[VHFcontesting] 222 MHz Activity Night Summary K1WHS

[David Olean]

Tonight was a bit rough with some QSB and the winds were getting higher 
as the night wore on. At 6 PM the winds were not that strong. At 10:30 
PM it was borderline wild!

One of the first stations worked after WA1RKS was W1XR in FM19 with great signals at over 400 miles. Then he dropped down to about S4 or 5 on SSB. WB2ONA in FN20 in NJ was worked early on. Also worked W1GHZ, KC1V, GB Ron WZ1V, W1AUV FN32, WA3GFZ in FM29, K2AEP and K1FMS in FN32. W2BYP was loud here but I was not too strong in FN13. WA1NLG in FN41, W9KXI on SSB in FN12, N1SV, WA1T, K1BX,and N1LHP. Not much FT8 but I did catch N1MIW via FT8 for my only contact there. I heard a few meteor pings on K3SK, but no steady signals from FM07. I tried meteors for ten minutes with K9MRI. Neither of us heard anything. I tried some Moon bounce and had pretty good results with W5EME in Louisiana followed by VE6TA in Alberta and K3SK in FM07. FT8 did not work. Q65 on the horizon (575 miles) did not work, but the long way to the Moon and back 500,000 miles was easier for K3SK!  Later on KM0T in Iowa showed up and we also worked via the EME route. Just around 01:30 UT, WA3EOQ showed up from FM09 and we tried a cW sked on the horizon. I located him on his first sequence, but could not get him peaked properly to copy and the next two sequences were poor with no copy. Then he started to build again and I got calls and his grid. It was only when we were sending 73 that he peaked up to maybe Q4. It was not a strong signal at all. We had two weeks in February with Q5 signals so tonight was a squeaker by comparison. I ended up with 26 QSOs for the night. The antenna was behaving and I had no VSWR issues. It has been so wet that any repairs are impossible as it is always raining, snowing, or dense fog.

N0AKC was on EME also, but was having some receiving issues. He had similar problems with water or broken wires. Everybody is complaining about the lack of good weather this spring.At least we have not been flooded out or blown away by a tornado. I am thankful for that. Remember that next week starts the Spring Sprints with 144 on April 14.


73
Dave K1WHS