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North
Ireland EME DX pedition 2009 by MI/DL1YMK
432 - 1296 - 2320 -
3400 MHz
More at
http://www.ok1dfc.com/Peditions/MIped/miymk.htm
Report
27-5 - 3400 MHz
Hi fellow-EMEer’s,
 |
today started as an
extremely frustrating day, but with a happy end, as we finally managed to
activate the third band of our MI-DXpedition. When we tried to start in
the morning on 9 cm with our “beacon”, LX1DB, we didn’t hear anything,
neither Willi, nor our own echoes. The dish was again obstructed by the
corner of the house, which obviously had a more severe impact than on 23
and 13 cm. As forecasted, the weather was terrible with high winds and the
dish was rocking and wobbling all over. An additional problem was the
frequency instability of the LO, when becoming warmer by the dissipation
heat of the 30 W driver PA . This needs to be adressed by either a TCXO or
a GPSDO, when back home. It is only due to the extreme patience of Willi,
LX1DB and Peter, G3LTF, who motivated us to hang on for
repeated trials to get us on the moon, even by using the SDR-waterfall
display of Peter. The aperture of the dish on 9 cm turned out to be
unexpectedly narrow, that one degree offset lead to significant
attenuation of received moonbounce signals. The dish seems to be
borderline on 9 cm in combination with the reduced positioning accuracy of
the rotator used! Very close to giving up on it, we made a last attempt
with Willi, when he got again a moon window in the early afternoon. All of
a sudden the wind calmed down and already when Willy started, we heard him
calling right on the spot. Meanwhile the xverter was so hot that the LO
came to relative stability. The QSO was quickly completed and than we
heard G3LTF calling on tailend, and we finished the second QSO –
uff!. The following QSO´s with OK1KIR and OE9ERC seemed to
be comparatively easy, as we had the correct moon pointing by then and the
quartz didn´t move further down as it was warm, not to say cooked…..
OK1KIR was calling some kHz above us later and thus gave us a helping hand
to retrack the moon several times. The next in line was W5LUA, who
was on exactly in the scheduled time frame. According previous contact
with Al via mail we decided to stay with 2.5 min sequences rather than 5
min perods, as we again feared to lose the correct moon position, but we
finshed without any problem . The 9 cm episode was completed by QSO´s with
*** (wants to remain incognito ;-) ) and at last WW2R. In the
morning we already had heard OK1CA very loud (the loudest signal
this day), but obviously Franta didn´t hear us, when the LO still was on
the run. Another station was calling in the afternoon and we received
“RO”, but missed the callsign, very sorry!
We would like to say a warm
‘thank you’ to all extremely skilled 9cm operators, who kept us on the
moon today, as it was only for their activity that we were able to
activate our third band from MI! We intend to give a last chance to those,
who missed on 9 cm on Monday 1st, weather permitting, right after 13 cm.
We will check the ‘safe’ windows for the next days and post them tomorrow.
We assume that it will be for a long time until MI will get on moon again
on the mw bands.
Tomorrow we will be QRV from 12.30 UT on 23 cm for the skeds and of course
random traffic, as long we have a=2 0moon window. See you on the moon!
Vy 73 / 88 de M & M
Report 26-5 - 2320
MHz
Hi lunatics,
the day on 13 cm was a hard battle against permanent gusty winds, storm,
rain and hail. The locals: you’ve got 4 seasons in an hour – confirmation!
We had to stop 3 times and tied the dish down with several ropes, because
we were in fear the struts would break. The tripod was reasonably stable,
thanks to the anchors, which Jim, GI1CET, drove into the gravel ground.
In the morning it was the merrit of LX1DB (thanks Willi for calling
such a long time!) that we found the moon, because our echoes were only
weak. The reason was the li mited window again, because of the corner of
the house obstructed parts of the dish. Sorry for JA4BLC, on 23cm we had
better luck…! We heard reasonable echoes, when the moon arrived 76/22
degrees, but we lost the moon because of the high winds making the dish
rocking and rolling around. ES5PC gave us a beacon for hours (many,
many, thanks!), so we were able to recalibrate the position again and
again. During long hours Monika was outside in the cold trying to
stabilise the dish a little. It was the Iceland feeling, once again.
In the end we were lucky enough to work the following stations: LX1DB,
OK1CA (we were very surprised to hear Franta instead of OK1KIR!),
OZ4MM, F2TU, G3LTF, G4CCH, OK1KIR, SV3AAF, SM3AKW, ES5PC, G4DDK (Sam ,
the fading was because the second OP was not on track at that time, hi),
PA0BAT, OE9ERC, DF9QX, OH2DG, OE9ERC (SSB, 55/55), HB9Q, W5LUA (Al:
you made it!!!!), W7BBM, D L4MEA, WA6PY, WW2R, N2IQU and finally
SM2CEW, this means 22 initials in 16 DXCC´s. For those who missed us:
if there is interest, we can make new skeds for 13 cm on June, 1 st, pse
mail to DL1YMK, we try to log in to the internet once a day.
