[Moon] Re: 1A0KM EME story

[Dimitris Vitorakis]

Hello Wolfgang, Gabriel and all

 well done working 1A0KM on tropo.
Conditions have been horrible the day 1A0KM operated CW EME. I run xpol,
 heard Wolfgang immediately when 1A0KM called its first CQ and we worked 2
 sequences after on EME, having a fast FB QSO.
However, i stayed monitoring 1A0KM signal and signals from stations calling
 you whole day. All signals were 4-6db down than usual, in both polarities 
at
 my end. For hours and hours there was 1 way propagation at 1A0KM end as 
well
 as from US signals, especially area 5.
I have observed 1 way propagation many times on 2m as we all did, but this
 time it lasted 4-5 hrs depending on location that signals were coming in.
 Simply amazing, band behaved like 70cm when farraday occurs in summer
 months.
Since 1A0KM operating window was so limited, this has been a huge problem
 running single polarity.

 I guess Gabriel referring to ''no special problem working single yagi
 stations in random as usual'' he refers not to CW QSOs but to JT65  as i 
saw
 in the cluster/logger etc., trying to figure out if lockout was only at
 Southeast Europe end and which mode was badly affected.
Propagation conditions when it comes to JT65 do not matter much, if one
 remembers that JT65 QSOs being on average 300 times easier (-25db) than CW.
 But when someone is digging weak signals at the noise floor level it is
really tough and conditions play a major role, especially if someone is
 running fixed polarity, and is at a location operating EME due to
 restraints, only for a day.

 73,
 Jimmy SV1BTR

 EA6VQ    144139.0 F/PA4ZP     Tnx EME QSO -23 dB            1027 15 Jul 
2007
EA6VQ    144139.0 ZS6OB       Tnx EME QSO -19 dB            1050 15 Jul 2007
EA6VQ    144139.0 UA9SL       Tnx EME QSO -16 dB            1058 15 Jul 2007
EA6VQ    144139.0 RA3GES      Tnx EME QSO -19 dB            1110 15 Jul 2007
EA6VQ    144139.0 PY2SRB      Tnx EME QSO -26 dB            1202 15 Jul 2007
PY2SRB   144139.0 EA6VQ       Tnx EME QSO b-16, 73          1204 15 Jul 2007
EA6VQ    144139.0 YO3FFF      Tnx EME QSO -18 dB            1244 15 Jul 2007

>> Regarding the conditions that day, they were very good for me.  I had no
>> special problem to work single Yagi stations in random, as usual, and I 
>> only
>> noticed some Faraday lockout for about two hours when the Moon was near 
>> the
>> south. The only thing I noticed was that the Sun was very, very close to 
>> the
>> Moon and that it was making a lot of noise if the antenna was not beaming
>> exactly to the Moon.  Of course this was with my 7.5 deg. beamwidth 
>> antenna,
>> the effect on a smaller system is different, of course.
>>
>> Fortunately I was lucky enough to work 1A0KM via tropo yesterday, so the
>> DXCC #122 is still in the log...hi
>>
>> 73. Gabriel - EA6VQ