[Moon] PA3CWN / Prague 2002

[dl5mae at wa7v.ampr.org]

Dear Oene,

Thanks for your comment.

Some background and history:

Prague, EME meeting, August 2002:

1. The EME community gets knowledge of a new mode (called JT44) and the
first EME contacts took place already (I think first ever done by GM4JJJ
in Europe)

2. In Prague its discussed that this mode will be a very good START for
newcomers to enter the demanding  CW EME scene with bigger array later =
many new
EMEers (CW) to come!

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Luess, August 2002:

Unfortunately I missed the Prague meeting as I was stack in Barbados
(8P6) for 2 days longer as expected...but right after the meeting I had
some discussions with well-known EMEers
from Europe and Asia those visited me in my shack.

My forcast about CW EME was follows:

1. CW EME (2m) will drastically decrease as with the new mode its so
much easier to do EME contacts. So why to build up big arrays or improve
the own RIG when EME will get so much easier? There is no need to
improve OP skills (i.e. learning CW) when a machine does the work, no
more need for big antennas...

---------------------------------------------

World, July 2003:

The first EME expedition discovering a continous use of an VHF-chat-room
(rem: this was CW! not digital).
It took me 3 days after the start of this activity to work this country.
At this time I was still using 8x17el M2 yagis. I just refused to enter
this chatroom as I wanted to work a DXCC without loggers. Much smaller
stations (i.e. 2 yagi-stations) worked the expedition withhin a few
hours while I was
struggeling 3 days.

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ARRL EME contest , after 2002:

a big desaster started!

This was my favorite contest
for a long time. In 1993 we even participated as MultiOP/MultiBand
(70cm/23cm was only build up for the contest) and came in 2nd. What a
fun, despite heavy snow storms in the 2nd part.

After getting the digital mode involved things became chaotic: some
More(N=no)? r 40
created categories AFTER the contest (!), lots of traffic through the
internet and rules which were complicated...

As Joop (PA0JMV) pointed out this needs almost an
atterney-of-law...
Lars (SM4IVE) is right when he says things were easy
before the new modes-area...

I cant agree more with them!
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vy 73 de dl5mae Wolfgang