Thanks to all for a great Saturday morning on the microwaves. There was a
good deal of activity and it was very enjoyable from FN20ag. I really
appreciated all of the cameraderie that was evident on the bands. It was
clear that everyone was having a great time. The highpoint for me was
working all bands to and including 24 GHz [sideband] with K1DS/R who was
up at Camelback. My only disappointment was not finding/working W4DEX.
My totals were in the same range as the others who have reported, namely:
903 11 5
1296 16 7
2304 12 6
3456 11 6
5760 7 5
10368 11 7
24000 1 1
TOTALS 69 37
I used Linrad in parallel with the FT1000MP as IF receiver. Linrad gave
me a visual display of just under 50 KHz either side of center frequency,
and made working the microwaves like shooting ducks in a pond. The
sensitivity of the Linrad display is such that it will show any signal
that is possibly workable [as well as some that are below threshold, but
there were none of those this contest]. There are no birdies on the
microwaves with my setup [though 903 is of course full of REAL trash], and
so the Linrad screen is blank until the station at the other end starts
transmitting. Then an easily visible trace appears, and with a click of
the mouse the Linrad receiver is brought onto that station's frequency.
Type the letter 'Q' [ for QSY ] on the keyboard and the FT1000 is
instantly brought onto that frequency. So as long as the other station is
within 50 KHz of the expected frequency, he can be worked as quickly as if
he were right on the expected frequency. Removing the frequency variable
from the equation and providing a sensitive bandscope with no birdies
really makes working the microwaves much more efficient. I had tried a
similar approach last year with the SDR1000 and it didn't work well for me
and I abandoned it halfway through the contest. But the Linrad setup is
incredible. Those of you who ran the bands with me know what I mean.
There was no 'hunting' for the other guy at all on QSY's up the spectrum.
I will be using Linrad in every contest from now on, as it has now become
a necessity for me on 1296 and above for terrestrial work, just as it has
been on 144 EME.
PS I will be bringing some Knoppix-Live CD's with Linrad installed to the
Dayton VHF banquet to be given away as freebies. You just plunk one of
these into your CD drive and your computer boots up in Linux without
writing anything to the hard drive, and if you are lucky it runs Linrad
right off the bat. Your mileage may vary. ;)
Thanks again all, and
73,
Roger
W3SZ
--
Roger Rehr
W3SZ
http://www.qsl.net/w3sz
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