[Moon] SM3BYA 432 MHz DUBUS activity

[SM2BYA, Gudmund]

Seems many Europeans were happy with the conditions. Can't really say I 
was, though - on Saturday the ionosphere at 62 N was pretty disturbed 
during the day. Signals came and went in a space of just a few minutes 
or less and there was also quite a bit of scintillation. When working 
Peter/CEW at 1257 UT, he reported strong aurora.

Having only 550 watts at the antenna and not being able to rotate 
polarisation in those conditions makes for hard going - with partly 
misaligned polarisation you need quite a bit of power just to make the 
other guy take notice, but with my 550 watts I didn't get through a lot 
of the time. There was also a brief disturbance Sunday afternoon, but 
not as strong as the one on Saturday.

Add to this that the five hours around southern moon transit (which are 
often the best signal strength wise) were lost both days: Because of a 
goof 15 years ago when building the antenna mount, my elevation gear 
runs out of range at 46 degrees, but this weekend the moon transited at 
about 56 degrees at my QTH.

Even so I eventually made 19 QSOs. Saturday: UA3PTW, SM3AKW, VK3UM, 
KL6M, G3LTF, JA6AHB, SM2CEW, FR5DN, VE6TA, OH2DG, SV1BTR, SP6JLW, 
SM3JQU, G4RGK, OZ4MM, F2TU  and OZ6OL. Called K2UYH for 30 mins but got 
only QRZ back...

Sunday: Only two QSOS (!), K2UYH and K1FO. Had to work unusually hard 
for both contacts...

The list of stations either CWNR or heard but not called is almost as 
long:  DL5FN, DL9KR, DF3RU, DK3WG, EA3DXU, F3VS, RW1AW, I5CTE, JA9BOH, 
JH0WJF, NC1I,  SM2A and VK4AFL. Many of these were weak, watery and 
chopped up by scintillation and seemed to come on for just a QSO or two 
and then disappearing completely (Faraday ?). With another 3 dB of TX 
power I guess I could have got through to most of them, but now it was 
more like "all ears and not enough mouth"...

73 and thanks to all

Gudmund SM2BYA / SM3BYA