Congratulations to the team at Arecibo again. Suggestion: I think the most sucessfull big dish operations ( the last one I recall being JW/SM3BYA) have stated from the start that they will ONLY work split frequency. As soon as KP4AO did that last night on ssb I called him 8KHz up for a quick QSO but it would be sensible to work split on CW as well ( IMHO) Why not designate 5-10kHz down for stations with 2 or less yagis and 5-10kHz up for the rest? I think people would be reasonable enough to respect that. ( Or do it on erp... if stations can estimate that.... and split at about 100kW erp) It was fascinating to dissect the CW pileup with my SDR on 12Hz selectivity, I even heard a new one for me, LU7DZ. Viva 432!! You see what a great eme band it is guys! 73 Peter G3LTF ****************** Hello friends, From reading this Reflector I was aware of KP4AO's planned activity last night and so decided to spend a day building a small 70cm station even though I am QRT due to house building work. The possibilty of working them was too good an opportunity to miss. I've posted a couple of pictures of my set up and a brief report on my web page, http://www.g4dhf.com/70cmeme.htm You will see how small my station is and how everything was thrown together in an effort to be QRV, but it was successful and we exchanged 59 reports on SSB. The pictures may bring a smile to your face. Congratulations and thanks to the team at KP4AO. 73, David G4DHF ****************** Hello, I gave up after 1 hour. 4.5m dish and 1.5kW. I did not see any chance to go through the pile up. The activity is fine and welcome, Signal extra strong (who doubts). I only have two comments: 1) I heard most of the stations they worked by myself, so it means these were real big ones since I am only a small system on 70cm. KP4AO should say: We TX on 432.045MHz, we RX in between 432.050-432.060. Would in my opinion have two advantages: 1a) The callers will distribute over a band and the pile up will be easier to read for them. 1b) Due to that, weak signals would have a chance, too. 2) I was totally astonished how many stations I can hear on 70cm! Remembering OZ4MM, SM4IVE, DF3RU but have to go through the recording. If all these would appear during the contests that I am on 70cm, it would be a wonderful and not lonesome time. Maybe we can handle that for this years ARRL contest. 73, Günter (dl4mea) ****************** Agree with you Gunter. Also I had problem with my 10m and 1kW to reach them :-) Finally 59/59++, I had KP4AO all the time +40dB over noise. I have recorded two 2Gb files of SDR, interesting traffic, and never heard so many stations on 432 MHz :-) They send for test also one CQ with JT65B, never saw before -1dB :-) and than way RX in the limitation. Nice effort!! Zdenek - OK1DFC ****************** Wow! I don't know if I was ever heard through the pileup with my 185 watts, (heard a "QRZ" but I don't know for whom,) but what a 599 signal. I was in the rover using 2XM2 28 element, ARR preamp followed by imbedded preamp in TE systems amp, super-scaf audio filter. Antennas could not elevate completely (I was about eight degrees short of full elevation,) and to my horror (and delight at the same time) found that this site (unless I really made a monumental mistake in my excitement and haste) http://www.dailymoonposition.com/Default.aspx put me in an azimuth some 30-odd degrees beyond true moon position (discovered when the clouds cleared.) Still 599!!! Can't wait to try again! Thanks to everyone who made this possible. 