[Moon] Dubus CW, SM2CEW

[Peter Sundberg]

Interesting weekend..

When I finally was able to come on the band on Saturday morning my
elevation rotor packed in at 45 deg elevation. By rocking the array back
and forth I could get it to 0 deg and lower it for inspection. The lead
screw had been stripped of it's threads as the nut holding it at the far
end had jammed completely. Anyhow, after >20 years of service, it was due
to happen.

Shops were closed, so I had to wait until Sunday morning to get some spare
parts. After a bit of cutting and welding I was finally operational at
11.30 GMT. 

Worked about 20 stations, in what I consider as rather poor conditions.
Faraday was all over the place, and echoes shifted quickly from horizontal
to vertical polarization. It seemed like transmitting vertical resulted in
most Europeans hearing me, but receive polarization was rather unstable here.

No aurora, so it was just geomagnetic disturbance, and with a Boulder
K-index at 4, this was no surprise. When I checked the echoes of local
station SM2EKM they were ok, but coming back vertical, so no wonder Jim had
problems having only one polarization. But I also think that conditions in
general were down, it was not just Faraday.

Nice to work ON4DPX again, well done Kenny pulling me out of your local
noise. Heard Oene, PA3CWN a few times with a good signal working/calling
others, those 700w are doing fine. 

Missed a bunch of stations, due to bad condx and also my lack of operating
time. Good to see big guns like RU1AA, RN6BN, IK3MAC, F3VS, LZ2US and
SV1BTR beaconing and working guys, giving us mere mortals help in
attracting EME'ers to the band.

It was indeed good fun, and remember, bad conditions are a part of the
challenge.. if it was easy we wouldn't do it.. 

So, thanks to all who stuck with it! CW EME is indeed rewarding, and
patience is the key word, for sure.

Saturday highlight was working the KH7X expedition on 23cm CW EME. Bruce
K0YW was doing a magnificent job of pulling out calls on his moonrise,
working 23cm EME stations like it would have been HF. Well done Bruce. And
thanks to all who helped organize the expedition out in the Pacific.

73 de Peter SM2CEW
www.sm2cew.com
http://blog.sm2cew.com