[NLRS] New member

[Doug Reed]

Hi Thomas.

As Jon said, there is not a lot of activity on 432 SSB except during
contests. The N4PZ 432.110 SSB net is so far away that you would need
a *very* good station and large antenna to be heard. There are no
local UHF SSB nets.

There is a bit more UHF FM activity, but you will find most
of it is during morning & evening drive time. You can get the current
repeater list from the Minnesota Repeater Council web site. I'd
suggest trying repeaters associated with the larger clubs first. Most
repeaters are using CTCSS tones to activate the repeater so be sure
you program the TX tone when you program the RX-TX frequencies. Ignore
the digital voice repeaters since you will not hear anything but
"noise". <https://www.mrc.gen.mn.us/>

If you want more weak signal activity, your best choice will be 2M and
6M. I believe that most daily activity currently is on 6M digital
modes, using meteor scatter and FT8. A meteor scatter station will
probably want medium to high power and a large beam antenna. FT8 is
usually considered to be a weak signal mode but I expect most 6M FT8
stations are 50-200 watts with at least a single beam.

If you want to stick with 432 weak signal modes, you might want to
research digital moon bounce equipment and methods. The WSJT moon
bounce modes have brought it within the capability of more modest
stations than were required for traditional CW & SSB moon bounce.

73, Doug Reed, N0NAS.

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