Rod,

I suspect 144MHz narrowmode activity in your area is rather low (chicken and egg
situation). On the other hand, you can make people happy with WA for WAS..
Possibilities: Use sats, Meteorscatter and/or EME. With an IC910 (possibly with an
additional preamp) and a 3wl yagi you can do all of those modes. If you want to improve
over the IC910 your alternative is a transverter behind a (good) HF rig. See
DownEastMicrowave or DB6NT (re latter: Take a breath before looking at prices). An
Elecraft with 2m transverter also comes highly recommended by many people. In addition
that makes a great HF radio. Yagi's can be had from several sources, good ones are M2 or
others (commercial) or DK7ZB (easy homebrew and cheap with great performance).

For MS and EME check the page from Joe K1JT for the WSJT computerprogram. Also check the
Pingjockey page, the JT65 EME page, bigskyspaces.com, etc. The bigger the station, the
better your results will be. 100W + 3wl allows tropo range of abt 250-300mile range at
all times. 4 x 5wl + 1kW will make that abt 500-600miles. Meteorscatter will have a
range of 500-1300 miles. More power will make QSOing easier but not influence the
distance much. Theoretical limit is abt 1500 miles which is very rare. EME means around
the world. 100W + 3wl means you can work abt 5-10 stations with patience. 1kW + 4 x 5wl
allows you to work almost all active EME stations and work DXCC on 2m. For more EME info
look at the homepage of PA0JMV.

It is interesting to see many HF folks becoming interested in VHF work. It is very
different, mainly because the relatively low activity. If you put your mind (and
equipment) to it, it can be very rewarding. I am an average station in Europe of abt
3-4kW ERP and have worked abt 70 DXCC without much effort including W,VE,KG6,ZS,JA. Just
don't expect it to be easy, it is a definite challenge!

GL! Hope to work you one day

On Sat, 29 Oct 2005 15:29:02 -0700, "Rod Maupin" wrote:

I'm in the Olympia, WA area. I just took the Extra test, and while I was
studying I got interested in the sections on repeaters and satellite. I've
worked HF for years, but never done anything else. So, my interest got
piqued.

Satellite sounds interesting, but I don't know anything about it. So, I am
going to have to do some reading up. I don't even know how to work a
repeater, so you really know I've just been into HF.

Rod