Wow! Guess who made it on for a 222 Activity Night?! Woohoo!!!
Conditions seemed really terrible, but I managed 10 QSOs:
K1WHS FN43 SSB
K1TEO FN31 SSB
WA1RKS FN32 CW
N2SLN FN22 CW
W1AIM FN34 CW
N1SV FN42 SSB
K1BX FN43 FT8
K1FSY FN31 FT8
N1DPM FN323 SSB
WZ1V FN31 FT8
WA1RKS answered my CW CQ! I virtually never get answers to CQs. Thanks
to Ellis for that. Later K1FSY answered my FT8 CQ! Then WA3NUF answered
my FT8 CQ! He was -12 and sent me R-08. I then had several -24 decodes
of Phil sending the R-08 before he went into the noise completely. Later
he called again and I had four consecutive decodes at -24 but no QSO.
Later still I saw one CQ from Phil at -23. Like I said, terrible conditions!
I tried twice with W1XR on CW. I could see Jim on the waterfall and
sometimes copy a few letters but no go.
I tried with K9MRI on MSK144. Joe got pings from me but I had nothing on
this end.
Thanks everyone for the fun!
So just how did this confirmed MORNING person manage to be awake at 7
pm? That's very unusual and the older I get the harder it is to get my
body to do a schedule it does not like.
Well, here's how it happened. Monday morning the forecast was calling
for rain as it has virtually every day for a month. I could see rain
heading my way on radar but figured I had just enough time to get in a
walk for exercise. I did 6 miles. Upon returning home it was 68 and
overcast but still no rain. The rain had apparently dried up as it was
no longer showing on radar. There was no breeze at all, dead calm. That
is a pretty uncommon set of conditions, so I decided to take advantage
and do some tower work...
I've been working toward getting on 10 GHz for two years now. I have
most of the gear but getting power to the tower where it has to go is
going to take a year's savings and a lot of physical work. Before I do
that, I need to assess whether anything can be heard up here. I have
been working toward getting the 76cm offset dish and modified LNB on the
tower to try hearing terrestrial signals. This is the same setup I used
to successfully receive EME signals (digital and CW) last year. The dish
with mount only weighs about 30 pounds but is too awkward to climb with
it dangling off my harness on a lanyard. I considered a pulley on the
mast, rope guide to clear the tower top plate and a counterweight which
I have used successfully for other things. That is how I erected the two
100 foot towers. That would literally take the weight off my hands but
manipulating the dish between elements of a TH11DX that are not spaced
wide enough was still going to be a challenge. I had decided to go with
the horizontal tram line from the top of the other tower so the dish
could slide in above that HF antenna. That is also a regular tried and
true method here and I have hand winches and pulleys on both towers to
accommodate semi-rapid deployment. It also requires a backstay cable
from the mast in the opposite direction to avoid over-stressing the
mast. So, Monday... after four trips up and down the tower and 8 hours
of work, one small dish was up and mounted at roughly 107 feet above
ground! Nothing is ever easy when you work alone! Climbing several feet
up a two inch mast at 100 feet AGL is always kinda fun though. Yes, I
have been told that I have an unusual definition of fun! I don't
understand. What's not to love about that?
What does any of that have to do with being on for 222 Activity Night? I
was so exhausted I got the best night's sleep I have had in years. And,
still tired I fell asleep on the couch for a couple hours Tuesday
afternoon. That allowed me to be awake and functional at 7 pm! Maybe I
just need to do tower work more often? I wish that were possible! I love
doing that stuff!
As far as the 10 GHz goes... I need to climb again and mount a triplexer
in a box at the top of the tower. This system uses a modified GPS locked
LNB and needs DC, 25 MHz and 618 MHz IF over one coax, because I only
have one unused coax run to that tower. I also need to set up the other
triplexer, GPSDO and SDR in the shack and configure software. This
system has been successfully tested on the bench. Barring any glitches I
should have the system completed very soon. I will be trying to hear
beacons on rain scatter and twisting a few arms to see if I can get
folks to fire some RF this way. I really need to know I can hear signals
before I sink a bunch more money into this. Both the LNB and SDR will be
GPS locked.
http://www.n1bug.com/10ghz/
73,
Paul N1BUG FN55mf
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