Welp. I hope that my experience today meant that Murphy was focused on me
and everyone else had a nice easy contest.
My plan was to hit the Fruitlands in FN42em. I'd make a few 10GHz contacts,
test out the 24GHz setup, and then head home. Getting to the Fruitlands was
about the only thing that went well (I even managed to make a wrong turn on
the way home, so...)
While setting up, I got power to the 24GHz setup first so that the LO could
start to warm up.
Failure #1: I then realized that I forgot the adapter to connect my IF
radio to the 24GHz transverter.
Failure #2: I started setting up my liaison radio, at which point I
realized that I left the coax adapter for that one at home as well. I'm
never going on one of these trips without my bin o' adapters again.
I called George W1JHR to try and work over to Mt. Wachusett, an easy shot
and we could coordinate over cell phone instead of 2m.
Failure #3: While talking with him on the phone, a rather copious amount of
smoke started pouring out of the amp. No idea what went wrong there, but
usually you're supposed to keep that stuff inside the electronics. Smelled
like popped caps.
No problem, I'll pull the amp out of series and run on 10mW.
Failure #4: At some point the wire to my T/R relay where it connects to the
DEMI Transverter snapped off in such a way that was unrepairable in the
field. When doing VHF roves I carry a soldering iron, guess I should start
for this as well.
Failures #5 and #6: While dealing with THAT I managed to destroy 2 pieces
of semirigid coax, snapped the SMA connectors off.
So now I was down to a small horn connected directly to RX and the dish on
TX. Unsure if anything else was going wrong but I couldn't hear a thing.
Thanks to everyone who called and emailed, sorry we couldn't make a
contact. I guess I'll have to see what I can salvage and try and get this
gear working for the September VHF contest.
73,
Sean WA1TE
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