When the 6 Meter gods smile!

 October 8, 2023

Click on the screen shot to enlarge.

With 100 watts and a 40M inverted V wire antenna - Laissez le bon temps rouler!

My Annual Trek to 6M EME Mecca

September 5, 2023

It's not everyday that somebody gives you the keys to their ne-plus-ultra 6M EME station and says, "Have fun!". As Paul Harvey would say, "Here's the rest of the story".

Once a year Lance, W7GJ goes off to a rare place, usually an exotic island, to do 6M moonbounce with a single long Yagi and a KW. This week he's on Rodrigues Island out in the Indian Ocean as 3B9GJ. Somebody has to go to his Stateside QTH and put the W7GJ home station on. Teacher, teacher pick me!

 You need to understand Lance's home setup is a monster 4x 50 foot (15.25M) Yagis array and 1.5 KW - about as good as a 6M EME system gets. So each year Lance goes half way around the world and I go 3.5 hours west on the Interstate to Frenchtown. Thankfully, Lance gives me a 20 page check list so I can get the station up and running correctly.

This year was extra spicy as our mutual moon window to make the contact was exactly 55 minutes. Faraday rotation be damned! At least we both had ground gain - DXpedition Lance was enjoying a a moonrise over salt water, while his home station was racing moonset. We nailed it! I started seeing his signal when his moon was +0.5 degrees. Lance's portable station was a solid -20 during the four minutes the contact took using Q65-A and pile-up mode.

I've been doing this annual pilgrimage for about 10 years and I'm proud to say that I've been able to maintain a perfect batting average ... so far.

W7GJ 2m EME array in the foreground, 6M array in the rear.

 

3B9GJ - Lance's Yagi looking at his first moonrise of the DXpedition.

6 Meter Perseid Meteor Shower Outing DN54/DN64, Wyoming

 August 11/13 2023

Sunrise DN64bu @ 9,350 feet. Duncum Peak to the north.

GEAR: IC-7300, 600W LDMOS amp, 4el. LFA 6M Yagi, WSJT-X.  2.2KW Honda generator

August 11/12 from DN54 - Joyce and I squeezed into Horseshoe Bend Campground above Big Horn Lake. Not the best horizon, plenty of 6 meter QRN from RV charge converters, and a bit before the Perseid peak, but 30 folks logged, and a few 1200 mile contacts made. All meteors, no Es to be found.

August 12/13 from DN64 - We explored the top of the Big Horn Range and using the truck's 4x4 took the Sheep Mountain Road to a fantastic site well above tree line. The Perseid peak was the best I've ever experienced! Despite a frontal passage in the middle of the night that saw some 40 mph wind gusts, I logged an amazing 90 meteor scatter contacts. WA5TKU nudged his FFMA count to 480 grids and K5ND now has 483. Best contact was with WB8ART in Ohio at 1251 miles because we worked so hard for it.

LoTW upload done.

Western Dakotas 6 Meter Ramble

Dates:
June 13/14, 2023 - DN87 North Dakota
June 15 -  DN86 North Dakota
June 16/17 - DN85 South Dakota

Gear:
IC7300, KW amp, 4 element LFA Yagi.

Modes:
FT8/MSK144/Q65

Internet:
DN87/DN86 for sure, DN85 maybe. 
Slack VHF Chat - rover-rare grid area.

This was a camping trip with the pickup camper to the great American prairie to activate a few grids before it got too hot.

The trip was a success despite conditions not being the best - double-hop Es was quite limited. However, N3SL and W0JW completed FFMA with their contact to DN87 (Grassy Butte, ND). That made the whole trip well worth the trek east! 

In total 500 folks were worked via a combination of FT8/Q65/MSK144 modes.  

My rebuilt 6M KW amp refused to fire off so it was 100 watts only. I had inadvertently over-driven the amp during last summer's outing, and replaced the MRF1K50N device. However, I never got around to bench testing the amp. Murphy heard about my laziness and promptly showed up. It turns out the amp was fine! The 48 VDC power supply was the same one I used hard for the 23cm EME DXpedition to Curacao, and the tips of the blade fuses had burned off in the cheap Chinese fuse holder opening the 48 vdc line to the amp. All this was sorted out after the trip of course. A great lesson learned about getting too casual about these outings!

Murphy says, "Gotcha!"

The view from North Cave Hills (DN85), South Dakota - a sky island.

Teddy Roosevelt wandered DN87 for several years.