Tonight I had a sked with Howard, G4CCH. He was there on the tick. We met in the HB9Q chat to arrange the details. What shall I say: Within a few minutes he became my first initial on 23 cm EME! As he told me later in the chat, I have been his #365 on CW (wow). After the completion of our QSO Nando, I1NDP called me to be the #2 in my just created initial list.
I am very happy now. Tnx Howard and Nando!
Tonight I added about 3 dB of power and – of course – directed the antenna to the moon to perform an echotest. I did not really expect to hear something but – what a surprise – there seemed to be a sound in the noise. I continued and after a couple of “dah-dah-dahs” it was sure, that there were my first echoes on 23 cm!
Unfortunatly the moon is setting now and so it´s too late for a QSO. I will have a whiskey and go to bed, looking forward to tomorrow.
73s & gn
The NAC is always an opportunity to work stations from Scandinavia on 23 cm. Yesterday I had QSOs with Frank, IK3HHG and Giorgio, IK3GHY in JO65 over 570 km. The signals were quite poor compared to QSOs before but were accompanied by strange pings – lighting scatter as Henning, DF9IC explained me tonight. So I wondered how the conditions would be this evening and turned my dish to the north. I started with DL0VV (JO64AD / 538 km). After a while I heard OZ9KY (JO45VX / 683 km) calling CQ and could add a new square to my collection. He was followed by SK7MW (JO65MJ / 691 km) with another new square and new country for me. In the meantime more and more stations from the UK logged in at the KST chat. Now the dish was turned to 298°. John, G3XDY (JO02OB / 547 km) could be detected on .215 and after a meep in the chat he turned his antenna to me. John produced a big signal in ssb peaking here 57 with little QSB. It was the second new country for me tonight and square #50 at all on 23 cm.
gn all
Just a few hours in the evening I was able to spend at my station. No remarkable DX worked, but I watched G3XDY working DF9IC in SSB.
The DUBUS Contest was another opportunity to have a look at the moon. In the meantime I installed the preamplifier at the dish and the reading of PowerSDR showed me approx. 10 dB of sunnoise. I was surprised by seeing the tracks of not less than twenty stations in the waterfall diagram. After getting used to the special sound I could read the complete calls of OK2DL, SV1BTR, HB9SV, G4CCH, F2TU in CW.
Having had not much time I could only pick a few stations on 23 cm. Best DX were OM3KII (JN88UU/696 km), OL9W (JN99CL/719 km) and OM3W (JN99CH/722 km).
Yesterday, as a matter of course, I had to direct the antenna to the moon after installing the software for controlling the rotator by my computer. I was lucky to hear the first signals off the moon: LX1DB was active and could be heard with 419 in CW. Today I tried again and heard HB9Q with S3 in JT65. Later DJ9YW was heard also with S2.
After mounting the dish last evening, I was very impatient to see how it works. So I installed the controls for the rotator, fixed some meters of ECOFLEX 15 cable in the morning and started checking the beacons on 23 and 13 cm. It was no surprise but very satisfying that all of them were much stronger compared to the old 1.2 m dish. In the afternoon I had the initial QSO with the new antenna on 23 cm with Giorgio, IK3GHY in JN65DM. As I now know, I only had 5 W but Giorgio heard me with 539 anyway. My report for him was 559 and at the end of the QSO I could copy him in SSB too. Later I had a sked with 9A1Z in JN86DL. The signals weren’t strong enough to complete a QSO but we were able to detect them in the noise. So we will have another attempt when the preamp will be installed and my linear is finished.