[Moon] CXpedition Update IV

[dl1ymk at aol.com]

First full day of the CXpedition is over, time has come to do a summary. On 30th of .April we managed to put the meshes into the dish, because the high winds from the Pampa in Argentina had calmed down. Because we needed daylight we began just after sunrise. When we were ready - 3 hours later, hi – the moon window to Europe was already closed, so we couldn´t test, but we heard our own echoes. We spent some time to optimise the position of the feed in the dish and announced in the EU-moonreflector that we are qrv and need desperately some US boys to test. We were really happy to hear W5LUA as first contact from DL1YMK/CX. Than strong signals from K5JL/W5ORH and K5SO showed us, that the station works fine. Thanks a lot to K1RQG who activated the first stations via short wave! 


 


Later, after a hard struggle because of an eucalytus tree (and CX5BW’s huge HF towers, hi) we worked VK3UM. We had to learn that the window to the East is poor because of this special tree,hi. They should have imported German beer to CX rather than VK-eucalyptus!!!! Therefore we haven’t heard anything from the JA-boys, but hopefully the moon position improves next days. The rest of the day we spent with trials to improve our own situation, that means how to get warmer? (2 sweaters are ok, but 2 trousers??). We were frozen all over with temperatures of 11 degrees C -  in the sleeping room, hi. In Uruguay, it never becomes really cold (this definitely is a fairy tale…), so the houses cannot really be heated, only by an open fire place. So we learned how to maintain the fire without dieing from suffocation – and this was Monikas duty today: she continuously fed the fire to get somewhat warmer during the operation.  For nighttime we got electrical heated plates from CX5BW, thanks a lot! 


 


We arose at 2.30 local time, it was really hard, I can tell you! The moon was just over the horizon as we tried  to hear our “beacon” HB9BBD. We heard Dominique immeadiatly with a smashing 579 and got 569- not too bad that… We improved the dish position with our further beacons  OK1DFC and LX1DB  - a huge thanks to all, who helped us blinds once again ‘hearing’ the moon. The next minutes I tried to separate single signals in the pile up over the moon – a smashing experience on our CXpedition! The next hours we first worked EU- than the US-stations random or skedwise. A very special experience was the second call of Willi, LX1DB in SSB with a 57 signal, while we got 55. It was a nice talk over the moon, really clear and armchair copy. 


 


We worked today (in this row): HB9BBD, OK1DFC, F2TU, LX1DB, HB9Q, G4CCH, OZ4MM, DL4MEA, OK1CA, LA9NEA, SM4DHN, SM2CEW, G3LTF, PA3CSG, DF3RU, IK3COJ, DJ9YW, SV1BTR, SM3AKW, ES6RQ, OK1KIR, LX1DB (SSB), ES5PC, W7BBM, K9SLQ, WW2R, K2UYH, WA6PY, N2UO, some of them twice (random and skedtime, hi). In total we worked until now 33 initials in 15 countries (US as one country), many of them countries first, during 39 qso´s.


 


Among our skeds we only missed SP7DCS, sorry, nothing heard. We owe a very special “thank you” to K1RQG who once again arranged the skeds!!


 


The Uruguayan ham’s are extremly friendly and helpful, we got a warm welcome from Pedro, CX5BW (we are living in his holiday home, where he has his huge antenna farm and his shack) and Richard, CX2AQ (without his very special help we would have never gotten the high power license!!). And we already met the president of the Radio Club Uruguayo, CX1AA, Alfredo at their club station.


 


See u 2morrow on 70 cm!


 


Monika & Michael


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