VHF PLUS

I’m introducing an international flavor into the column this month. All around the world, our amateur colleagues participate in VHF Plus activities, and occasionally these may overlap with our own.

The quest for transatlantic contacts impacts several continents, and our report on activity this summer will show some important successes.

We will look at an Australian VHF contest that coincides with the Winter Sporadic-E (E_s) season here in North America, and finally at efforts to experiment on a potential new band for the U.S., 8 meters.

Crossing the Atlantic

Our Irish friend, John Desmond, EI7GL, maintains an excellent blog on all things ham radio at <>. Recently, he reported on an Africa-to-Caribbean 2-meter opening that was quite impressive (). On August 19th and 20th, stations in the Canary Islands worked Guadeloupe and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean, as well as stations to the northeast in Spain and). There were voice, digital, and of course CW transmissions involved.