[VHFcontesting] 432 activity night

[David Olean]

Hi Ron & fred et al

I had fun on 432. It was great to see real activity on a UHF band. It 
was also fun to play with the new (well,not quite new... It has been 
sitting on the tower for seven years and unconnected!)  4 X 15 element 
array that is all stacked vertically, so it has a 30 degree beamwidth in 
the horizontal plane but it must be about 8 degrees in the vertical 
plane. I was hoping that it would ease the aiming situation. I have a 
quad array of 25 element yagis, and if you are not pointing at the 
station, you will not work them!! Well, the new antenna worked great. At 
one point, WZ1V said he thought he copied W1AIM but lost him. I swung 
the 4 x 15 els around to northern Vermont, where it is almost Winter 
time again,  and immediately found Chip, I could then flip a switch and 
alert Ron and K1PXE that W1AIM was in fact there. Easy-peasey!  The 30 
degree bw is pretty good for finding stations too.

I think I worked about the same crew as Ron. I did a lot of listening 
playing with the newly completed antenna. I never worked KC2KAE, but I 
think I worked another station out on Cape Cod. There is quite a bit of 
difference between the two antennas, and this brings up a sorta 
important point.  I had always believed that as long as you had your 
antenna clearing the trees, and your horizon stayed the same as you 
raised the antenna, then not much would be gained. That is not always 
true. At times, the lower 4 x 15 (60 ft) was almost as loud at the 4 x 
25 up at 105 ft, but then I would see times when the signals got really 
loud on the high antenna while the lower antenna did not see the 
increases.  The bottom line is that the higher antenna can be capable of 
catching QSB events that a lower antenna might not see.   I could be all 
wet on this, but that was what I was seeing when comparing the two 
antlers.  That being said, last week on Wednesday, I worked KO4YC on the 
4 x 25s and quickly switched to the 4 x 15s at 60 ft, and I could still 
hear KO4YC. He was a bit weaker on the smaller yagi.

There were many great signals heard last night.  K3GNC with his low 
power was quite consistent, while KC3BVL and WA2LTM almost sounded like 
locals!

73

Dave K1WHS

On 9/1/2022 9:56 AM, Ron Klimas WZ1V wrote:
> Last night activity on 432 really took off.
> Good buddy Dave K1WHS was knocking them off like flies
> with his new 4x15 flyswatter. I only managed to work 15:
>
> 0107	 wz1v	 432125.0	 KC2KAE	 FN20>FN31
> 0102	 wz1v	 432150.0	 WA2LTM	 FN20>FN31
> 0058	 wz1v	 432150.0	 W1AIM	 FN34>FN31
> 0054	 wz1v	 432150.0	 N1DPM	 FN32>FN31
> 0051	 wz1v	 432150.0	 WA1T	 FN43>FN31
> 0041	 wz1v	 432150.0	 KC3BVL	 FM29>FN31
> 0038	 wz1v	 432150.0	 KB1GMX	 FN42>FN31
> 0030	 wz1v	 432150.0	 K3GNC	 FN20>FN31
> 0030	 wz1v	 432150.0	 K1PXE	 FN31>FN31
> 0025	 wz1v	 432100.0	 N1LHP	 FN42>FN31
> 0023	 wz1v	 432100.0	 KA1W	 FN31>FN31
> 0022	 wz1v	 432100.0	 K1DY	 FN54>FN31
> 0022	 wz1v	 432100.0	 W3CJK	 FN41>FN31
> 0020	 wz1v	 432100.0	 WA1PBU	 FN42>FN31
> 0019	 wz1v	 432100.0	 K1WHS	 FN43>FN31
>
> 73 Ron WZ1V
>
>