At 10:06 AM 10/8/2010, Sebastian wrote:
After being on 2 meter EME for about a month, I tuned my rig to 432 MHz this morning and copied OK1DFC at -20dB. I posted on the N0UK logger and Zdenek asked me to call him. I had nothing to lose so I obliged. Much to my surprise, we had a QSO, my first 432 EME contact.
Next, DL7APV, Bernd asked me to look for him on 432. Bernd and I had a sked on 432 a few weeks ago, but neither one of us was able to be on the air at the time. Today, I copied him at -22dB and started to call him, he copied me and sent me my report, but then his signal was lost. Bernd said he had a problem with his power supply, as smoke was coming out. I do believe that is a problem! So we just missed completing the QSO.
Finally, WA4NJP asked me to look for him on 432 as well. I copied him at -25dB but lost his trace.
Many might be wondering why I'm posting this. Well it's because I didn't think I had any chance of anyone ever hearing me on 432 EME.
My station: Kenwood TS-2000 with 50 watts output, into an M2 436CP30 single antenna & mast mounted preamp; this is a circularly polarized antenna which I use for satellite contacts. Unfortunately I'm in an area of the country where 50 watts is the maximum on 432 without special permission.
So don't congratulate me, congrats go to OK1DFC, DL7APV and WA4NJP for having fantastic stations that can hear such faint weak signals!
73 de Sebastian, W4AS EL95
But I will congratulate you for trying 70cm-eme with a small station. Sebastian's example should encourage more non-eme'rs with 432 stations to try eme.
I have only four contacts so far running 24w and 85w. I do have more gain using my 4.9m dish, which is not exactly optimum at this frequency, but may have about the gain of four yagis (est. 24-25 dBi). I would not have tried it on 432 except the challenge of receiving Arecibo prompted me to look around for a suitable antenna. I would have used my M2 436CP42 (big brother to Sebastian's antenna), but could not point it since I burnt out a circuit in the az-el rotator. The M2 is part of my satellite antenna system. BTW I copied HB9Q with that antenna a couple years ago.
I hastily built a two element quad from insulated #12 house wire and a short section of 1-inch pvc pipe for my feed. I installed my Mirage D3010 on the back of the dish alongside my 60w 23cm PA. I get 24w drive from the shack to drive the amp to 85w with about 79w at the feed.
But my first two contacts were with DL7APV and UA3PTW running my FT-847 barefoot (24w at the dish). All my contacts are with larger stations (as expected), but so what. If you get a few contacts and like this, then maybe this will encourage building a larger station for eme. Even if not, you can have some fun and provide new contacts with the "big guys"!
432 is currently the only band I am QRV (only temporarily). I have some issues to work out on my 144 HVPS to be back on 2m-eme. I am waiting delivery of a new 1296/28 xvtr to complete my station on 23cm.
73, Ed - KL7UW Bold face text my emphasis
73, Ed - KL7UW, WD2XSH/45 ====================================== BP40IQ 500 KHz - 10-GHz www.kl7uw.com EME: 144-QRT*, 432-100w, 1296-QRT*, 3400-winter? DUBUS Magazine USA Rep [email protected] ====================================== *temp