[VHFcontesting] [NEWSVHF] 222 Activity Night K1WHS

[David Olean]

Hi Ellis and all 222 ops.

I am sorry to miss you last night Ellis.  It is tough getting old. Stuff 
we did a few years ago now seems quite foreign as we collectively age.  
I  have given up chasing women in my old age. VHF conditions were 180 
degrees removed from the week before. Last week, conditions to the West 
were great. VE3ZV in EN92 was S7 on SSB. That is very rare. He is almost 
500 miles from me. At the same time, signals from down South were down a 
bit.   So when last night came around, Things had flipped and stations 
out to the West were not very strong, but folks way down South were 
doing much better up here.  The weather here was quite breezy early in 
the day and there was a bite to the wind.  A Canadian hiigh seemed to be 
moving in. Apparently there was some "better" and warmer air to the South!

I saw Tuesday as a bonus and worth celebrating. The road to the shack 
was passable. The snow was not very deep at all, and the temp was about 
27F.  I could get on for activity night! WA1T came over for a visit and 
he brought four friends that he picked up in the beer isle  at the 
store. So we sat in the hilltop shack and chatted and savored a few nice 
ales while we searched the band for contacts.  I think there was more 
chatting than DXing! We had a lot to talk about.  I had removed the 
large lithium battery for the winter, so we only had AC power by turning 
on the big diesel. This past Summer I did extensive work on it trying to 
fix a regulation problem. I learned a lot and the effort has paid off 
now as I could remote start the thing and see it come up making pretty 
acceptable power right from the start.  Having  the power nice and 
steady put a smile on my face. The 1500 watt baseboard heater kicked in 
and I also have a small 1000 watt electric heater to warm the toes. It 
came in handy as the inside temperature was 30.7 degrees when we 
started. After about 30 minutes we shedded our coats.

I looked at Good Buddy Ron's list of stations worked last night, and 
marveled at the numbers. How does he do that? He works everybody that is 
possible to work! I missed many of those that he logged.  Between Al and 
I we had 21 contacts, including QSOs with FN51 and FN24, two very rare 
grids normally. If you are on 222 MHz, you can work them both on Tuesday 
nights!  WA1MBA is in FN51, and VE3KG is in FN24. Both stations were 
very loud here. VE3KG peaked up to S9 after we lined up our antlers. I 
got the call from WA3EOQ via the ON4KST Chat page, and quickly tuned to 
his frequency. As soon as I got there I copied his CW and the next 
rounds were great with Q5 copy. The normal condition over this 502 mile 
path is to detect a very weak signal and then pick out parts of the 
transmission as they fade up and down. (Howard runs 100 watts).  This 
time, I pulled the cans off so WA1T could hear Howard's CW thru the 
speaker.  Conditions to the Southwest were up a bit! A later try with 
KO4YC was very good as well, and Cornell was coming through at 559 on CW 
from about 520 miles. Cornell was putting in a very solid signal. 
Somewhere around that time, I saw that Good Buddy Ron had worked K3SK in 
FM07 on FT8.  I think that was a first for Ron and I have yet to hear 
K3SK (575 miles) so we set up a sked on SSB/CW.   In all the excitement, 
I neglected to see what antenna I was using. I peaked the four Yagis on 
FM07 but then transmitted with the lower gain LVA! I actually heard K3SK 
and started sending my grid, but never heard him again. Darn, I'll bet 
we might have worked if I had selected the correct antenna!!! We then 
tried on FT-8 but had no luck later on. The good news was that we did 
hear K3SK!  I did hear N1YCQ on FT8 and called but got no response. The 
other FT8 signal heard was W9KXI. It was hard running the digi modes 
with a 13" laptop screen. I had my logging program, the ON4KST Chat 
page, and WSJT-X all cluttering up the screen. It was very busy on such 
a small screen, but the extreme temps in the shack prevent having a real 
computer there.  I had to take the desktop out for the winter as it 
would crash due to cold wx.

WA1T and I tried with N2DEQ in FM29, but had no success. I was quite 
disappointed over that. Others that I never worked include K2AEP, K1TR, 
W1FKF, and WW1Z. They are all local contacts. We heard K1TR and WW1Z but 
never connected.  (It may have been the beer?)

So next week may be a possibility here in Mumbo-Jumbo land. It all 
depends on whether we get a big snow storm. As long as the road stays 
passable, there is a chance that I can get on for 222 night. There are 
about ten more Tuesdays before the weather moderates and warmer weather 
appears. Hopefully I can get in one or two more fun filled Tuesday 
evenings! Thanks to all who got on last night. The activity was great. 
(But where are the Toronto guys!!)

73

Dave K1WHS


On 1/10/2023 11:41 PM, Ellis Foley via NEWSVHF wrote:
> I'm sorry I had to miss 222 Activity tonight, but been nursing a swollen knee. that's been extremely painful. So after supper I got into my Puffy Recliner and had the knee elevated. And decided to fore go getting up and sitting in pain  to work the 222 activity. so should be able to get on next week and looking forward to it. Looking at some of the results looks like all went well and most had a good time. 73 Gud dx to all. de EllisWA1RKS
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