[VHFcontesting] 222 Activity Night

[David Olean]

I really tried, but things just did not work out.  I walked up the hill 
with a laptop and my Anritsu antenna tester. I turned on all the gear 
and listened for the new beacon on 222.060. I heard nothing. I tuned 
around and heard no other beacons, so I took my Anritsu antenna analyzer 
and measured the 222 antennas. They were ALL bad. The 4 X yagi array had 
infinite VSWR, while the 8 yagi LVA was well over 2:1.  It has water in 
the feedline somewhere.  I tried connecting up to the internet, but the 
5 GHz link was not there and I had no internet connection.  When it 
rains it seems to pour around here.  This was not a good day especially 
when you add in that my new solid state amp filter board blew up this 
morning when being tested at 1000 watts output.  I am very depressed 
about all of this. It looks like I suffered some antenna damage last 
fall when I dropped the array for the winter. One of the coax 
receptacles is broken in the preamp box and that allowed water to get 
in. Apparently it caused some other damage inside. I have no clue why 
the 4 X yagi array shows infinite VSWR?  The bottom line was that I 
could not even try to get on the air.  I did fire up the 8877 and it 
came up just fine. The 20 KW diesel is making power, but everything else 
is not quite ready for prime time.

I will be in Virginia for a week so will miss next week on 222, but I am 
hoping that the winds die down and it warms up enough to make me want to 
climb the tower. No telling what is wrong, but I will be working on it 
next week when I get back. I am sorry that I missed out on all of the 
excitement on 222 MHz this evening.

73

Dave K1WHS