06/16/2007 | K3ZT Our little granddaughter, Lauren, was up from Virginia (Grid Square: FM18) visiting with her Pop Pop (me) in Eastern Pennsylvania (Grid Square: FM29). "Hey Lauren, can you say...CQ ARRL VHF QSO PARTY"

For this VHF QSO Party, I wanted to try out a newly purchased Icom IC-208H VHF/UHF Dual Bander rig (2 Meters & 70 cms). I usually enjoy contesting down on the HF bands, so I was glad to have this new rig and the opportunity to see how I might be able to do with a VHF contest.

I had pre-programmed FM simplex frequencies into the rig's memory channels so that I could continuously scan for anyone, anywhere who might also be looking for a contest contact. I had also tested the rig prior to the contest and knew that everything was working just fine.

So when the contest period actually began, I started my scanning, along with occasionally making my own calls.. Surprisingly.. I could not find another single operator in the FM portion of the bands that was even aware that a VHF contest was going on. "Hello...is there anybody out there?" - "ANYONE...OUT THERE?" - "HELLO!"

Oh well, in the end, I did manage at least a couple of contacts. It was still fun trying, but hopefully, next time around, we'll have a little better luck. - 73 -- K3ZT