[VHFcontesting] 222 Activity night K1WHS

[David Olean]

Congratulations to GB Ron, WZ1V on working the grand total of 30 (Count 
'em 30) contacts on 222 night.  The activity levels have been slowly 
increasing over the last two years and it is gratifying to be able to 
have so much fun on any weekday evening on a VHF band.  I am not sure 
how he does it, but he is a master at digging out contacts. Not only 
that, but he is supplying spots for the 222 MHz band all evening on the 
DX Summit web site as well.    He must have two sets of arms.

My summary for the evening was very interesting for me, as it was the 
most exciting evening for me in a while. I did not hit 30 QSOs, but came 
close. I just had some very exciting situations show up.  I tried a few 
skeds with stations that are beyond my normal distances. The first was 
with K3SK in FM07. Dave, K3SK is down South of Richmond in southern VA 
and 575 miles away. We have never been able to make a contact on FT8. 
Last night I decoded him once and got all excited.  I am without my 
cavity preamp, so am getting clobbered by the CH 11 TV staqtion that is 
about 20 miles away. It peaks at 219 degrees and K3SK is at 225 degrees. 
I am seeing about 5 or 6 dB of RFI noise and that makes contacts 
difficult in that direction. Dave was hearing me better and had mutiple 
decodes, so I tried an experiment. I elevated the array by 4.5 degrees. 
It was like turning on a switch. Instantly K3SK came through and we 
completed in a hurry. I was quite surprised.

My Tuesday evening sked with WA3EOQ was interesting.  Howard is 500 
miles away. I think the actual number is 502. We can make the contact 
with some difficulty every week. This time, I heard him weakly, right 
off and figured we would have an easy time. The next several sequences 
produced ZIP ZILCH NADA. I had copied his grid, but needed a RR for the 
contact to be good.  I stood by after several "empty" sequences, and was 
amazed to hear him at 529 and 10 dB above the noise on my panadaptor. He 
stayed that way, and we completed the contact as if we were on 80 meter 
CW. That was pretty neat to hear a 100 watt station over such a 
distance. We got a pretty good QSB peak.

K9FW is located in Indianapolis, Indiana. He had a QSO with N1JEZ  a few 
weeks ago. SIgnals were very weak but solid on CW. K9FW has heard me on 
one sequence  last week, but I could not hear him.  We tried again this 
week.  We had absolutely no luck. At one point I heard something that 
sounded like very weak CW, but that was it. We stopped after awhile and 
then K9MRI, who is just North of Indianapolis, contacted my on the 
ON4KST chat page to tell me he was hearing my CW  via tropo. I switched 
to calling K9MRI and I instantly heard Joe via tropo at about 519. He 
was solid every transmission. We made a great CW contact at 750 miles. 
That is a few hundred miles farther than my normal radius for contacts. 
K9MRI tried a Q65 sked with WA4YA. I heard him on Q65.  Then he tried an 
FT8 sked  with another station. I had dialed in the 4.5 degree elevation 
and Joe's signal was up to -04 dB via the FT8 route. I could not resist 
and called again on FT8 for a second contact for the evening. At the 
same time, K1TEO was working a few stations in the midwest on 144. All 
in all, it was an exciting night!!

Looking at GB Ron's list of stations, I missed a bunch of familiar 
calls, including K1FSY, K3TUF, K3GNC, KC3BVL, WB2ONA, and WB2RVX. I 
never heard or worked any of them. I guess I was busy looking for DX. I 
ended up with 29 stations worked. If I count K9MRI on CW and then FT8, 
that would make 30 contacts. I am not sure who I worked as my log is up 
in the shack behind the house.  I did work N1GLT, K1TEO, and VE3FN who 
are not on WZ1V's list. I am hoping to get my cavity preamp back in line 
in a few weeks. In the meantime, I will try some more elevating tricks!

73

Dave K1WHS

On 7/2/2024 9:33 PM, Ron Klimas WZ1V wrote:
> So to make a long story short regarding 222 activity night:
> After some bad luck good buddy Dave's EME buddy Klondike Mike
> came through for me with some good used FETs for my Larcan amp.
> So was back on with 500 W and finally made the 30 QSO grade:
> K1WHS FN43, K2RMX FN20, WA3NUF FN20, WB2VVV FN41,
> WC2K FM29, N1JEZ FN44, K1ZK FN34, W2BYP FN13,
> WA1MBA FN51, K1PXE FN31, K1FSY FN31, W9KXI FN12,
> N2SLN/P FN22, K3TUF FN10, N2SLO FN30, WA1PBU FN42,
> K3GNC FN20, WA1RKS FN32, KC3BVL FM29, WA3EOQ FM09,
> WB2ONA FN20, W1AIM FN34, WB2RVX FM29, K1OR FN42,
> W1UJ FN42, K3SK FM07, K2AEP FN32, WA4YA FN42,
> K3WHC FN10, and W1FKF FN43. TNX for the QSOs !
>
> 73 Ron WZ1V
>
>
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