[VHFcontesting] 222 MHz Activity night
David Olean
k1whs at metrocast.net
Wed Feb 1 15:03:30 EST 2023
Hi VHFers
Last night was quite an adventure. With a VHF shack that is way out
behind the house, access can be difficult in winter. With about 2 ft of
snow, my only way to get on for the activity night was via snow shoes.
Fred, N1DPM suggested a snowmobile. I have so many small engines here
that I cringe to have any more as they are a huge amount of work with
maintenance, storage, and all that goes with it. Too bad my neighbor
doesn't have one and likes ham radio! (see below)
I was working on all my 160 meter Beverage wires while we had some snow
free days, and I made the best of it. We got a big dump of snow towards
the end of that project, and I ended my Beverage repairs by using the
snow shoes. While I was traversing the property, I decided to break a
trail up the hill toward the ham shack. I broke a trail about 2/3rds of
the way up there. I stopped when I gained the ridgetop and the remainder
of the trail was only a slight upward walk. In hindsight, I should have
gone to the top as the snow developed a pretty good crust which made
snow shoeing pretty hard. If you have not done any snow shoeing, just
imagine your big web feet breaking through a hard crust, and then try to
lift your feet up and have those big web feet get caught on the crust
and you have to lift that crust along with your feet! It is difficult.
Last night I broke the remainder of the trail and it took a long time. I
left the house cat 6:15 PM and made my first contact 47 minutes later.
It was quite beautiful trudging through the woods with all the snow, but
then I had to dig out the two doors of the shack. There was a lot of
snow all drifted up! I keep a snow shovel up there just for that
reason. I stowed the snow shoes and entered the building and turned on
the genset, 30 seconds later I saw the voltmeter come off the bottom peg
and go up to 120 volts. (Yay!) The 30 second delay is due to glow plugs
heating the cylinders for awhile so the fuel will ignite in cold
weather. My old military 30 KW diesel did not have glow plugs. That
beast had a metal bottle of ether, and you yanked a lever and sent pure
ether into the cylinders to aid starting in cold weather. Kaboom!
Since my generator repairs, the diesel has been working great! I have
its 12 volt battery on a tiny solar panel and charge controller, and it
keeps the battery healthy in winter.
Here is my log. Conditions were OK. I cannot complain when I have two
contacts over 500 miles in January!
DATE TIME CALLSIGN FREQUENCY MODE SENT RECEIVED PROP
GRID REMARKS
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
02/01/2023 00:04 N1YCQ 222.100 SSB 59
59 TR FN41LP 1st contact solid signals from
the Cape.
02/01/2023 00:08 N1GLT 222.106 SSB 59
59 TR FN42IW Wally in the derry area
02/01/2023 00:10 KA3FQS 222.106 SSB 55
55 TR FN20JF 311 MILES
02/01/2023 00:11 K1FSY 222.106 SSB 59 55
TR FN31LN I think my 1st QSO.
02/01/2023 00:13 K1PXE 222.106 SSB 59
59 TR FN31KE Voice of Milford!
02/01/2023 00:15 WW1Z 222.106 SSB 59
59 TR FN42ET reliable John
02/01/2023 00:15 WZ1V 222.106 SSB 59
59 TR FN31 Good Buddy Ron.
02/01/2023 00;16 WA3EOQ 222.130 CW 429 529
TR FM09 502 MILES! Thanks Howard!
02/01/2023 00:26 WA1RKS 222.130 CW 559
589 TR FN32IN Great tropo peak to S7! (then
down to about 449!)
