[VHFcontesting] 222 Night for June 7/8 2022

[Paul Rollinson]

Hi Dave,I'm trying to get on tonight. Hope we can chat.73Thanks,Paul Rollinson, KE1LI Fn41au860-928-5147860-208-8814 Cell/TextPaulrollinson at sbcglobal.net Representing Component Part Manufacturers for over 35 yearsSent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
-------- Original message --------From: David Olean <k1whs at metrocast.net> Date: 6/7/22  2:33 PM  (GMT-05:00) To: "222 >> 222Activity at groups.io" <222Activity at groups.io>, vhfcontesting at contesting.com, NEWSVHF at mailman.qth.net Subject: [VHFcontesting] 222 Night for June 7/8 2022 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_______________________________________________VHFcontesting mailing listVHFcontesting at contesting.comhttp://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/vhfcontesting