For tomorrow the weather forecast remains bad, so the problems will be the
same with the dish, but we will try to work the skeds. On 9.20 UTC we will
have 77/20 degrees, so we should be on the moon for the first sked with
OZ6OL. Willi, could you call us from 9.10 UTC to give the pathfinder again
(the ‘odd QRG’)? We had never worked on 9 cm with this dish, so full risk
tomorrow morning, keep your fingers crossed, it’ll surely harder than
2day….
Vy 73 / 88 de M & M
Report 25-5-09 -
1296 MHz
Hi folks,
the third day of MI-DXpedition is very cold (around 10 degrees) and it is
raining continuously (it is similar to the famous “Landregen” in our home
country, the Münsterland, hi), but no winds, which is most important for
us. The forecast sounds not really good, because we expect higher winds on
Wednesday, which would be very problematic for the first trial ever on 9
cm – we never did it with our portable homebrew dish.
The second day on 23 cm we worked as new initials: VK3UM (Doug, fantastic
that we made it despite our limited window to theEast, you were really
fast, Doug, perfect job!), JA4BLC (fine, that you received the new sked
time), SP7DCS, IK3COJ, OE5JFL, LX1DB (only in SSB, what a smashing
signal!), ES6RQ, SM3AKW, UT5JCW, SV3AAF, IZ1BPN, PA3FXB, K2UYH, N2UO,
OZ6OL, LA9NEA (the smallest dish so far!), F2TU, K5PJR, DL4MEA, WA6PY,
WA5WPC, AL7RT (sorry, it was hard copy because of strong auroral
distortion on your signal).
In total we made 47 QSO´s so far, with 41 stations in 29 DXCC´s. The
signals were mostly very good and readable with own echoes the whole day,
louder than last year´s DXpedition to Uruguay. Perhaps the reason is a new
corrugation ring around the squareseptum feed, which I built only 3 days
before our departure from copper sheets, 0,5 mm thick, hence light weight.
I will try to upload a photo to the homepage of OK1DFC (Zdenek, many
thanks for your support, even during a business trip to Cologne!). It was
an idea from G4DDK, who wrote he took a baking form as corrugation ring,
but Monika would not give me her’s and Lidl was sold out, so I built my
own one….
For tomorrow we change the feed (still the old septum without choke ring,
maybe try a flare on it…) to 13 cm and try to work according the sked
list. Tailending is welcome, but please respect the next sked slot, TNX.
Concerning 9 cm on Wednesday: we try to keep everyone updated, despite
poor internet access from time to time (only GPRS like, slow motion, hi!)
Vy 73 M&M
1296 MHz
Extreme problem with
internet......a nightmare
Hi lunatics,
yesterday evening we arrived in Northern Ireland in our holiday home after
a 2-days trip with Monika´s SUV fully packed with the equipment. The house
is situated near the open sea, with a fantastic panorama view – but
horrible as qth for an EME-DXpedition. There are a lot of high bushes
around the house, no suitable place for the dish, if we look at it
objectively, hi! And it is very windy! To the west a pictoresque hill
reduces the moon window considerably…Sam, you are right, this place is not
suitable for EME! After deciding, that we want to and will get qrv from
MI, we began to build up the dish until midnight. Problematic was that the
ground besides the house, which we decided as compromise location for the
dish (with limited moon window), consists of loose gravel and that the
anchors for the tripod didn´t finf hold in the ground – so the dish would
not withstand higher windspeeds.
We rose very early in the morning to put the meshes in. After a few echo
tests with only very marginal echoes on 23 cm we optimised the position of
the feed several times and got reasonable echoes. As with the years before
we needed a strong signal to calibrate the moon position – which again was
made possible by the kind and reliable help of HB9BBD, thanks Dominique!
The moon was high enough over the bushes, so we called CQ and worked
PA3CSG. Than we heard the strong signal of K5JL as first US station. The
following hours we worked: SP6JLW, K1RQG (first in CW, than in SSB,
fantastic fun, Joe) W7BBM, VE6TA, W5LUA, K0YW, OZ4MM, DF3RU, K2DH, DJ9YW,
HB9Q, SM2CEW, ES5PC, OE9ERC, WW2R, OE9ERC in SSB (no word was lost!), and
G3LTF switching the light off. In total we worked 19 stations from 16
DXCC’s (if counted right) on the first day.
Meanwhile, we realised that we have absolutely no internet access or cell
phone connection from the house, so we have to look for positions on the
next hill top to inform about our limited moon window.
Late afternoon 2 local hams dropped by and gave a helping hand Jim GI1CET
promised to supply us with better anchors (we now have solid stuff) and
yes, of course he will send the mails for us.
So far the first day. We are now sure about the limitation of the moon
window to our East: on 25 th we can only operate from 0640 UTC (that
means: Doug, VK3UM and Yoshi, JA4BLC could you postpone skedslots to 0640
for VK3 and 0700 for JA4..I know you will have ground noise, Doug, but
it’s worth the effort…we have to be quick!).
On 26 th all skeds from 0800 onwards are ok, on 27 th all skeds are
feasible.
So now we will try to drop these lines off….keep your fingers crossed!!!!
73 / 88 de M & M, struggling hard as always..
Source
Moon list, edited by OK1TEH |