02/01/2023 00:27 WA3NUF 222.130 CW 559
599 TR FN20KE 310 MILES
02/01/2023 00:38 WA1MBA 222.115 SSB 59
59 TR FN51AS Tom great signal 50 watts
02/01/2023 00:38 N1SV 222.115 SSB 59
59 TR FN42 Les
02/01/2023 00:47 K1TR 222.115 SSB 59
59 TR FN40IU Ed (we talked about 160 meters.)
02/01/2023 00:57 KA1SUN 222.115 SSB 55 55
TR FN32LN FT736 120 watts 13 el yagi
02/01/2023 01:02 W1AIM 222.110 SSB 59
59 TR FN34 Chip in Cabot, Cheese land!
02/01/2023 01:15 KE1LI 222.110 SSB 59
59 TR FN41AU
02/01/2023 01:25 KO4YC 222.129 SSB 42
42 TR FM17GV 520 MILES
02/01/2023 01:31 VE3DS 222.131 CW 559
559 TR FN03FQ 433 MILES
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of QSO listed: 18
My try with Howard, WA3EOQ was rather difficult. There was fairly rapid
QSB where he disappeared into the noise. I only copied him on peaks. It
took about 5 minutes to complete. Howard mentioned that I was pretty
solid there, but I had a 12 dB power advantage. Howard runs 100 watts
output. The only way I worked Howard was due to the low noise efforts on
my system here. My first try with no tower mtd preamp was not good
enough for EME. Yes, I made contacts, but I could tell that the other
station always heard me better than I heard them. Upgrade #2 was a tower
mtd preamp, but I was always plagued by RFI from a CH 11 digital TV
station at a 219 degree heading. Other directions well away from 219
degrees worked fine, but 219 degrees is the main heading for all the VHF
activity. What made the situation difficult was that the overload
artifacts from CH 11 did not sound like RFI. The only evidence was a
slight increase of the noise floor. It sounded like natural random
noise. Many attempts at high dynamic range preamps could not eliminate
the problem. I tried a LNA Technology cavity preamp and it did not fix
the degradation. When confronted by this, Who ya gonna call? Not the
Ghostbusters, but WD5AGO!!! He made up a silver plated cavity thatuses
a TX FET as the active device with the silver plated cavity to reject
the CH11 signal. After fitting that preamp in a larger box up on the
tower, I was finally getting down to the nitty gritty and that made it
possible to contact Howard and others down that way. I mention all of
this to relay the fact that such RFI is everywhere and it may be harming
your frontend. Remember that the TV signal will have peaks that are 10
dB above what you will see on a spectrum analyzer. TV frontend overload
is everywhere. On 432, I was getting hammered by a CH14 TV station in
Portland Maine off the back of my 432 antenna. The tower is about 45
miles away. I had to install a large copper HB cavity up on the tower to
get rid of that problem.
KO4YC was a difficult contact as well. Cornell was using SSB and was
very weak. I was calling on CW in a narrow passband and heard what
sounded like weak SSB so I kept going between CW and SSB trying to
figure out what was happening. Finally we connected up with the right
passband and completed. Signals were very weak. I tried with K8TQK with
little success. A few meteor pings were heard each way. That is a long
haul over 700 miles.
The shack was not as cold as I figured. It was 30F when I started and
soon it was rather comfortable. Still, I had the long trek back home on
snow shoes, so I quit early at about 8:30 so I could make it back home
at a reasonable time. It took about a half hour to get back home. I was
very [leased that I could participate in the 222 MHz Activity period and
would like to thank all who made an effort to get on and make noise.
AJ6T had an iced up antenna and apologized for not being able to
transmit! NiGC, AA9MY, K8TQK, W5EME, and K9MRI were all in there making
contacts. In the NE, semi newcomers like WA1MBA, KA3FQS, N1FSY, WA1RKS,
and K1FSY are adding to activity and it shows. It bodes well for an
upward climb in 222 MHz activity coming in the future. Thanks to all.
Dave K1WHS
Dave's Small Engine Collection:
Husqvarna Snow Thrower
Toro Snow Thrower
Honda Lawnmower
John Deere Lawnmower (his and hers lawnmowers!
Husqvarna Chainsaw
Homelite Chainsaw
DR Brushmower (The lawnmower of death)
Stihl brush cutter
Honda Brush cutter
That is nine small engines that have to be maintained. Note the
redundancy. When you need these things you need these things!! I sold my
Troy-Bilt rototiller. I used to have ten engines!
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