[VHFcontesting] 222 MHz Activity Night 4TH of July Edition.

[David Olean]

We had rain most of the day. It rained hard last night, and then started 
up again mid morning and poured for a few hours. Late afternoon it 
stopped raining and the Sun actually appeared.  I was hopeful that condx 
might be OK for 222 MHz by evening, but a goodly line of Thunderstorms 
formed across parts of Vermont and were moving East as the evening 
progressed. It was interesting to see where that line was, as the 
southern end of the line was crossing near Albany, New York, while 
stretching up along the NH border to the North.  That line of storms 
stirred up the atmosphere and was affecting signals to my west and 
southwest. At about 23:00 UT I had an FB QSO with W1XR at over 400 
miles. He was peaking S8 on SSB. Heading was about 237 degrees.  Around 
00:00 UT I tried a contact with WA3EOQ at 242 degrees. Normally, we can 
work on CW with difficulty every week. If you look at a map, you can see 
that WA3EOQ is in FM09 and way out in western Maryland just above West 
Virginia and almost as far West as Pittsburgh. During our sked, I went 
for about six sequences and heard nothing. Howard was having the same 
luck. This was not normal. After about six sequences, I copied his calls 
Q4 or Q5  for about 10 seconds and then it was gone.  Same thing next 
sequence. That was weird! Howard was not copying me much at all. We 
decided to stop and try later.  Around 00:)) tht line of storms was 
situated so that I had to traverse the entire line while aimed at 242 
derees. At  about 00:50 UT we tried again, and I heard him start calling 
just fine and sent a report etc. We did not miss a sequence and finished 
the contact in rapid fashion even with lightning static that was really 
bad. What a difference!   I looked at the NWS Radar right after the QSO, 
and the line of storms had moved farther East and I think the amount of 
storminess between here and Western MD was actually much less.  Rather 
than going along the T storm line, I was now going thru it. The bad news 
was that the storms were about 25 miles away from me, and I figured that 
I better clear out and go home before I was in another deluge.  I packed 
up and left and the storms seem to be dissipating. Maybe I should have 
stayed?

I worked N1BUG up in FN55 for my 1st contact. Paul peaked at 59 +20 and 
sounded super.  N2SLN was out portable in FN22 with his rover rig and 
was looking for contacts.  He also worked N1BUG for a very nice 
contact.  To the SW,  I tried with K1DS and had no success. Nothing 
heard either way.  WA3NUF and KC3BVL were also worked. I tried a bit 
with NE9EE in EN70 and K3SK in FM07 with no luck. Being on the 4th of 
July, many of the regulars were missing. STill it was a blast and there 
were plenty of signals to try. WA1RKS, W1AUV, K1TEO, K1MAP, K1PXE and 
K1FSY were all on and Good Buddy Ron showed up after getting filled up 
with mustard covered hot dogs. With all that, his signal was still just 
fine.  Lots of activity out to the West in the EN grids. I wanted to try 
some meteors with K9MRI, but the storms drove me away. Better luck next 
time.  It seems that folks out west had much better condx. How about a 
report?

73

Dave K1WHS