[VHFcontesting] 222 Night Summary

[David Olean]

Quite a night here in the Maine woods. It was snowing quite hard 
starting about 4 PM. The snow started piling up. Fortunately, it slowed 
down and my snow shoe trail was not completely obliterated when I headed 
up to the shack at 23:15 UT.  I managed to hike up to the shack, but 
there were lots of places where the snow was quite deep. I had to shovel 
out the shack doors to get in. The generator fuel level was below 1/4 
tank so I fired it up and it ran fine for about three hours or so while 
I looked all over for 222 MHz QSOs. I spent a lot of time running 
skeds.  I tried with K3SK in FM07 and copied Dave almost continuously 
via the tropo route, but he was not hearing me. We decided to try later 
on EME as the Moon got higher.  I did try a sked with N8LRG in EM80. We 
had no trouble with Q65 over a 615 mile path. I think that is an amazing 
distance for a dead band. My sked with WA3EOQ in FM09 was also 
successful. I heard him right away when I tuned down to 222.095. He 
faded, but then came back in rapid order. That is a 502 mile path with 
100 watts. The guys in Connecticut all had high VSWR from icing, and 
could not transmit. I missed GB Ron WZ1V and K1TEO. Both were iced up.  
Others worked included KA2ENE FN13, N1SV FN42 and just back from Aruba, 
WA1LWC FN42, W2KV FN20, KA3FQS FN20, W9KXI Cuzzin' AL in FN12, W1AIM 
FN34, WA1T in FN43, WW1Z FN42, N3ITT FN20, VE2XX FN25, and VE2JOK and 
VE2GDR FN35. I tried some EME after 0100 UT and snagged W5EME on his 
rising Moon. Very loud with just a single yagi. I then copied a very 
loud K3SK at about -16 dB but he did not hear me. I then worked WQ5S, 
who also runs a single yagi from EN13.  KF0M showed up a bit late as the 
Moon at his place was already quite high. He did not hear anyone. I 
tried again with K3SK and he still did not hear me. We decided to stop 
and I started stowing the antenna when Dave finally heard me. We bagged 
it and I strapped on the snow shoes and headed home in the snow. The 
flakes were quite large and the snow deadened any noises. It was very 
quiet walking down to the house. Not a huge amount of stations worked, 
but the DX was pretty exciting.  KF0M told that he worked W5EME and WQ5S 
on tropo from his Kansas QTH. Those are 440 and 295 mile paths. 
Hopefully the weather will improve for next week.

73

Dave K1WHS