Well tonight, for those of you who did not know was the start of the VHF season with a 2m sprint that was running for 4 hours starting at 1900 hrs local (that local to YOU!) and going through to 2300 local…
Not that I have a really good VHF set up here… To be honest the station is worse than my CW skills… The rigs I use are good but my antenna system to be descriptive are far from good…
So tonights 2 m sprint report no… change that to 2m jog … let me think about that… change it to 2m brisk walk …. NO… that still not right lets be honest…. tonights 2m slow crawl report is as follows:
3 contacts— 1 grid square for a total of 3 points
Now fortunately I can poke fun at myself and laff as I did even worse that I expected… Like I mentioned at the beginning of this entry the rig (Yaesu FT 847) is a good if not great rig. If I was really doing this a bit more seriously I would have at least an amp to bring up the power to around 160w or so and I might let the landlord cut down the maple tree so I could swing a beam or two…
Normally my station can hear all the big guns in the area… That would be the guys who take this seriously and within the area would be lets say within 100km of my home QTH. I’m not sure of the actual amount but in the last VHF Contest I think worked about 15 of the “Big Guys”…Tonight I heard only two contesters and one other local with a setup much like myself… his antennas are better though…
Seeing that the season is just starting and we have a ARRL VHF Contest in June, a CQ VHF Contest in July then a ARRL VHF Contest in September I was hoping that there would of been all the “big guys” out there tonight giving out lots of contacts, boosting egos (like mine) to remind a lot of operators who are newbies at VHF (like me) why we want to put up better antennas and use our FT 897′s, FT 857′s, TS 2000′s and even the lowly FT 817′s to their full potential to give the “big guys” more contacts during the more serious contests… If you remove the “little guys” from the contesting scene it would make life a lot more boring for the “big guys” as they would have very few people to talk to…
The Ontario QSO Party is in 2 weeks and I hope that some of the more serious VHFers are out there give some contacts out on 2m and 6m in an attempt to entice more “new guys and little guys” to come out and play with the “big guys” in the future…
73bob
Tags: amateur radio, amateur radio contesting, Ontario QSO Party, VHFContests
April 7, 2009 at 6:50 pm |
Hi I came across your blog through alphainventions. I am a Ham from uk G3TZA I have been licensed since 1965. I am living on a narrowboat traveling around the canal system of England. I have with me a FT817 but I havent yet used it on the boat. I operate mainly cw I will keep an I on your blog. All the best 73′s
April 7, 2009 at 7:50 pm |
Thanks for coming in for a visit… The 817 is an excellent radio… It was the first one bought when I got back into the hobby and I have had a lot of fun operating QRP over the years… Keep reading and try for a contact one day… I do head out into the field at times and would love to try a QRP to QRP contact…
73bob
April 8, 2009 at 12:02 pm |
Yes I have worked all around the world with the 817, it is an incredible little set. I will pop back here from time to time and also let you know when I get up and running. Not even sure what the conditions are like at the present tim.
73 Alan