[VHFcontesting] The first ever 222 MHz EME Weekend Announcement

[David Olean]

Hello VHFers

Circle the dates of May 24 and 25 for the first ever 222 MHz only EME 
weekend.  I was in hopes of presenting this idea to the Northeast Weak 
Signal Group members at the latest meeting, but, as circumstances 
unfolded, I decided to run the weekend activity period by myself.   I 
picked the weekend in hopes that it would not conflict with other ham 
adventures so that 222 Hz would have our undivided attention. As it 
turns out the CQ WW WPX CW Contest is the same weekend. That was the 
best I could do. Declination is rather positive in the +12 to 18 degree 
range. Degradation is very low and it is on a weekend!  Hopefully with 
benign weather!

Scoring will be the same as for the ARRL EME Contest.  Each contact is 
worth 100 points and grid multipliers are added up  You need to exchange 
your grid for the contact to count.  I am not sure about categories, but 
CW and digital modes are encouraged. The point of this exercise is two 
fold: 1 Accommodate large (and small) dish stations to be active on 222 
without worrying about changing feeds in a limited amount of time.  and 
2. To insure that as many great 222 EME signals are represented so that 
small stations have a chance to work the larger stations.

Certificates will be mailed to all winners in the following categories:

Digital

CW

In addition, a certificate will be sent to any and all single yagi 
stations that can complete at least one QSO via the Moon Route.

As for the categories, you can mix the modes so that it would be 
possible for the same station to win for both categories. In that case 
you et an overall winner and one certificate.  That gives me the winter 
to design a certificate and get them printed.  This is all preliminary, 
so please forward any comments negative or positive and maybe a few 
tweaks can be made. I juggled the times so that winter weather is gone, 
but the family vacation period (starting in mid June) is not impacted. 
There are only so many weekends in the Summer!! Here in northern New 
England, we joke that Summer starts on July 4th and ends the following week.

I just hope that my 222 MHz array survives the winter.

73

Dave K1WHS