Hello VHF mavens,
The 222 MHz EME Activity Period happened over the Friday and Saturday
May 13-15. Springtime is a good time for EME. In all of my experience,
I would categorize summertime EME on 144 as not very good. I could never
give an explanation why, but signals typically were not as good as
winter or spring. I hoped that May would be good. I think it was!
When I started things up on Friday, there was some good activity on the
HB9Q Logger. AJ6T, N1SV, K7ND, ND0B, VE6TA, and W7ID were all checked
in. AJ6T is near Nashville and has only 10 watts, but was interested to
see if he could detect anything. I started calling CQ on 222.080 as soon
as I could so that AJ6T had something to listen for. He did not detect
anything that looked positive, but at about 23:30, the Moon rose at
North Dakota and ND0B came blasting in with his single yagi and kilowatt
on the horizon. Around that time, AI5I logged on to the logger.
Marshall, K5QE showed up at 00:00 as well and he and I had a quick QSO
and then we both started sending CQs spread out around 222.080.
At 00:25 UT, WA4NJP turned on his rig and saw the activity and called me
right away. We had a great QSO as well. I noticed that W8RU was checked
in to the HB9Q Logger. He is very active on 222 MHz now too. As the
Moon appeared to drift across the continent, K7KQA showed up with a
great Moon rise signal at 0100 UT, followed immediately by N1AV at
01:10. WA4NJP and K5QE were working stations as well and it was pretty
neat having many signals from different areas, as it reduced the Faraday
effects, giving potential new listeners a choice of signals to decode.
I noted that KB7IOG logged on HB9Q and Peter, KA6U and W6TCP also showed
up. Ian, W6TCP, had a great signal. I heard him working Ray, WA4NJP,
and Ian was rolling my socks up and down here. He worked Ray for a new
state I believe, and then his PA squealed and let out some smoke. It
seems there was an arc over on the PA output relay, along with the
attendant "Schmutz". Did I mention that W5EME was there too? Rick has
been very active and we had a QSO at 0147. Signals were quite loud when
they peaked up. By 0200, I was beat and the activity let up a bit. I
went QRT, but VE6TA showed up a bit later and more fun was had by all on
222 MHz.
Saturday evening produced more great signals. I noted that my generator
power plant was running on fumes, so planned to bring six gallons of
diesel up to help power the evening. ($36 worth of fuel in a six gallon
container!) I got up to the hilltop at 23:30 only to find that I had
brought the wrong keys and I could not unlock the generator shed or the
shack! I walked back down to the house and retrieved the proper keys,
then trekked back up and opened the shed to re fuel the Cummins engine.
The walk is about a mile round trip. I was on the air by about 00:00 and
saw that NX9O and K1OR were there. John, K1OR made lots of noise CQing
and it was neat that I could see his loud terrestrial signal along with
the doppler skewed echo slightly up frequency. W5EME and N1AV were also
QRV. Charlie, N0AKC was there too testing out his system, heard but it
sems that he still has a hearing problem. He tested the preamps etc, so
the problem is most likely some bad cabling or maybe a dirty relay.
K1OR and I worked NX9O, N1AV, and W5EME. There were some pretty good
signal reports. Many in the -15 range among the participants.
Marshall, K5QE was on the logger but not at the shack, so could only
hand out moral support. We went up to almost midnite on the East coast.
K1OR heated up his basement shack and was getting hot. I had my 8877
running at 1400 watts or so and had the AC on in the shack, so I was
comfortable, but my eyes were getting droopy N1AV and W5EME tried for a
QSO after John and I QRTed, but had only limited success. Still it sure
was a fun weekend.
I think AJ6T is going to work on improving his receive setup. He is
getting hammered by some RFI, a digi TV station no doubt! For my part,
I am putting in a new WD5AGO cavity preamp over the next few weeks. I
have to remove the existing tower mtd box, and swap out all the
connectors and relays into a new and bigger box to accomodate the larger
preamp. I am hopeful that this preamp (running at 100 ma of current)
will not cough and wheeze when I aim at Channel 11! I hope that my
hearing improves as a result. If I aim SW my noise floor goes up 10 dB!
I will be on a trip to Iceland late May & early June. Busy time, and not
sure I have enough time to set up another EME weekend on 222. Then we
have KA6U, who will be embarking on his summer EME and MS trip. Pretty
exciting stuff!!
Please relate your EME results from this weekend. It is nice to
publicize the activity!
73
Dave K1WHS
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