73, Martin, KC3RE ****************** I've been casually following the Arecibo activity. I am thinking of lashing something together for the April tests. Can anyone tell me what the minimum requirements are to work the station? I thought I read what the necessary ERP and receiving gain was but deleted whatever email the information was in. I have pair of FO-25 antennas available and a brick that should put out about 120 watts; receive end is gasfet in brick after about 50-75' of 1/2 hardline. Thanks for advice. 73, Chris Patterson W3CMP ****************** Hi Chris and all, Lines 1 through 4 of the following table give reasonable parameters for antenna gain, transmitter power, system noise temperature, and self-echo S/N in 100 Hz bandwidth for three different stations: - KP4AO on the Arecibo radio telescope - typical "brick and yagi" satellite-class station - QRP station with 10 Watts and a 4 element hand-held yagi Lines 5 and 6 give reasonable estimates for S/N in 100 Hz BW for each of the other stations at KP4AO, and for KP4AO at each of the other stations. Finally, lines 7 and 8 give the same S/N estimates referred at a 2500 Hz bandwidth, the scale used in JT65. Parameter KP4AO SatStn QRP -------------------------------------------------- 1. Ant gain (dBi) 60 16 10 2. Tx Poweer (W) 400 100 10 3. Tsys (K) 330 300 300 4. Echo S/N, 100 Hz BW (dB) +68 -30 -52 5. S/N at KP4AO, 100 Hz BW (dB) +13 -3 6. S/N of KP4AOm 100 Hz BW (dB) +19 +13 7. S/N at KP4AO, 2500 Hz BW (dB) -1 -17 8. S/N of KP4AO, 2500 Hz BW (dB) +5 -1 My estimate for Tsys at Arecibo includes 120 K from the receiver and 210 K from the moon. To be very conservative, the other ground stations are assumed to have something like 2 dB NF and 1 dB of feedline loss. It's clear that satellite-class stations should be able to work KP4AO on CW. Even 10-Watt stations with hand-held yagis should be able to hear KP4AO, but their CW signals will be marginal at Arecibo. They should be able to easily make the QSO easily if JT65B is used. (It's not 100% certain that JT65 will be available at KP4AO in April... but if there is sufficient demand, it may be.) Good luck in April... and let's all return our thanks again to the great operators at KP4AO, for putting Arecibo on 70 cm EME ! -- 73, Joe, K1JT ****************** Hi all, today I there were some unbelievable strong signals from Arecibo: with my single yagi (M^2, 436CP42), some 8 wl long, and a preamp 0.4 dB NF, there were signals around 22 dB SN measured on a Perseus. I was ready to call KP4AO. This should not be a problem with 600w at antenna, but unfortunetaly my elovation rotator get of duty. My yagis for terrestial use are not in balance correctly and my EGIS rotator was not able to get the antennas down. But when I checked the band, I was really astonished: antenna direction 220 horizontal and 80 degrees up. Moon around 270 and 30 degrees. But the signals were still there, with about 5 dB SN! 5db on dipole! Great! 73 ... Slawek dl6sh ****************** Hi all, I've just cut off my audio records of KP4AO's signal from last Friday test. KP4AO_1.MP3 500Hz filter 32:00min (doppler -> heard KP4AO on 432.044,2) http://ok1teh.nagano.cz/mp3/kp4ao_1q.mp3 [bitrate 256kbps] http://ok1teh.nagano.cz/mp3/kp4ao_1.mp3 [same file but bitrate 64kbps) CW: OK1KIR, G3LTF, K2UYH, OK1TEH, DG1KJG, OK2POI, K2UYH, SP7DCS, ES5PC, F6FHP, KP4AO_2.MP3 500Hz + 2,4kHz filter 32:51min http://ok1teh.nagano.cz/mp3/kp4ao_2q.mp3 [bitrate 256kbpst] http://ok1teh.nagano.cz/mp3/kp4ao_2.mp3 [same file but bitrate 64kbps) CW: OZ6OL then SSB: unknown, UA3PTW, DL7APV, DG1KJG, 9H1TX, F6FHP, OK1VPZ, G4RGK, OK2KKW, OK2POE, OH1GB (got wrong call should be 9H1GB), ?9A unknown QSO in spanish, 9H1GB, G2CX?. KP4AO_3.MP3 2,4kHz + 500Hz filter 25:03min http://ok1teh.nagano.cz/mp3/kp4ao_3q.mp3 [bitrate 256kbit] http://ok1teh.nagano.cz/mp3/kp4ao_3.mp3 [same file but bitrate 64kbit) SSB: HE9G?, GM4CXM, then back in CW: G6EFX, DF9QX btw these 3 files don't contain 100% of KP4AO's window. 73 Matej, OK1TEH ( http://ok1teh.nagano.cz)