[VHFcontesting] 222 Night for June 7/8 2022

[David Olean]

Hello 222 folks,

I am looking forward to this evening to try out my revised 222 receive 
system. Yesterday, I climbed the 100 ft tower and removed the weather 
proof box that held the TX relays and the preamp. It was working great, 
but was being hammered by a CH 11 TV station whenever I aimed southwest. 
(Guess where most of the activity is?) That CH 11 TV station is in line 
with New York, Philly, and Washington DC. I could not use my tower mtd 
preamp in that direction.  So a new and bigger box was built up to 
contain the cavity FET preamp. I had to steal the original power 
connector from the old box so I did not have to run a new cable and 
connector up the tower.  Last night I swapped things out and finished 
the wiring of the interior of the box, using that power connector 
again.  Then some tests on the NF meter that proved it was working. I am 
seeing about a 1/2 dB NF through the adaptors and TX relays, which seems 
about right.  So I was up on the tower this morning, and checked for the 
proper voltages with my trusty DVM. The last move was to connect up the 
DC to the preamp once I knew that all was well, and then down the tower 
to see how it worked.

There is no evidence of overload! In addition, the selectivity in the 
frontend is so good that the CH 11 station does not even overload the 
transverter. I was sure that I would have to install a filter to prevent 
that, but the 25 dB of attenuation was enough to make it all work just 
fine. I listened a bit to the K1RT Beacon on 222.060. I was hearing it 
pretty well....a good sign.  I tried elevating the yagis and saw the 
noise level drop, so it is working. How well, remains to be seen, but I 
am encouraged that my hearing problems to the SW are gone. Now I need to 
try it out with real signals.  I hope many make the effort to get on 
this evening!!

I plan to be on 222.100 at about 22:30 or 22:45 UT. I will be monitoring 
ON4KST as well as HB9Q Chat for any EME activity. At 0100 UT the Moon 
will be southwest and at about a 45 degree elevation. It sets here at 
about 0545 UT.  It could be an exciting evening!

Be there and check it out!

Dave K1WHS