SPRINT Microwave on September 29, 2012

Herbert AF4JF, Jim N5MU and Rich N0PQU met at YMCA in EM48sq for last microwave contest of the season. We didn't have big contesting plans, just intended to try with Zack W9SZ who went to EN50rl on 1296MHz/10GHz and Ron KO0Z who went to his new location in EM59cl this morning on 10GHz too.

Propagation didn't really look promising - a little Hepburn enhancement, some water vapors, but nothing really promising from our usual sources of prediction:

(I believe that this made the difference today)

The day started quite bad - Herbert has forgotten his 23cm antenna and Jim forgot to bring his antenna pole, so we have had to combine our hardware into one 23cm station. It didn't matter much, because we didn't work Zack on 23cm today. Zack copied Jim's signal S5 on 1296.100MHz but Jim didn't copy Zack this time. Oh well ...

However, after a year of trying and trying, we have both finally worked Zack W9SZ in EN50rl from YMCA in EM48sq! That is a #5 grid for Jim and #6 for Herbert from this particular location. Thanks for all your patience with us, Zack! There are no terrain obstacles between us, but the distance is over 160 miles, so it requires a little help from propagation. Following picture shows the terrain profile between both locations:

Wonder of all wonders, it has worked today! Zack didn't hear the St. Louis beacon on 10GHz, but he has heard a 2.3GHz beacon from Chicago unusually strong, so something has been happening this morning.

Following picture shows Jim working Zack on 10GHz. We have had to move Jim's station close to Herbert's, because there was no signal from Zack at all 10ft. down the parking lot!

We have tried with Ron KO0Z on 10GHz after working Zack, but didn't succeed this time. Well, we have always tried much earlier in the day before ...

One more achievement can be claimed today - Rich N0PQU tested his 10GHz transverter today. He uses a MACOM brick oscillator on 10224MHz with a mixer and IC251 radio (more info about modifying that radio here).

Signal from this simple transverter was very stable, Jim N5MU and Herbert AF4JF have both made SSB  contacts with N0PQU across the parking lot. Although there still are things to be improved, Rich has certainly made it to the qroup of 10GHz-capable stations in St. Louis area. Congrats!

73 Herbert

AF4JF