[VHFcontesting] 222 MHz Activity Night

[David Olean]

Hi 222 Friends

I missed any chance at aurora by being at my camp up north on the 
weekend and just came back home on Monday so any aurora fireworks were 
missed by me. The good news was that I got to fly fish with my grandson, 
who just turned 14, and we had a banner day on a very neat river 
catching some very nice and rather large brook trout. Our initial 
attempt on another stream was poor due to exceedingly low water. All the 
trout had migrated to a large pool as a means of survival. We actually 
found the pool where they were hiding, and were fascinated to see so 
many trout in one spot. We did not even attempt to catch any of them, 
and tried a different river instead. Our second choice had plenty of 
water and we had a blast!  I only say all of this as I am bummed to have 
missed the K Index of 6 on Sunday!! I think I had a good excuse!

Tuesday night could be very interesting as, hopefully, there will be new 
"blood" on the air and everyone will be chomping at the bit to work 
him!  Dave K3SK is building up a very good VHF station in FM07 at 
Farmville, VA. Farmville is located SW of KO4YC and is about 575 miles 
from my QTH here in FN43 Mumbo Jumbo. That is a very good distance, 
being just beyond the ragged edge of what is normally possible on 222 
MHz.  Dave has four 10 element yagis up and wants to try them out. I 
checked his distance to the Connecticut shoreline and it is just about 
400 miles to New Haven, so K1PXE and Good Buddy Ron, WZ1V also have a 
good test for their setups as well. Having four yagis on the FM07 end 
will be a great addition for Tuesday night activity! At over 500 miles, 
it is possible for the northern guys, W1AIM, W1GHZ, N1JEZ, VE2XX, and 
K1DY to get a good chance, especially if Dave gets his Larcan amp hooked 
up.

KE8FD has been active lately from near Columbus OH, and at 630 miles or 
so is an awful long distance from me, but I did manage to hear him well 
last Tuesday on FT8, but he could not hear me at all. I am not sure what 
is going on with that, but I am encouraged to try again tonight. The 
other regulars who get on and make noise will be all excited about K3SK 
as well. K9MRI, AA9MY, AJ6T, W4ZST, N1GC, and a whole pile of others who 
I don't normally hear will all be angling for a try with K3SK.

Meteors are quite good this time of year, even on 222, so don't hesitate 
to try an MS sked over a seemingly impossible distance. W5EME, W4ZST, 
K9MRI, WQ0P and others are always available for MS tries.  I have been 
known to try some MS as well after about 9 PM local time.  Hearing a 
meteor ping is downright exciting! Having a computer program to enable 
high speed information harvesting on those short pings is exhilarating 
as well.  Those pings are audible when your ERP goes up. If you are 
running at the 100 watt level, those pings get a bit more "rare", but 
you can still hear stuff at the 100 watt level. I just takes longer!  3 
dB can make a difference on a 222 MHz meteor path.


So, the bottom line is that we all get on 222.100 plus or minus, and 
just start making noise and creating a nuisance of ourselves, all in 
hopes of making some QSOs on the band. Conditions are probably not so 
good in New England, but we are used to that. Hopefully, the rain will 
stop. so my foray up the hill is dry. Activity starts at about 2300 UT 
and continues until people get tired and sick of all the fantastic fun 
they are having. I note that the midwest guys are still going strong 
when I quit last week after about 0130 UT.  They were trying MS and FT8 
skeds all over the place!   The ON4KST Chat page (144/432 Region 2) is a 
good place to coordinate activity.


73

Dave K1WHS