Maybe so. I already have a 24 GHz station and I've managed a 170 km QSO
(and a bunch of closer ones) on that band with a watt and a 12 inch dish.
I'm mostly done with a 47 GHz station and have my eye on 78 GHz. The 47 GHz
will be flea-power for a while and I don't expect to work anyone beyond a
few miles.
I forget if it was on this reflector or another one that I mentioned that I
do not limit my activity on the microwave bands to contesting. We have
Microwave Activity Day in this area on the first Saturday of every month.
Quite a few of us watch the Hepburn tropo forecast and if it looks
promising I will make a few skeds and drive to a hill not too far from home
and spend a couple hours before or after work trying to make some QSO's.
It's taken a lot of tries with some stations but persistence eventually
paid off. I'm hoping to eventually work a couple people in St. Louis (250
km) on 24 GHz eventually. It took quite a few tries to make it on 10 GHz.
73, Zack W9SZ
On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 2:00 PM, Tom Holmes <tholmes@woh.rr.com> wrote:
> So today's 24, 47, and 76 GHz bands are yesterday's 220 and 440? There are
> a
> few guys up there working on stuff for those bands and mostly doing EME but
> also some terrestrial work. Do they spend their time lamenting the lack of
> contacts up there? Maybe, but more likely over a beer rather than spending
> a
> lot of time discussing it endlessly in chat rooms and on reflectors. The
> point is that they network to find like-minded hams to work with, wherever
> they are. Some of you are familiar with the microwave reflector run by
> WA1MBA. There is a wealth of useful info there and yes, the occasional
> gripe
> about activity but generally they are optimists about our uW bands.
> Certainly they would like to see more activity but they know that
> negatively
> toned talk like I am hearing here doesn't result in much improvement.
> Activity and enthusiasm counts!
>
> To those who have decided that the return on investment of time and money
> just isn't there anymore, that's your call. Personally, I'm in it for the
> challenge, the fun, the friends, and the learning curve. The wallpaper is
> nice, as our contest group has made the LM Top 10 a respectable number of
> times. Yeah, some contests have next to nothing in the way of propagation
> so
> we don't go at it floored all weekend, but we do try to use the slow times
> to improve the station, or our techniques, or try to learn more about the
> digital modes. We also have spent some time between contests recruiting new
> operators to work with us, especially younger ones who might be trainable
> as
> tower climbers since we are getting to be a bit too old to be hanging
> around
> 100' in the air for very long, if at all.
>
> Maybe part of the activity problem is that if we have a team of 5
> operators,
> that's potentially 4 stations that aren't otherwise working the contest.
> Could a rules change regarding operators working from multiple stations be
> in order to help the log count? You could work from your home station and
> with one contest team during the contest, provided you submitted a log and
> gave out contacts to more than just your contest team's station. You could
> put a minimum number of contacts on it but that would invite a bunch of
> whining about not hearing anyone else on the band. Funny how rules have a
> way of inviting folks to find ways to get around them, but I digress.
>
> I am a little concerned that some of the big time multi-op stations are
> coming to LM; that is going to mean tougher competition. I guess we'll have
> to up our game!
>
> Tom Holmes, N8ZM
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: VHFcontesting [mailto:vhfcontesting-bounces@contesting.com] On
> Behalf
> Of beamar
> Sent: Monday, February 10, 2014 4:09 PM
> To: vhfcontesting@contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] Trends in VHF/UHF Weak Signal Operations
>
>
> On Feb 10, 2014, at 3:49:01 PM, "Les Rayburn" <les@highnoonfilm.com>
> wrote:
>
> How many amateurs would really care if we lose our allocation at 3 GHz?
> The answer to the question posed above is very few. But, that may not
> always
> be the case. The following text is a quote from a presentation on weak
> signal work that I gave at a recent hamfest:
>
> "Put hams on 200M and down! In 1912, the frequencies above 1500 KHz were
> considered useless. Amateur Radio got 40M as a band, in 1924. Reading the
> DX
> column, in the January 1925 issue of QST, it seems that no frequency above
> 75M was considered to be useful for DX. Hams got 10M in, 1927. It was the
> early 1940s, before anyone considered it useful. In 1946, many hams
> referred
> to 2M as a "flashlight" band. That is, propagation was akin to light waves.
> In 1969, when I was licensed, 2M was considered to be the highest frequency
> band that was useful for communications. "You can?t talk anywhere on 220
> MHz", I was told. In 1979, when I bought my first 440 FM radio, I was told
> , "You can?t talk very far on 440". Now days, many Radio Amateurs thinks it
> takes the resources of a governmental agency or a telephone company to
> successfully communicate above 450 MHz."
> So, following the trend, as outlined in my P/P presentation. It will
> probably be another twenty to forty years, before the average ham considers
> 3 Gigs to be useful.
>
> Buddy WB4OMG
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