[VHFcontesting] [NEWSVHF] 222 Activity night

[David Olean]

Hi Ron and 222 ops,

Good Buddy Al came over for 222 night. Wemanaged to drive up as the 
heavy rains had not washed out the road. I dodged a bullet. I mentioned 
that he was a Good Buddy because he brought a few cans of nice IPA beers 
and we had a great time chatting and working a few stations on222. We 
started out on EME and tried to work Dave K3SK off the moon. He heard 
nil and I heard nil, but my echoes were very loud. We quit around 2300 
UT  and between Al and I we worked most of the stations Good Buddy Ron 
worked with his new fantastic amplifier. Stations not worked included  
K2AEP and N2SLO plus KO4YC.  I did work WW1Z and WW1M who did not appear 
in WZ1V's log. We quit sort of early about 00:15 UT,and went back to EME 
because Al was interested to see how it all worked. I heard W6TCP in CA, 
KM0T in Iowa , (very loud) along with K3SK in VA.  Right in the middle 
of a W6TCP QSO, his amp misbehaved and quit, so no QSO there, but I did 
manage to work K3SK via the moon route for QSO #2 with him. I have still 
not been able to contact K3SK over the land path of 565 miles. We tried 
FT8 this evening to no avail.  I am now pretty convinced that my Good 
Buddy Ron, WZ1V has a Voodoo Doll with pins in it representing a 
terrestrial contact between K3SK and K1WHS. We can come up with no other 
plausible explanation as to why the contact is not possible.

It was sure a lot of fun this evening although it was raining and there 
was lots of precip static on the big tropo antenna. Fortunately it did 
not last too long. I managed to work VE3DS with great steady signals on 
CW. He was a good S5 or S6. Many other signals were much weaker than 
normal. WA3EOQ said I was about the weakest he has ever heard. I thought 
he was about normal at just in the noise and barely copyable. It is a 
rare night when Howard is Q5. I am glad we worked with all the bad 
weather between us. Al and I quit at about 0145 UT.  It was a very rough 
night on 222 EME. Almost everything was "one way" only. The Faraday 
never lined up to allow many contacts.

With all our gossipping going on,  I was not paying attention to what 
contacts were made in other areas, but it seems that condx were better 
as you got far away from the storminess in New England. I saw a few nice 
long haul QSOs.

73

Dave K1WHS

On 5/2/2023 9:17 PM, Ron Klimas WZ1V wrote:
> Great activity on 222 tonight, TNX QSOs:
> W1XR FM19, WB2VVV FN41, WA1MBA FN51, VE2XX FN25,
> K1PXE FN31, WA1PBU FN42, W1GHZ FN34, WA3EOQ FM09,
> W9KXI FN12, KA3FQS FN20, K1WHS FN43, VE3DS FN03,
> K2RMX FN20, K1TEO FN31, N1GLT FN42, N1SV FN42,
> VE3FN FN25, K3SK FM07, KO4YC FM17, WA3NUF FN20,
> N2SLO FN30, K2AEP FN32, and W1AIM FN34.
> I'll be on 1296 awhile Saturday morning for the uW Sprint.
>
> 73 Ron WZ1V FN31RH
>
>