[VHFcontesting] 222 MHz Activity Night Results
David Olean
k1whs at metrocast.net
Wed Aug 2 09:43:28 EDT 2023
Hello 222 addicts
The last 222 night in July had T-storms around with horrendous
lightning. At about 6:30 local time, some lightning strikes were hitting
the hill up behind the house. I had to wait a bit before I could go up
to operate. One week later, the weather is cool and the sky is mostly
clear. There is a huge drop in the humidity and I expected a quiet
evening with rather poor conditions. I turned on the solid state amp
power supply and started CQing at about 22:45 UT. It took awhile for
stations to show up, but pretty soon I get called by N1BUG. I turned the
beam NE and we had a great ragchew. Paul is taking a deep dive into 10
GHz and he filled me in on what is going on up there in FN55.
Here is my log:
DATE TIME CALLSIGN LOCATOR TX RX BAND MODE
PRO.REMARKS QRB
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
08/01/2023 22:57 N1BUG FN55MF 59 59 220 MHzSSB
TR 161
08/01/2023 23:03 WZ1V FN31RH 55 55 220 MHzSSB
TR 165
08/01/2023 23:07 K1FSY FN31LN 57 55 220 MHzSSB
TR 165
08/01/2023 23:09 KV1J FN42 57 220 MHzSSB
TR 60+-
08/01/2023 23:10 N1SV FN42EP 57 220 MHzSSB
TR 62
08/01/2023 23:14 VE3DS FN03FQ 559 559 220 MHzCW
TR 430
08/01/2023 23:22 K1ZK FN34JJ 559 559 220 MHzSSB
TR 132
08/01/2023 23:33 WA3NUF FN20KE 559 220 MHzSSB
TR 308
08/01/2023 23:34 K1MAP FN32SB 559 220 MHzSSB
TR 119
08/01/2023 23:35 K1PXE FN31KE 559 220 MHzCW
TR 188
08/01/2023 23:36 W2TMA FN30HV 559 220 MHzSSB
TR 212
08/01/2023 23:38 N2SLO FN30JU 559 220 MHzSSB
TR 210
08/01/2023 23:45 WA3EOQ FM09JO 429 429 220 MHzCW
TR 500
08/01/2023 23:53 W1GHZ FN34 429 220 MHzCW
TR 126+-
08/02/2023 00:00 KC1V FN31SX 599 599 220 MHzCW
TR 124
08/02/2023 00:03 KB2YCC FN12NF 599 599 220 MHzCW
TR 310
08/02/2023 00:24 W9KXI FN12 599 220 MHzSSB
TR 698
08/02/2023 00:29 K1TEO FN31 59 59 220 MHzSSB
TR 287+-
08/02/2023 00:30 WB2SIH FN31DD 59 220 MHzSSB
TR 210
08/02/2023 00:31 K1BX FN43EB 59 220 MHzSSB
TR 41
08/02/2023 00:32 W1AIM FN34UJ 59 220 MHzSSB
TR 96
08/02/2023 00:32 WA1MBA FN51AS 59 220 MHzSSB
TR 123
08/02/2023 01:58 W5EME EM32AI -18 -21 220 MHzQ65
EME 1460
08/02/2023 02:05 W5ZN EM45 -23 -26 220 MHzQ65
EME 1193+-
08/02/2023 02:14 K9MRI EN70IU -21 -22 220 MHzQ65
EME 754
08/02/2023 02:37 W5ZN EM45 -10 -15 220 MHzQ65
EME 1193+-
08/02/2023 02:37 W5AFY EM04 -19 -29 220 MHzQ65
EME 1614+-
08/02/2023 02:49 K3SK FM07TH -21 -21 220 MHzQ65
EME 573
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of QSO listed: 28
I never got a chance to try with KO4YC. Cornell was on, but I missed him
and never heard him in QSO with any of the regulars. I missed a few
more as I disconnected my solid state amp at 00:30 or so to get ready
for my Moonrise at 00:45 UT.
The Moon was rising on the East Coast at about 9 PM local time, and I
was hoping that a few folks would try to listen for signals as the Moon
came up. I know that N1BUG was listening, but was thwarted by huge power
line noise. AJ6T near Nashville was also listening but heard nothing as
his Moon rose close to 01:45 UT. W5ZN was on with his EME array of 2 X
yagis. I expected that I might work Joel first, but W5EME snuck in on
his moonrise and he used his single tropo antenna. I could hear tones in
the headphones. He was very loud witha single yagi. Joel was calling at
the same time about 200 Hz below Rick and he was EME contact #2. The
Moon was just rising and he was looking through a big tree or two or
three. The next signal copied was K9MRI who has 400 watts and a single
5 wl yagi. At times Joe was audible in my phones, which is incredible
and shows you what a great band 222 is. EME with a single yagi and 400
watts!!! Ya gotta love it!! I think that contact was #1 on 222 EME for
K9MRI.
The Moon cleared the trees at W5ZN and Joel got all excited as signals
got much louder. My signal peaked at -10 and he called me and I saw the
same strength here. If you are unfamiliar with EME strengths, a -10
means that you can try it on SSB. Joel was that loud! While Joel was
completing our 2nd contact I saw W5AFY calling. He has a dish, but on
Tuesday night, he was using his single yagi tropo antenna in EM04. He
was very loud as well. So the EME conditions were great. If you had the
proper Faraday at your house it was great. If the Faraday did not line
up, you got skunked! I am sure that AJ6T was suffering from Faraday
Rotation. Linear polarization will do that for you. My last QSO was
with Dave K3SK. He was having noise problems and had to wait for the
moon to get above the horizon a bit. By now it was 0300 UT and I was
pretty tired. I was still recovering from my Little Rock road trip. A
look at the log shows six EME contacts in a bit less than an hour, and
four of those QSOs were with tropo stations with single yagis and no
elevation.
I was wondering how the tropo would be here now that we had no humidity
in the air, but I still managed to work WA3EOQ at 500 miles with no
sweat at all. I tuned to the proper frequency and heard him calling
right away. I answered with calls and a grid square and Howard was right
back with RR and his grid. Signals were in and out on this end, but we
completed about as fast as possible, so I am not complaining. A QSO
with VE3DS on CW was a bit weak. Dana said I was pretty weak out there.
I was running on battery power with my little amp, but I would agree
that signals at that time were a bit down. WA3NUF was fairly good and
maybe down in strength by a few dB. We have many contacts so I can gauge
his strength quite well now.
All in all, it was a fantastic evening for me. The EME contacts were a
hoot, and it was great to be back enjoying 222 MHz again after CSVHFS.
73
Dave K1WHS
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