[VHFcontesting] 222 activity night

[David Olean]

Well, other than sitting in the dark, I had a great time running on 
battery power! I decided to run the transverter and Teletek driver amp 
that normally  drives my 8877 amplifier.  It is about to be retired with 
a new solid state amplifier ready to go, but it was a simple task to 
just run the driver cable over to the coax relay. I had an Astron linear 
supply running the Teletek and output was about 90 watts or so.

First station worked was N1BUG and we had a nice chat with my beam up 
aimed at Milo Maine. Good buddy Ron WZ1V called on frequency and I 
answered but he could not hear me. I had to turn my beam SW. I had no 
trouble working Ron and Peter K1PXE with my lower power. W3CJK had a 
good signal and W9KXI in FN12 was hearing me on SSB with my beam aimed 
south!  When we aimed at each other we had S7 signals peaking up.  W9KXI 
is at about 310 miles. Other stations included W3CJK with a great signal 
from FN41, along with "Iron Man" George, N1GJ.  KE1LI was on with low 
power, but still had  a good signal when we were aimed at each other.  
At one point I saw a comment from KE1LI on the chat page. "15 watts 
sucks!" The conditions in New England were not very good.  Before the 
action commenced, I had been watching the 222.049 K2DLL beacon and it 
was weak and watery with strength between 10 to 20 dB above the 
background noise. It was much louder in the afternoon by about another 
10 dB, so things had deteriorated locally. We had mist and drizzle here 
during 222 activity.

I did work Dave, N2SLO with his newly installed 222 yagi up in the air 
and I was glad that he had made the changes as signals were not their 
normal strength. He was OK on SSB, but any weaker and it would have been 
a CW only type of contact. There was lots of QSB. I missed all the 
Massachusetts ops. Normally the Boston area has several guys on. I guess 
the weather kept them away.

I wondered what would happen if I tried to work WA3EOQ with just 90 or 
100 watts on my end. Howard has always been running 100 watts and we 
work regularly with few misses. This night was easy. I heard him start 
calling and I sent calls and my grid. Howard came right back and his 
signal was actually a bit above what I normally hear. So figure that 
out. Everyone in New England is having trouble making contacts, but this 
500 mile path is not affected. It seems, condx down South were much 
better, and long haul tropo is not very affected by local conditions.  
Later on, Howard WA3EOQ also connected with W1AIM in VT for another 
almost 500 mile QSO.  Up North, I snagged VE2XX with a very loud signal 
along with W1AIM in Cabot, VT. Cabot is a big cheese producing area.  
Chip's signal was not the least bit "cheesey".

My attempt to work VE3DS Toronto did not work out. I heard VE3DS calling 
me a number of times, but my low power could not make the grade on a 430 
mile path to the west. I always contrast the Toronto path with  my shot 
down the East Coast. KO4YC is at 225 degrees and we worked on SSB over a 
525 mile path last night. I have a pretty good negative horizon angle 
around 215 degrees, while my horizon at 275 degrees is almost at zero 
degrees. A few tenths of a degree in the horizon makes a big difference 
in tropo scatter.  I see this a lot. I tried again later on, but Dana 
had left the building!

When I quit just after 9 PM I had been on and making noise for 2 hours 
and 15 minutes with about 100 watts output. My battery was at 72% when I 
shut it all down. I wish the batteries were not so expensive. If I had 
two, I could probably run a 400 watt amp with no problem. Lithium prices 
are almost double that of lead-acid types, but they last longer. At 
least I hope they last longer! My old lead acid bank made it for only 
six years. ($220 per year of use)

All in all, it was another very interesting night.   Next week is the 
222 Sprint. WA1T will be here and we hope to have the generator running 
again. I will have my band decoder running so I can be a real single op 
and not have toplay musical chairs while running the bands. The newly 
revised band decoder has only one voltage supplied (24 VDC) so there is 
no way I can goof that up! I tested it yesterday and it switches just 
fine. Now to get all those higher bands hooked up again!

73

Dave K1WHS





73

Dave K1WHS



On 9/20/2022 8:59 PM, Ron Klimas WZ1V wrote:
> Pretty good night on 222, despite the QSB on some paths:
> K1WHS FN43, N1BUG FN55, K1PXE FN31, K2RMX FN20,
> W9KXI FN12, WA1T FN43, N2SLO FN30, KE1LI FN41,
> W3CJK FN41, WA3EOQ FM09, N1GJ FN41, KO4YC FM17,
> and W1AIM FN34 - Thanks for the QSOs.
> Can't make it next Tuesday so carry on without me,
> and look forward to the 432 Sprint.
>
> 73 Ron WZ1V FN31rh
>
>