[NLRS] 2m Opening

[Kirk P]

It was really fun to be home and at the radio when 2m decided to open up a bit.


I always find it frustrating, as a person that wants to be active and somewhat successful at handing out points and grids on 2m, even though my station lacks a large antenna (I have the K1FO 6 ele rover antenna at 50' backed by a 1 kw amp) that so few of the 2m ops use weak signal modes. CW would be so much more effective for weak signals vs SSB as you all know.


I heard a few local stations working tropo to stations in the W5/W4 area on SSB yet those south were but a faint whisper to me. If they were on CW Id have probably gotten a QSO and a new grid or vise-versa.


It was very surprising to me to go to the FT8 freq of 144174 to call CQ and have several Q's for new stations or grids. (Still prefer CW though as it is much quicker for the short openings.


Grids worked were:

EN81
EM48
EM79
EN80
EN74
EN81
EN61
EN13
FM07
FN01

More activity would be great but I suspect that many just give up that cant have even modestly equipped stations.

Ill continue to hang in there hoping that stations will remember that not all of us have stacked arrays or long boom antennas and are in there to give points and Qs we just need to utilize weaker signal modes to get it done.

Fun morning on the radio.

Kirk




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