[VHFcontesting] Working K5QE on EME in the ARRL VHF Contest....

[Marshall-K5QE]

Hello EME ops.  This year, the ARRL June VHF Contest will be held June 
11th and 12th.  We want to work as many EME stations on 2M AND 432 as 
possible to increase our grid count.  Please help us with this event by 
working us on JT65b or CW.  Thank you very much.

EU contests do not allow EME, but the ARRL contests do.  EME is a nice 
portion of our scores, so we value every EME contact that we can get.

NOTE:  You do NOT have to have EL to work EME contacts.  Just point your 
tropo antenna at the AZ of the moon when it rises or sets at your 
location.  You should get about 45min of moon time.  Western stations 
need to use your moonrise....eastern stations will have to use your 
moonset(start about 45min before your moonset).

There are new rules for ARRL VHF contests.  Assistance is now allowed to 
everyone.  The new rules for Assistance are extremely 
liberal....basically you can do just about anything, EXCEPT for posting 
any contact information.  This means that we cannot post "Thank you" 
after a contact, because it confirms that the contact is complete. 
Please understand if we don't send you a thank you post.  The rules just 
don't allow that, even though we do it routinely when not contesting.

We have two moon passes this contest.  Our first moonrise begins about 
1800Z on Saturday the 11th.  This is bad for us as the contest begins at 
1800Z and at the first of the contest, we need to be doing as much tropo 
type activity as possible on 2M.  SO, we will start looking for 2M EME 
about 2000Z.  We don't have much 432 tropo, so we will be looking for 
432 EME right at 1800.

Our second pass begins at 1845Z on Sunday.  This is ideal for us as 
Sunday afternoon has always been the doldrums for us.  Any activity on 
Sunday afternoon is great.

Our "Saturday" moon set is actually on Sunday morning at about 0600Z, so 
before that time, we will be looking for US, ZL, VK, and JA stations.  
On "Sunday" our moonset is on Monday, after the contest ends....the 
contest ends at 0300Z on Monday, so after that we will be QRT.

We will be operating 2M on 144.142MHz Second sequence, as usual.  Just 
call us there or visit with our operator on the N0UK EME-1 page.  We run 
8 x 18H on 2M and full power.

We will be operating 432 at 432.080MHz this year, also on Second 
sequence.  We run 16 x 28H on 432 with about 600W.

NOTE:  We have always had great signal reports on TX, but it was clear 
the we could not hear very well.  We believe that we have found the 
problem....it was a bad cable in the 432 RX chain that was "eating" all 
our RX signal.  We believe that we have fixed this now, so we would 
really appreciate lots of 432 activity so that we can be sure things are 
OK now.  Thank you for that.

We now have our 222 EME array fully operational.  IF you are a Region 2 
station with 222 capabilities, we would love to work you.  Just visit 
with us on the EME-1 page and we will set up a sched.

Whenever we are operating EME, we will be monitoring the N0UK EME-1 
reflector page.  The EME-1 reflector is a valuable resource, so do not 
be shy about chatting with us there. Remember, NO contact information 
can be exchanged.

Thanks a lot for helping us in our contest.  We really do appreciate it.

73 Marshall K5QE