[VHFcontesting] 222 MHz Night: If it's Tuesday , This Must be Bedlam edition K1WHS

[David Olean]

Hello 222 MHz denizens,

Wow, the action was all over the place. I really like eaves dropping and 
watching the posts on ON4KST chat page. There were skeds all over the 
place last night. N1GC is a regular on Tuesdays and he was quite active 
and attracted lots of attention. W5EME in Louisiana made his greatest or 
at least his longest list of QSOs for a Tuesday night. W4YN showed up 
from the SE and was making contacts. The presence of W8ZN was another 
shot in the arm for 222 night as Terry is quite a bit South and West and 
can cover quite a bit of territory. His signal up to the NE was quite 
good. I found him on FT8 and worked him via that mode. He was blasting 
in.  It sure makes a difference when you can sit in your shack on a 
tranquil night with the crickets chirping, and gentle breezes wafting 
scents of blooming flowers through your window screens. It sure beats 
looking out the window as trees are uprooted and power lines come down 
in the street, while tornadoes swirl in the distance. (Right Jeff?)   It 
was just a nice pleasant night, and the signals were typically good on a 
Summer evening.  For my part I started a bit before 23:00 UT and 
activity seemed slow to start, but by 23:15 there were signals appearing 
all over the place. I worked Stan W1LE after a long absence and  many of 
the usual inhabitants had great signals. There was some QSB.  I don't 
have my log in front of me. I keep forgetting to drag a memory stick up 
to the shack and transfer the log entries. Some stations worked included 
W2RMA, K2RMX KA3FQS FN20, WA3NUF FN20, KA1OJ FN42, N1LHP FN42, WW1Z 
FN42, WA2VNV FN30, W1FKF FN43, K1FSY FN31, WA3DRC FM28, N2JQR FN13, 
W2BYP FN13, WA1RKS & W1AUV in FN32, WA2LTM FN20, K1PXE FN31, WB2VVV 
FN41, N1ROZ, AA2SD FM29, W1AIM & K1ZK in FN34, K1FMS FN32,  and a bunch 
more.  I did hear K1DS but he was very weak and I only heard one 
transmission. I kept calling but he never appeared again. I think we 
could have worked if we worked at it. Rick has a 3 el beam on a condo 
window and 25 watts.

My longish contacts included the aforementioned W8ZN, and Howard, WA3EOQ 
both in FM09. Terry is just under 500 miles while Howard is just over 
500 miles and running low power. The WA3EOQ QSO was quick and rather 
easy. (CW)  Also worked were VA3ELE in FN03 on FT8.  VE3KG was on from 
FN24. We worked on CW with good signals. It was sure great to have a 
fighting chance to work all these stations without Mother Nature 
dropping buckets of static laced water on us with a few hissing 
lightning bolts thrown in for good measure.  I ran a meteor sked with 
K9MRI and we worked easily. I heard a big meteor on K3SK when he was on 
FT8. It was almost long enough to decode!  I tried FT8 with K3SK. No 
luck there, but when we tried Q65B-30 he managed to squeak in with 
several decodes in the -29 range!!  That is about 575 miles.  I tried 
with N9UM. He informed me that he only had 25 watts and a 7 element 
yagi.  My response is " So what?"  I didn't have anything else to do.  
My still was shut down. The meth lab was down awaiting a shipment of 
chemicals. And all the porn stars were on vacation so my calendar was 
clear. We ran a sked and I actually heard N9UM. He had a rather loud 
burst that did not decode. (I had set the FREQ TOL at 50 Hz Darn!) I 
reset it to 200 Hz, but that was all I got. Still it shows what can be 
done on meteors. My stacked yagis are not the best for meteors, but 
anywhere between 700 and 1200 miles is the sweet spot. Closer in is 
better with a low antenna and you can get meteor returns down to under 
500 miles.  Anyway, it was fun to try with N9UM.   I ended up with 36 or 
37 contacts and there were many regulars that I missed.  N1JEZ, W1GHZ, 
WA1NLG, and N1SV are all close by and would have pushed that number to 
40.  Anyway you look at it, 222 MHz has never been better.  Now that we 
have a cottage industry developing that makes 222 MHz accessories, there 
is some momentum building. So get your 222 hat, coffee mug or T shirt 
and let people know all about 222 MHz.

73

Dave K1WHS