

Hi Ron & other 222 addicts,

I was drumming my fingers on the lawn chair all afternoon while visiting 
friends by Province Lake, as I could not wait to put RF through the new 
222 coax feedline on 222 Activity night!. The XYL and I were visiting 
one of her old boy friends from high school. I was there physically, but 
my thoughts were with how the 222 band was going to be and whether all 
of my jumper cables would work properly. I have to face it... I am a GEEK!

I got things running a few minutes before 7 PM local time and the first 
signal I heard was W8ZN in FM09. He was CQing on ssb. He did hear me and 
turned his antenna and we had a nice rag chew on SSB for a few minutes. 
Neither of us missed a word and I was hoping that things would be great, 
but any enhancement was either not there or short lived! I tried with 
KE8FD in Ohio and K9MRI, all all I heard were meteor bursts. Those 
directions for me are OK but not the best. My best direction is down the 
coast, South, and over to the East.  I have a pipeline to Africa on HF.  
African VHF activity is a bit spotty, so I am waiting for my first 
contact there!  But I did run with N1GC in EM95 and actually heard him 
on tropo. I could not copy what he was sending, but I could tell that he 
was there! At one point I heard a few CW characters for about 1 or 2 
seconds. It was weak and I think it was a meteor burn that was very weak.

I worked a goodly number of folks including W8ZN FM09 SSB, WA3NUF FN20 
SSB, VE2XX FN25 SSB, W9KXI FN12 SSB, K1DY FN54 SSB,  N1SFE FN31 SSB,  
W1AIM FN34 SSB, N1DPM FN32 SSB, VE3DS FN03 on CW, WA3EOQ FM09 on CW,  
N1SV FN42 on CW.  WA3EOQ was rather easy this night, and after I worked 
him, I heard someone else calling and it was the Polish Beer 
Impressario, WZ1V of all people.  I tuned back to monitor the contact 
and see if I could hear Howard. I switched to my LVA so I could hear you 
better and Howard really peaked up here about S2 or S3 and well above 
the noise on the lower gain antenna! Howard told me that he had swung 
his beam 15 or 20 degrees off my heading then, so it was a really big 
tropo peak.  I also note that N1DPM worked Howard on a big tropo peak as 
well.

In other news, WQ0P worked K9MRI over a 560 mile path last night. I am 
not sure but I think it was via FT8.  W5EME was in there as well. I 
listened for meteors from Rick, but at 1460 miles, I heard nil.

The only changes needed to my 222 setup after last night is that one 
jumper cable from the wattmeter to the coaxial switch needs replacement. 
It is Andrew 1/2: Superflex and it got fairly warm. It was the right 
length, so I used it, but it really needs to be LDF-4. I am working on 
that today.

Thanks to al who were on and making noise. I saw many new calls on the 
chat page. That is great!!

73

Dave K1WHS

On 7/20/2022 7:28 AM, Ron Klimas WZ1V wrote:
> Was late getting on, missed a few earlybirds but worked:
> K1WHS FN43, N1SV FN42, W9KXI FN12, K1DY FN54,
> K1PXE FN31, N1SFE FN31, N1GJ FN41, W1AIM FN34,
> WA3EOQ FM09, and N1DPM FN32. TNX for the QSOs.
>
> 73 Ron WZ1V FN31RH
>
>