[VHFcontesting] 222 MHz Activity Night Summary K1WHS

[Dave Olean]

The night started off just fine, but, when I went to use my 32 antenna 
for 222, i was greeted by a dead band with no radio noise.  I was not 
sure what went wrong, but shortly after that I started hearing "dead 
band' noise on antenna #1, my four yagi array. The background noise 
dropped way down. It seems that I could still hear some signals, but 
everything was just weak. i did work a number of stations before 
everything died.  KA2ENE in FN13 had wild swings of signal strength on 
FT8. he went from +4 to -14, or almost 20 dB QSB.  We worked later on on 
SSB too.  There was a flurry of activity on FT8 at first.  I seem to not 
have good luck on Ft8. I have noticed that I can see signals but they 
will not decode.  The waterfall signal has to be fairly well pronounced 
before I will get a decode in many cases.  I tried adjusting the audio 
input level to the program with no improvement noted.  I saw that K3SK 
was on FT8 early. I could see a signal on the waterfall that I suspected 
was Dave, K3SK, so I asked if he would try Q65 instead. He was darn loud 
on Q65 but would not decode and his signal would disappear  so it would 
not decode. Turns out that he was using 30 seconds while I was on a 60 
second sequence. Once we corrected that, we made a contact but signals 
were much weaker by then. FM07 is a good haul from me at about 570 
miles. Other stations worked included WZ1V FN31, K1PXE FN31, WA4YA FN42 
on FT8, w1AUv FN32, K2AEP FN32, K1TEO FN31, N3RG FM29, WA3DRC FM28, 
KA3FQS FN20, WA3NUF FN20, W1AIM FN34, WW1Z FN42,  KC2SGV FM29,  W9KXI 
FN12, W2KV FN20, W1XIV FN34,  K1RZ FM19, W7JW EN82 meteors, K9MRI EN70 
meteors,  and then WA3EOQ on CW in FM09. Howard was very weak and I 
think whatever was wrong with my RX setup was killing my RX sensitivity. 
The problem affected my TX as well, which makes me think that the LO in 
my xverter might be the problem as I lost about 10 to 15 dB of gain in 
both RX and TX. Just what I need before the Sept contest. It looks like 
I will be QRT for awhile as a result.I ended up with about 23 stations 
worked oer the evening. I saw that W4ZST and W6TCP were on EME, but I 
did not bother with all my rig troubles.  I did hear K1OR, but never 
worked John. He is about 45 miles away and very loud. He and WA1T are 
locals here! My total was about 23 stations worked.

I'll be checking TX and RX levels in the morning in hopes of finding 
what is wrong with the gear.  As I mentioned before, I suspect my 
transverter is sick as both RX and TX are affected.

73

Dave K1WHS