[VHFcontesting] July 16 happens to be a Tuesday.

[David Olean]

Hello boys and girls,

We live in exciting times.  A portion of that excitement happens with 
many of us on Tuesday nights.  The last couple of weeks showed a 
distinct bump in activity on the 222 band. There is now a reasonably 
sized group of operators so that it is possible for Good Buddy Ron, 
WZ1V,  to make 30 contacts for two weeks running! That was with K3SK 
missing due to antenna refurbs and VE3DS, KO4YC, and others not being 
able  to get on and make noise etc etc..  So the activity is 
spreading!!  I just delivered two boom to mast plates to Jay, W1VD. He 
is revamping some old 220 Boomer yagis and I expect that we will hear GB 
Jay soon on the band. Both K1TEO and W1VD are in fantastic locations in 
SW New England and can  make those long DX contacts South and West, and 
can detect those miniscule openings that might be missed by a "smaller" 
station.  Having such beacons on the air should really improve activity 
even more and provide a realizable goal for stations that are far away 
from the high activity areas of Washington DC up to Southern New England.

I am always excited when Tuesday rolls around because you can get on the 
222 MHz band and make some nice SSB or CW contacts and spin your rtators 
all around looking for stations to work. This is just like the good olde 
days and you are guaranteed to make a few contacts.  If you are in an 
area with zip, zilch, nada activity, then it is up to you to talk up the 
band and try to enlist others in your operating area to get on.  W7JW 
worked a nifty meteor scatter contact from Michigan when he was only 
running 25 watts a few weeks ago!  Being in a far away place with no 
local activity does not mean that you are out of luck. It is just a cue 
for you to explore the DX modes and see what is possible. Ant distance 
out to about 1000 miles is typicaly possible on 222 with a normal VHF 
setup. It will not be simple and easy, but who likes "simple and easy"?  
..... Well maybe we do like "simple and easy", but you get my drift.

I am at the far end of the activity corridor that extends from 
Washington DC up to Boston. I am maybe 80 or 90 miles North of Boston. I 
can work lots of stations but things slow down after about 00:30 UT.  By 
01:00 UT most of the activity has dried up. It sure would be nice to 
extend that time by utilizing MSK144 skeds and even Q65B-60 or 120 skeds 
and play around with digging signals out from the noise.  I always try 
long haul skeds after about 00:45 or so. Last week, I stopped at 02:30 
UT as there were a few long haul skeds involved.  Get on the ON4KST chat 
page and set something up with another station out of your immediate 
area. The worst thing that will happen is that you don't make a contact.

N1JEZ and I have been discussing a tropo path that affects both of us. A 
few times we have found very week tropo enhancements extending from 
Northern New England out to Indiana.  After finding this path open 
occasionally over the years, when other paths are not viable, I am 
convinced that the two Great Lakes, Erie and Ontario, have a lot do do 
with it. We suspect that the path loss drops when conditions are just 
right over those water bodies. More investigation is needed, but Tuesday 
night skeds are a good way to look into it.  A quick look at the tropo 
scatter models shows a path loss of over 265 dB, and some of the models 
are out of range at 750 miles, but all it takes is about a 15-20 dB 
enhancement (reduction of path loss) and we are at 245 dB which is 
possible with the amateur power limits and a god setup.  I am sure there 
are other paths worth exploring.

So fire up the gear. Turn off Tik Tok, and spend some time on 222 this 
evening.  Let us know what happens.

73

Dave K1WHS