[VHFcontesting] [NEWSVHF] 222 Activity Night

[David Olean]

Well I had hoped for more activity for the Tuesday night 222 Activity 
Night. Things were a tad slow on the East Coast. From a cursory look at 
the Chat page, and it was amazing to see all of the activity that is not 
in the northeast! I was really getting excited seeing all those W9 calls 
trying skeds. AJ6T, AA8MA, AA9MY, K9MRI, N4PZ, N1GC, W5EME, AA4ZZ, and a 
few more W4 stations were all in there making noise. That was great to 
see. Maybe this 222 Night stuff istaking hold. It sure is fun to see the 
activity!  Modes were on both CW and FT-8.

I got started a bit before 23:00 UT with my recently improved Solar 
panel and battery system only coupled with a new 500 watt solid state 
LARCAN amp. I ran the whole evening off a big Lithium battery and was 
very pleased with the results. The battery is in the other building, so 
I just ran a 115 vac circuit from the inverter over to the other 
building and run everything on a 115 volt line. I was using my newly 
completed Larcan 500 watt amplifier. t has two MRF151Gs in it. They are 
rated at 300 watts up to 175 MHz. At 222, they do about 250 each and I 
was seeing 500 watts in my shop measured with a big attenuator and an HP 
435 power meter. (+57 dBm)  Up on the hill, my Bird 43 showed about 300 
watts, but it is at the bottom of the scale so is probably not very 
accurate. I worked everything I heard, and copied the usual suspects 
that Ron picked up less K2RMX. I missed him for some reason. Ron had 15 
Qs while I had 14 QSOs.  Conditions were up and down. It was a struggle 
to work KO4YC at 520 miles, He was on SSB and CW,  but a few minutes 
later he was a good 559 when he worked K1PXE, the Voice of Milford. 
After 9 PM, I tried CQing on FT-8 to see how the amp worked. (It liked 
it). I copied no signals on FT-8 and bagged it at about 0115 UT.

WA3EOQ at 502 miles was also worked early on and Howard was very good 
copy on CW. He did not notice much difference between the battery power 
and my diesel powered  generator powering the 8877 at 1500 watts. There 
was QSB on Howard and he went from 549 down to just at the noise level 
over the duration of our QSO.  I was very impressed that I could do all 
of this with a battery system. I quit a bit after 9 PM, so was banging 
away for about 2 hrs and 30 minutes. The battery was at 72% of full 
charge when I was done.  I loved the new solid state PA. It just sat 
there on a shelf and was quiet, with no audible noise. I could hear the 
high speed teeny weeny fans in the 48 volt supply, but the 222 amp made 
no noise at all. At the end of the evening it was just pleasantly warm.  
Gads, what a difference from the other setup. The 8877 has a blower 
remotely running outside the building and air is piped in through a 2" 
air hose. Just the moving air makes quite a racket. I can really get 
used to this amp!  I am so enamored with it that I started building 
another just like it, and it is almost ready to go. It is about 75% 
wired up and all the metal work is completed. I even gave the front 
panel a coat of paint after I came home from the VHF shack this 
evening.  I might bring it to the NEVHF Conference in Windsor Locks, CT.

73

Dave K1WHS

On 4/11/2023 8:51 PM, Ron Klimas WZ1V wrote:
> Not a bad night all considered, found 15 on 222 tonight:
> K1PXE FN31, WB2VVV FN41, N1SV FN42, K1WHS FN43,
> WA1RKS FN32, W9KXI FN12, WA3EOQ FM09, K1FSY FN31,
> W1AIM FN34, K1MAP FN32, WA1PBU FN42, N1SV FN42,
> K2RMX FN20, W1LE FN41, and KO4YC FM17. Tnx QSOs.
>
> 73 Ron WZ1V
>
>