I got home from work Tuesday, 7/24/2012, to an email from Bart, W9JJ, saying there was a 2M Sporadic E opening on 2M. I literally leapt from the couch and flew down the stairs to the shack. I turned the rig on and immediately heard AG4V in Tennessee, grid square EM55! I quickly worked him, just as he faded. That QSO was 1060 miles on 2M!
There were reports of guys working from New England all over the Memphis, TN area. The last two stations I heard were WB5AFY in TX and another station in AK. I wasn't able to work the Texas station, he was just too weak and he was saying the W2/W3's were S9+. He was about 4x2 here.
The best DX I've heard so far was Dave, K1WHS, working Al Ward, W5LUA in TX (FN43 to EM13, roughly 1500 miles).
I did manage to grab a screen shot of the APRS map before it faded into history:
This weekend is the CQ VHF WW contest. Contest start is 1800 UTC (2pm EDT), end time is 2100 UTC Sunday (5pm EDT). This contest is 50MHz and 144MHz only, the rules can be found here.
I plan on operating a good portion of the weekend.
Dick Bean, K1HC, and his son Kevin, KB1EAN, will be roving up into some rare grids up in Maine. Here is the email he sent to the Morning 205 report:
I am planning a Rover effort up to Maine for the CQ WW VHF
contest with my son, Kevin, KB1EAN.
7/21: FN53 (Pemaquid Point), FN54 (overnight in Bangor)
7/22: FN 54 (Bangor), FN64 (lunch at Helen's in Machias -
can't miss that), FN 66 (Houlton), FN56 (Oakley), FN55 (just
south of Patten), then overnight again in Bangor before we
head back to MA.
I will have 100 watts on 6 and 2 meters (SSB/CW) with my
Kenwood TSB-2000/RC-2000 and loop antennas so we will
operate while in motion with one of us driving and the other
operating. It's our first Rover attempt so I'm sure we'll learn a
Last saturday I attended the Northeast Weak Signal Group annual BBQ and Microwave MDS test session. It's a great time, we almost always have great weather and the location is perfect. Lots of goodies for sale, I picked up a number of Items.
Here is a quick video I took of the microwave setups that people brought to test. I almost got irradiated by some 24GHz signals :)
Edit: I also did a similar video back in 2007, that video is a bit longer and shows more of the setup and operation of the MDS testing. That video can be found here:
I worked a few stations on 2M CW via Aurora today. I heard many stations, but only ended up working three in grids EN60, EN70 and FN46. Here is a video of N9XG in EN60.
The last few days I've been watching the APRS VHF Propagation map only to see the bands completely dead. Usually when I wake up in the morning the first thing I do is grab my iPad and look at propagation. This morning at 6am I did, saw the band dead, and decided not to get out of bed just yet. Just then, I heard a voice coming from my basement. I realized I never shut off my K3 the previous day, and when I went to investigate I found Joh, W1XX, calling a station down south, the band was open! I jumped on and made a few contacts with W4CLJ in FM18 and KD4AA in FM17. I then came to my senses and put the coffee on!
After the first cup I then ran with a number of stations. At one point, there were 4-5 frequencies in us, and it almost looked like 20m! The WA1ZMS beacon was pounding in at S8 and I was even hearing the W3CCX beacon, which is a first for this location.
The point is, I was relying on the APRS map to tell me if the band was open and I just assumed it was working! I should have been sitting in front of the radio, regardless of what the map was telling me.
I managed to get in contact with the fine gentleman who managed the map and he was able to get it fixed immediately.
I continued to work a number of other stations over the course of a few hours. This is the final log:
W4CLJ FM18 394 miles
KD4AA FM17 441 miles
KG4HOT FM07 522 miles
K1DQV FM19 354 miles
K2DZM FN20 228 miles
N4HB FM17uu 400 miles
N3RG FM29ki 282 miles
KO4YC FM17fm 464 miles
Three new grids for me!
N3RG came on frequency and was very loud, here is a quick video of my QSO with him:
My only regret for today was that I'm still employed and my boss expects me to show up to work!
I arrived home Friday evening around 8:30 from my weeks long vacation to discover that 2M was open, and apparently, was open all day. I turned on the station and within a few minutes worked N3MK in FM27 and K3CNH in FM28. Both were loud, S7, and fairly consistent. The band was building as the evening went on, finally both N3MK and K3CNH were S9+10 by around 10:30pm. Here is a video of N3MK calling:
I had SpectraVue running with my SDR-IQ on the IF output of the K3. Here you can see how loud N3MK, K3CNH and the K4MHZ beacon were:
And finally, this is what the APRS map looked like.
My only regret was that there weren't more stations to work.
