[VHFcontesting] [NEWSVHF] 222 Activity night

[David Olean]

Hi John

I think things were quite depressed by the heavy rains. The atmosphere 
was all roiled up and everybody's antennas were soaking wet which can 
detune some antennas. My 222 array was tweaked so that when rain 
droplets collect on the elements, it drops in frequency and it sits 
right at 222. 1 MHz. The VSWR is great too. When dry, the gain peak is 
at 223.5 or so. I actually sprayed the yagis with water on the test 
range and looked at the bandpass when they were being designed. I would 
guess that you are about 150 miles from Good Buddy Ron. I would think 
that a QSO is possible with 100 watts, but what do I know?  It all comes 
down to local terrain etc.

Dave

On 5/3/2023 7:56 PM, ww1z_1 at juno.com wrote:
> I did hear Ron several times.  But he was never very loud and  I called
> him several times.  My 100 watts was not enough. I expect conditions were
> not very good.
>
> 73
>
> John, WW1Z
>
>
> On Tue, 2 May 2023 23:00:27 -0400 David Olean <k1whs at metrocast.net>
> writes:
>> 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
>>>
>>>
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