[VHFcontesting] [NEWSVHF] 222 MHz Activity night
Fred Stefanik
n1dpmfred at gmail.com
Wed Feb 1 16:52:49 EST 2023
Oh come on Dave!.....1 more is only an 11% increase! That's only 0.4dB!
Fred
On Wed, Feb 1, 2023 at 3:03 PM David Olean <k1whs at metrocast.net> wrote:
> 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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