Hello to everyone interested in the FFMA award or grid chasing in
general on 6M.
The K5N Grid Activation Group wishes to announce another Grid Bandits
DXpedition. We will be activating DM71 in west TX during the peak of
the Perseids meteor shower. We plan to travel on Aug 10th(Sunday) and
arrive at our location in Van Horn, TX, at about 12Noon on August 11th.
We will setup as quickly as we can and should be on the air by the late
afternoon on the 11th. We plan to run until 9AM on August 14th, at
which time, we will tear down and begin the drive back home.
We have chosen to go out during the Perseids in the hope that we can
make some really long distance MS contacts. We will be there about 3
1/2 days, so we should be able to run a lot of MS. We will use 26 for
the report(SingleTones = ON). Since this is not a contest, we don't
have to exchange grids. Remember, K5N is a DXpedition and we will
always take first sequence on MS. On EME, we will take second
sequence. IF Es happens, we will abandon MS and take all the Es that we
can get.
Dan-N5TM will construct his private chat rooms for us as usual. Go to
chat.n5tm.com and login with your Call, Name, and Grid. Then click on
the K5N-6M or the K5N-Dan tab above. This is important, if you don't
click on the appropriate K5N tab, you will be in the general chat room
and we will not see you. Dan will use the K5N-Dan tab for his 2M
operations and for the side trip(see below).
Choosing a frequency for these things seems to always be a problem. This
year, we are past the normal window for Es, so I want to use 50.128MHz
for everything except EME. For the EME, we will use 50.195MHz. IF you
will check in on the K5N-6M chat page, then you will always know what we
are doing and the frequency. In the past, we have found that 50.128MHz
is a good frequency for DXpeditions that are not out during the main Es
season. If some Es does occur, then people will find us on .128. If
there is no Es, it really does not matter where we operate. IF the band
goes wild with Es, we may get blown off .128, but I guess that is a good
problem to have. Again, the K5N-6M chat page will keep everyone together.
Dan-N5TM will be operating limited 2M from DM71. He will have 2 x 2M7
or a 2M12 and 300W on 2M. Dan can work EME with this setup on 2M. Dan
will make a side trip to DM70 on Wednesday, Aug 13th in the morning.
There are a few guys that need DM70, so we plan to try to work them
too. Dan will take his portable setup, so he will not have full power
or large antennas. For the side trip, Dan is planning 500W on 6M and a
small beam. Please visit with Dan off the reflector if you need DM70.
We will be taking our usual portable setup to DM71. That is 2 x 6M5XHP
with full AZ / EL steering and 1500W output. You can see a picture of
our setup on the cover of the Field Day edition of QST. Dan-N5TM will be
doing limited 2M from DM71 and possibly from DM70.
The moon is quite good on Aug 12th and 13th. We will endeavor to work
those that need DM70 on 6M off the moon on those two days. The
degradation is especially low, so if you are interested in an EME sched,
please contact K5QE off the reflector. Download and install GJTracker
from W7GJs web pages for exact data. In general, the moon times are
during the dead of night when not much else is happening.
Bill-N5YA is building up a new set of T/R relays with a preamp for EME.
We have had a lot of trouble in this area in the past and hope that we
can finally solve it.
All of us really do want to get you into the logs, especially if you
have never worked DM71 before on 6M. Speaking of logs, Joey-W5TFW will
again be our QSL manager. Please give us time to get the custom QSL
cards printed up and delivered to him. Joey can't send out any cards
until he gets them, so give him some time. Remember, no SASE = no QSL.....
73 es GL to everyone....
Bill-N5YA
Dan-N5TM
George-NR5M
Colin-KU5B
Marshall-K5QE
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