One of the 23cm EME stations I worked was Toshio JA6AHB. Toshio has very kindly donated £20 to the Camb-Hams in thanks for his QSO with GS3PYE/P in IO68. This is totally unexpected but gratefully accepted towards the cost of the trip.
Here’s a picture from his website of Toshio’s magnificent dish http://www15.plala.or.jp/ja6ahb/
Thanks Toshio!!
Thanks to everyone who worked me (or tried to) last night on our 55el Yagi +150Watt system that I’m taking to the Isle of Lewis IO68 a week on Friday. The exercise was very worthwhile, as I shook out a number of bugs in the system, which was my first use of my TS2000X direct on 1296.
First of all the TS2K was 890Hz off frequency, so this morning I’ve reset the TCXO against a Rubidium locked sig gen and I should now stay within 100Hz or so.
Secondly the “dreaded TS2KX fan drift” was very obvious last night, so I’ve done the K0BT mods to run the fan slowly on receive, and that seems to have done the trick. http://www.mods.dk Nice one Bob for that simple mod!
The two “big guns” I worked, HB9Q and UA3PTW were “CW copy” level. The other station I worked, I1NDP would probably also have been workable on CW with some effort. If you have that size of station, I’ll be happy to try a CW sked from IO68.
See the Sked request page for details :
http://dx.camb-hams.com/dx-peditions/gs3pyep-sked-request/
After about 21:45, the moon was behind some trees so that would probably explain my failure to hear people after that time. The Isle of Lewis is far enough North not to have many trees, so that will not be an issue from GS3PYE/P.
Remember we are also taking 144 JT EME 400Watts to a 17 element and will be QRV on 70 and 50MHz MS as well as all the HF bands
73
John G4BAO
dx.camb-hams.com
The attached photo shows the 4x23ele yagis and the Spid rotor set up on my dish mount at home. The small white box with the heatsink is the transverter. (the big grey box is my 13cm EME transverter)
I’m currently doing some RX tests using the sun noise to cold sky noise ratio which is a disappointing 4 dB at the moment but I’ve just thrown it together so far, so I’ll try and optimise everything on RX, do some “sums” and see how close to theoretical my RX performance is.
EME is all about decimals of dBs!
I plan to listen “off the moon” tonight and see if I can receive anything when the moon comes up later today and if any of the big stations are on.
Successful tests today of the 472kHz TX converter with WSPR, Reports from over 600km this evening. I’m still a little unsure of how good the receiver on the 817 is so more tests on that tomorrow.
Hope to play with antennas up at Wort’s causeway over the weekend, WX permitting? I will bring Rob’s VNA, the transverter, the ground stakes and the matching coil if someone can bring the spiderbeam pole and the wire… and of course Flossie for power and coffee making facilities!
I have now completed the assembly and initial bench test of the 2 x Harris 144MHz SSPA, and it’s looking good. Just needs a little interfacing work by Gav plus a couple of fan guards and a good testing before it gets the go ahead to be included in the trip. Here’s a couple of pictures of the assembled Amplifier.
Does full legal limit for 12 Watts in on 144MHz.
Nice……
As well as terrestrial operation, we plan to run a JT65B digital EME station using a single 17 element yagi and full legal limit on 144MHz. Sked co ordination will be via http://www.chris.org/cgi-bin/jt65emeA
I’ve run the dates of the trip through Moonsked and attached is a rough (hourly) table of when the moon is below 20 degrees at our site on Mull during the DXpedition.
This will give us the best “ground gain” so the best time to try and work us. If the plan to put elevation on the Yagi is successful we may be active outside these windows but may not be quite as strong.
John
I have now completed the G3XBM Transverter. (see picture)
It produces around 10-15 Watts on 472kHz driven from and FT817 on 80m. The 817 has been checked out on WSPR receive, so I need to find out what other digimodes I need to prepare. The switching PA design means that we are limited to modes that don’t need a linear transverter so I understand that JT9 is getting popular as a QSO mode as well as CW. I need to start thinking about an antenna and an ATU.
John G4BAO
Head of Wildcard DXpedition Operations 🙂
Some of these are pretty ambitious but if you don’t try you don’t work people!
all times local time (UTC+1)
Frequency 10368.120MHz
1 minute periods, GS3PYE/P transmits even minutes
talkback 144.175 and KST)
Saturday April 28th
2000 – 2030 GM4ISM > IO85ar 155km
Sunday April 29th
1000 –1030 G4CBW > IO83ub 434km
Monday April 30th
1830 –1900 (G4ALY > IO70vl)? TBA 663km
1900- 1930 GW4DGU/P > IO71NX 491km
1930-2000 GM0USI/P > IO75UR 136km
2000- 2030 G4PBP >IO82wo 490km
2030 – 2100 G4ALY > IO70vl)? TBA 663km
Tuesday 1st May
1300-1330 GI0GDP > TBA? ?km
Some of these are pretty ambitious but if you don’t try you don’t work people!
all times local time (UTC+1)
Frequency 10368.120MHz
1 minute periods, GS3PYE/P transmits even minutes
talkback 144.175 and KST)
Saturday April 28th
2000 – 2030 GM4ISM > IO85ar 155km
Monday April 30th
1830 –1900 (G4ALY > IO70vl)? TBA 663km
1900- 1930 GW4DGU/P > IO71NX 491km
1930-2000 GM0USI/P > IO75UR 136km
2000- 2030 G4PBP >IO82wo 490km
2030 – 2100 G4ALY > IO70vl)? TBA 663km
Tuesday 1st May
1300-1330 GI0GDP > TBA? ?km
Last chance to make a sked with us before we go may be during the drive up tomorrow. Note that we may be able to rely on KST, the internet, or phone from Mull but I don’t know for certain until we get there, so if you want to be certain of
working us on 10GHz, email me with a day and time soon.
john@…
I seem to have missed some emails from Alan GM0USI who so far is the only one who’s given us a firm date and time for a sked. That will be Monday at 1930 on
10368.120.
73
John
G4BAO