[NLRS] Newbie Tips

[Dr. Gerald N. Johnson]

Try your 6m antenna on 2 and 432. I think you will hear stronger signals 
even though feedline loss and mismatch loss may be higher. Cross 
polarization loss can be more than 30 dB. One year or two I had a beam 
with a polarization rotor. I could dip the local repeater more than 40 
dB (but then the FM S-meter on that rig tended to exaggerate) with the 
polarization rotor.

I used an 80 meter double extended zepp for many years on 6m and 2m and 
worked some decent DX on 2m and lots of sporadic E on 6 with it. I used 
relatively low loss feed lines and balanced tuners for the band. The 
reactance of such a long wire and feed changes rapidly with frequency on 
the 77th harmonic of the wire fundamental resonance so if you tune its 
important to do it on 50.130 and 144.200.

If there's sporadic E activity 50.125 will be stuffed with northern 
signals trying to work the southern stations we typically hear. It is 
possible to make contacts on .125 but generally a whole lot easier to 
tune up the band and find strong CQs and work them. Hunt and pounce with 
frequency agility. CW will be just below .100 usually no more than 19 or 
20 kHz below .100 and some of the CW ops have moved up from HF and send 
fast. Winter sporadic E openings may last only a few seconds to a couple 
minutes.

There is a failure to tune off of .200 on 2m and that has been limiting 
activity. Our receivers are faulty, they don't radiate a signal to show 
we are listening and where we are listening. Calling on frequencies away 
from .200 hasn't been very effective in recent years. We all need to 
break the tuning knob seal and move around. Callilng CQ on 432 hasn't 
made many contacts either. With the band agile radios we tend to use, it 
takes making a Q on 2m and then moving to the other available bands to 
run up a score. Long ago, I parked on 432 and did quite well, but that 
hasn't worked in several decades.

I'll probably be on but my roof top small antennas makes me not very 
competitive. I need to work on better antennas above the trees and other 
obstacles.

73, Jerry, K0CQ EN32FH

On 1/22/2015 10:11 AM, Douglas E Marsh wrote:
>
>
> I'm planning my first stab at a VHF contest this weekend. Any tips for a little pistol (okay maybe squirt gun is more like it)? I'd just like to give a few points away and have some fun. I've got an Icom IF-7000 so 100W on 6m, 50W on 2m and 35W on 70cm. I've got a G5RV on 6m up about 30ft horizontally polarized and a J-pole up about 25ft vertically polarized for 2m and 70cm.
>
> Your help is appreciated.
>
> 73 de N8TUT Doug
>