On Saturday the 27th of September 2014 a German CW activity group have organised a very short cw contest on 2m and 70cms, ideal for beginners, straight key only with no computer decoding devices.
Note:- Probably Horizontal polarisation.
- from 1400 to 1700 UTC on 2 m
- from 1700 to 1800 UTC on 70 cms.
See this website for further details.
Blimey, a straight key. That rules me out as I’m strictly a paddle man 😉
VHF and UHF are great parts of our spectrum offering loads of space to play that is little effected by all the man-made noise that now blights the HF spectrum. Put one or more long yagi’s on a mast and its amazing what you can achieve, especially with a receive LNA (Low noise amplifier) mounted at the antenna. An LNA is essential if the antenna’s are any distance from the radio’s as they are a great way to overcome feeder losses.
It’s a shame VHF and, especially, UHF are little used nowadays as there is just so much that can be achieved. The antenna’s are small, compared to HF anyway, simple to construct and with the low noise levels its amazing what can be achieved. Ground based DX can be great fun using tropospheric propagation and this occurs far more frequently than you might think. With a multi-element yagi its quite common to work into France and even Germany on VHF SSB using Tropospheric propagation. Then there is moon bounce or EME (Earth-Moon-Earth) and although its not something I’ve tried, I believe its quite possible with a very modest VHF yagi, especially using a data mode such as JT65. Of course there are the satellites wurring over our heads too and putting together a station to track and copy these can be hugely educational – just what amateur radio is about!
So my message to you is: Go get on VHF, UHF and play. Its a great place.
Andrew, G0RVM