Hi Everyone,
Another Microwave Sprint in the log and amazingly almost all of the
equipment worked from the portable. Upon my first contacts I had an issue
with the 1296 xverter. The receive was way down to almost non-existant.
Tried to work K3TUF in FN20 but no go however fine on 2304. Got ahold of
K1RZ Dave and we had to go to CW has SSB was just to far gone on 1296.
So I decided to tear things apart to see what was going on. Upon
investigation I found no center pin inside the N connector connected the the
1296 xverter output. Essentially a good shield and an open center conductor.
Now how did K1RZ and I work with an open, 552 on CW. Absolutely amazing. The
cut off portion of the connector is being boxed and sent to Dave for his
review.
I cut off the cable, reattached a quick crimp on N connector to the LMR-400
and up she came, 1296 in business.
After fighting the horrific weather on the mountain starting with a nice sun
up, to rain then heavy rain then 60+ mph wind gusts and a 15 degree
temperature drop around 10:00am and then a thunder storm, I would consider
the conditions for this Microve Sprint somewhere between bad and horrible. I
had at least 15 tourists on Skyline Drive wanting to know what I was doing
and whether it was legal. One wanted to know how many bears I could track at
the same time. Hmmm.
The beacon I was hearing in Philadelphia at S6 at sun up was non-existant by
8:00am. K1WHS showed up and I at almost 4000ft ASL on 2 Meters with 400
watts and 13 elements talking to his 4x array and 1KW struggled to just
liason on 2 meters. No Microwave between fm08 and fn43 on this day.
Pretty sparce turnout as I really didn't hear too many folks. Here are the
results for the Fall 2004 Microwave Sprint for the W4SHG Portable attempt:
Band QSO Grid
903 6 4
1296 5 4
2304 9 3
3456 2 1
5760 1 1
Total 23 13
A final note, the wind at one point was blowing so hard that the rear glass
window in the Expedition was caught in a wind gust, it was lifted up with
such force it tore away the shocks holding the window in place, flew up over
the top of the car pivoting on the top hinges, snapped off the thru hole
fasteners and landed on the roof shattering in around 5000 little pieces. A
fellow ham had stoped to ask what I was doing and witnessed all of this
which took less than a second.
So what did I do, went back inside and hollered CQ on the 144.260 liason
freq. had to turn up the heater though :)
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