This past weekend was the ARRL VHF/UHF Contest, and I normally dive into this contest with maximum effort, but with long time friends in town that we have not seen in 6 or 7 years and spending time with them all day Saturday, that left only Sunday and I need to do a quick trip to pick up some Antennas just south of Houston.
So Ruth and I thought it would be fun to operate Sunday as a Rover, so with her logging, and me operating we hopped into the truck and headed to Alvin Texas which is 186 miles away as the crow flies.
With the radio dialed in on 144.200 USB, we pulled out of the house.
Announced we were in the contest and roving.
We immediately worked KB2WDM in Schertz, followed by K5QE in Hemphill, TX. Marshal is 336 miles from our first contact location. With a single omni directional loop antenna built by Tom K5VH and 120 watts mobile we worked K5QE in EM31 and quickly knocked out additional contacts around the region.
On the Trip we made 17 contacts, working several stations in every grid on our drive {EL-09, EL-19, EL-29}.
Take Horizontal polarization with it’s reduced noise, good take off angle and Single Side Band with the ability to hear and pull intelligence out of a weaker signal and you get one of the reasons you can communicate at much greater ranges then possible with FM, and you will understand the fun and the thrill of what you can accomplish with VHF/UHF Weak Signal.
But let’s back up a second, remember we are not going through repeaters, we are not going through the internet with Echo Link, All Star Network, we are not working remote station. These are antenna to antenna contacts.
Between San Antonio and Sequin, we worked the following stations.
KB2WDM Schertz 17 Miles
K5QE Hemphill 336 Miles
KE5YEU Alice 116 Miles
K5TR Austin 57 Miles
AC5KD Alvin 182 Miles
All of these contacts were made operating mobile while driving down the highway with an average of 100 to 120 watts of power into a single loop on 2 meters, with average band conditions.
We made a total of 17 contacts with our longest distance at 336 miles.
Imagine what you can do with a little more power, some high gain yagi antennas and high quality feed line?
COME JOIN US SATURDAY JULY 1ST 2017 AND LEARN WHAT IS POSSIBLE ON VHF/UHF BANDS
2ND ANNUAL HAMSTER LUNCH AND LEARN JULY 1ST 2017 AT THE AMERICAN RED CROSS IN SAN ANTONIO please use the Houston St side entrance to enter the building
Flex Radio will be on hand to demonstrate the new products and advantages for VHF/UHF Weak Signal/EME/Meteor Scatter
de Greg Lewis N5X0
