[VHFcontesting] 222 MHz Activity Evening Summary

[David Olean]

All I can say is that the 222 MHz Activity Committee is on the war path. 
They took one look at the activity levels this evening and have lowered 
the boom. Unfortunately the boom descended on me and i am doing penance 
for the lousy showing this evening. I only worked about 14 different 
stations and it was not for lack of trying on my part. Both Good Buddy 
Ron, WZ1V and I tried to work K3SK and no one completed a contact. 
Apparently a high noise level on the FM07 end made copy difficult on the 
southern end.  WZ1V copied K3SK on FT8 and Q65. I copied K3SK extremely 
well on MSK-144, getting several nice bursts in a ten minute period, but 
no QSO was made by anyone in New England with K3SK.  N1JEZ was also 
listening.  By the time I tried a sked with W9KXI,  Cousin Al had left 
the building and I never got a chance there.  I heard no one on Long 
Island, and very few in the NY metro area as well. WA2LTM and WB2ONA 
were there with pretty good signals.  I caught WB2VVV in his northern 
QTH near Waterville Valley, NH.  I did manage to work WA3EOQ, but 
signals were weak. Howard was complaining about weak signals, and they 
were weak, but I could copy him most of the time.  I had to turn my 
array a bit South to minimize a power line noise source and then elevate 
the antenna about 3 degrees to drop the noise floor some more.  WA3EOQ 
is at 242.5 degrees and I had S6 line noise at 249 degrees! It made life 
difficult, but we managed a contact.

The 222 MHz Activity Committee has required me to look into providing 
Polish Beer to any and all 222 MHz operators who show up at the CT NEWS 
VHF Conference in May.  The big beer give away will be on Friday night 
in the hospitality area. Now I just have to find a place that sells 
Polish beer. My local beer store has both Bud and Bud Lite.  The 222 MHz 
Activity Committee has specified only Polish beer.

73

Dave K1WHS