I am sitting in a real fog bank, with visibility around 250 ft. It is overcast and wet.  So it must be time for the fabulous 222 Activity Night this evening.  I trust other parts of the country are having better weather.  So take your cue and march into the ham shack after dinner and fire up the 222 gear and try to work someone on the band. Here in the Northeast and Golden Corridor, there is a goodly amount of activity. A slow night would be 10 QSOs for the big guys, while a good night is closer to 20 QSOs. Good Buddy Ron, WZ1V posts his tallies each week and it is a good resource for gauging activity levels.  In other parts of the country things might be a bit less active, but I have seen some big numbers from K9MRI in Indiana.  AA9MY, AJ6T, N1GC, W5EME, and many others are usually in there making noise. This is a great situation, and it might be a good exercise for those in the more populous areas to try a sked or two with these folks who are beyond their normal operating area.  The ON4KST Chat Page is a great resource for setting up such skeds. (144/432 Region 2 Chat)

Last week, I had a radio club presentation on Tuesday evening and had to QRT around 23:30 UT. I worked a number of 222 MHz stations early on including WA3EOQ for my 500 mile QSO of the day.  The generator was acting up with constant speed oscillation. The room lights were pulsating to the funky 1 Hz beat. I am not sure how all the 222 gear likes that ugly voltage swing, but thank God for three terminal regulators!!   The next two days I spent working over the generator. I turned it on Wednesday and it was working fine, but later on, another try was met with the oscillation again, and I swapped out the entire encapsulated speed regulator with a new one. The oscillations were immediately gone, and I tested the setup many times with a start up and shut down. Each attempt was met with stable performance. On Monday morning, I ran it for several hours and powered up my 28 MHz linear amp along with electric baseboard heating and all worked just fine for the entire time.  Ten meters was hopping!   So I am all fired up to try it tonight on 222 Night. I am hoping that the AC power is stable and conditions on the band are not too bad!!

But, than, there is never a bad night on 222 Tuesdays as it is so much fun to tune around and look for signals, meet old friends, and try something new to test out your gear.  I like to say hi to old friends and also to look for transient propagation conditions.  We did not get much tropo this fall, but I am still optimistic. We might even get an aurora. I can't wait for that too!  So dust off your microphone, and polish up those code key contacts.  222Activity Night is calling you! Be there or be square.

73

Dave K1WHS

ps. A number of people have told me that I am always in a fog bank.