[VHFcontesting] 222 Activity Evening

[David Olean]

Well now that the June contest is past and the dust has settled, it is 
time for another 222 Activity Night. The festivities start at about 
2300UT on the East Coast and continue up to about 0100 UT and much later 
in the midwest until past 0200 UT.  I had good intentions of being 
active in the June contest, but ran into computer issues with the 
logging program and automated CW keying. I had everything working fine 
on Friday afternoon. The Winkey worked well and the CW messages all 
worked as advertised.  So I shut down the computer and restarted it 
several times and each time, all worked great. On saturday morning I did 
the same thing with similar results.  I was installing photo voltaic 
wiring in PVC conduit in the morning and got my solar system all 
buttoned up. I had some lunch and got to the VHF contest at 3 PM local 
and started out on six meters. Everyone was on digital screen mode and 
pushing buttons. There was almost no SSB orCW activity that I could 
hear. I worked five stations and then noted that the automated CW 
messages would not play. I spent two hours dealing with that to no 
avail. I re booted everything. I checked COM ports. I checked COM baud 
rates.  I was running 500 watts on solar power and when I saw how 
pitiful the activity was on CW and SSB, I decided that running the big 
amp and consuming diesel fuel was a waste of time. I was quite dis 
heartened.

It didn't help that I went home and tried to implement a new 16 relay 
USB board for remote operation. I could not get the software to 
recognize the board.  I worked on that most of Saturday evening. The 
problems just kept stacking up. In disgust, I turned everything off, got 
in my truck and drove to my camp and went fly fishing for native brook 
trout. The trout were lurking in the stream. Water temp was 54 and they 
were getting pretty active. I even saw the loon pair nesting on their 
new nest. It seems there will be a new loon chick around early July. All 
in all, I took a mental health weekend that did not include computers.

I will be on this evening for 222 night starting at just before 2300 
UT.  i hope to work  a goodly number of stations and plan to run SSB and 
CW (without a Winkey). There is no Moon available at any decent hour, 
but I can be easily convinced to try a Q65 sked over the horizon.  It 
promises to rain all day, so I do not expect great band condx. We have 
another low pressure system swirling around New England, but I hope it 
is not as bad as last week. Signals were definitely down last week for 
the most part.  I start out at 222.100 CW or SSB and move off as people 
show up.  If you are getting on this evening, please make a point to try 
something that seems impossible.  Go outside of your comfort zone. This 
is the way you can detect those hidden paths that are not always 
possible. There could be some nice contacts made from the mid Atlantic 
states westward.  I am hoping the Toronto contingent shows up. That path 
has been silent here in past weeks.  Remember to check ON4KST Region 2 
144/432 MHz to try for some skeds.   CU there!

Dave K1WHS

For those who are afraid of CW, I would offer that CW can be as good as 
FT8  if you get any kind of practice. There are two types of CW 
practice. One is copying CW in QRM with many callers, Type two is simply 
using slow speed CW but trying to pull it out of the noise. If you want 
to experiment with CW, I can go very slow. If you call very slow, I will 
try to match your speed and keep it simple. In all of my experiments 
with FT8 on VHF, I have yet to work anything that I cannot work on CW at 
the same time.  You also do not have to keep track of baud rates, COM 
ports, and audio CODECs with CW.  You can use 222 nights to practice 
trying a CW contact for the first time. That is what 222 night is for. 
There is no rush, Just get on and play around. Use ON4KST to line things 
up and have fun.