W2EA Sept VHF Contest

W2EA Goes to the Mountain for September

September VHF Contest

The South Jersey Mountain Toppers ARC, otherwise known as W2EA, will once again ascend to their .  

normal operation location on the summit of High Knob in Eastern Pennsylvania. Even though the eleva-

tion is slightly lower than Camel Back Mount, where the Packrats setup an unlimited multi-op operation in

June, it is located almost 20 miles due north of Camel Back at FN21kh.

The site is not easily accessed by the public and requires special permission from the Pennsylvania

DCNR with limits the number of people that we can have on the mountain top. Pizzas cannot be deliv-

ered, however in the past the game warden did try to deliver a bear to us. After checking none of us actu-

ally ordered a bear. Just another case of Door-Dash getting it wrong. This year we have a team of thir-

teen dedicated hams almost half are packrats.

The operational plans this year will be 7 bands 50 MHz, 144 MHz, 222 MHz, 432 MHz, 903 MHz, 1.2 GHz

and 10 GHz. In years past we usually finish 2nd place in the unlimited multi-op category behind W2SZ.

While the great FT8 debate continues, we choose not to take a position but to embrace its use to our ad-

vantage. Since FT8 was introduced our UHF contact counts were dropping. So last year we made a hard

fast rule that looks like it turned around our UHF contact count.

Last year we introduced the following policy and follow to the letter.

One of the strengths our the W2EA operation is that ALL operations try to pass people up the bands even

with the first contact and drop everything to cooperate with Rovers. You will find the W2EA operators will-

ing to cooperate in order to maximize contacts on all bands.

W2EA Digital operations policy (FTx) for 6m and 2m:

At the top of every hour, we will operate Phone or CW for at

least 5 minutes or 5 minutes after the last contact, only then the

operator will then switch to a digital mode.

This worked extremely well in practice. For the first hours of the contest, we never needed to go to a digi-

tal mode. When things slowed down, we switched to digital. This also made it easy for stations to find us

for passing up the bands.

In practice if you need W2EA on the higher simply go to either 6m or 2m. Find us and pass up the bands.

Our operators are tuned into this advantage and our UHF scores increased.

This year we hope to improve even more in the higher bands.

Visit our website at www.w2ea.net

Thank you and 73’s.

Ken K2WB (aka W2EA)

W2EA is the club call of the South Jersey Mountain Toppers Amateur Radio Club. This club was formed to honor the late Walter W. Schmidt, W2EA, who became a silent key in 1994. Walt was an active ham, licensed for over 60 years. But beyond that, he was also an avid hiker, backpacker, and camper - even to an age where other would have chosed less rigorous activities. One of Walt's favorite places was High Knob, a 2,000-foot mountain about 30 miles north of Marshall's Creek, Pennsylvania (Grid FN21). As a younger man he had hiked in the area on many occasions. Years later, he added ham radio; first with just a 2-meter hand-held and portable antenna. Later came car-access to the top, complete with 10-watt CW/SSB/FM rig and an "Armstrong-rotated" 8-element beam on a fiberglass vaulting-pole mast. Still later, Walt recruited others to accompany him to High Knob to participate in the June and September ARRL VHF QSO parties. Group involvement spanned two decades and expanded to multi-transmitter activity on five VHF/UHF bands. When Walt became a silent key, those who had participated in these activities with him agreed that they should not cease with his passing. Hence, the SJMTARC was born. The club applied for and was granted the call, and W2EA was again active on the airways. In addition to the aforementioned VHF activities, W2EA has also been aired in various HF contests, both from New Jersey and South Carolina.

Our website is www.w2ea.net