VHF DX

Art, W1AWX, lives in Eastern Mass and occasionally sends me frequencies of VHF activity in his neck of the woods to check at my QTH here 90 miles away in Central Connecticut. At the Boxboro Hamfest, Art said he would send me the frequency of the Mt. Monadnock State Park Search and Rescue repeater output (151.385 MHz) in southern New Hampshire to check out.

Mt. Monadnock is 95 miles away and I had doubts that I would hear the repeater. But one afternoon, I tuned my ELAD FDM-S2/SW2 receiver (connected to my ICOM AH-7000 discone antenna) to 151.385 and about an hour later, I heard some traffic on that frequency that jived with state park search and rescue chatter.

I reported my success to W1AWX and he suggested I check the repeater's input frequency (159.375). Hearing the repeater output is one thing, but hearing stations on the repeater input seemed unimaginable in light of the fact that stations on the repeater's input probably are transmitting less power with less efficient antennas than the repeater.

I tuned my receiver to the repeater's input anyway and a few minutes later, I was very surprised to hear a station with state park search and rescue chatter on the channel!