[50mhz] First YA to North America on 6m :-)

[Lance Collister, W7GJ (DN27ub)]

WOW!!!  Early this morning, I completed the first 6m contact between North America 
and YA :-)  Bob Sutton, YA1RS, was worked here in Montana on JT65A mode via EME on 
his moonrise. It was apogee (the moon farthest away from the earth), and the EME 
"degredation factor" (as calculated and displayed on the JT65 screen) was over 5 
dB....however, the Kp index (as indicated by 
http://www.sec.noaa.gov/rpc/costello/pkp_15m_24h.html) was a very favorable 1.3.

Bob, a long time experienced 2m EME operator, is now hooked on the digital modes, 
and I am ABSOLUTELY THRILLED to get my country number 88! Bob was running an ACOM 
1000 amp and a homebrew short (1 wavelength long) 6 element yagi on his moonrise. 
This is the third moonrise sked I have run with him in the last week, and I have 
copied him each sked (in fact K7AD also copied him last weekend on his moonset with 
his single long yagi!)...what was required was a break in the Kabul local city noise 
so Bob could copy me. Bob is taking down the antenna and packing up today to leave 
YA. I sure am looking forward to working him from his future work locations!!!  MNI 
MNI TNX to Bob for his patience and perseverance and to K1JT for his amazing 
contribution to weak signal communications through the WSJT programs!   GL to all, 
and I sure hope to see you all you rare DXCC on the moon!  VY 73, Lance

P.S. - For the blow-by-blow from Bob's side:



Bob Sutton wrote:

 > Hi Lance,
 >
 > It looked good here ... several O?'s , an averaged
 > callset+grid from you, and finally the R's ... I was
 > jumping around the room!!!
 >
 > It all happened after 00:38 when someone must have
 > switched something off at sunrise ... the noise
 > dropped down so the S-Meter was no longer flickering
 > between S1-3 and I had to crank up the RX level quite
 > a bit to regain the 0dB signal level on the JT65
 > screen.
 >
 > I didn't get a full decode, but when I got the freeze
 > filter set on the DF peak at 120Hz after the first
 > sync with "O?", things started to happen.  I was
 > gobsmacked when I then saw a huge sync peak at -25dB
 > on a following sequence!   OK, that is still weak, but
 > after so many hours of skeds, anything that far out of
 > the noise looks huge!  At that point the average
 > window flashed up the calls+grid data from your side
 > and I sent RO.
 >
 > During the RO sending I was messing about with a
 > "flashover" trip out on the amplifier ... I think the
 > 706 sends a full power spike at the begining of the
 > transmission and this is interpreted as a flashover by
 > the amplifiers protection ccts when the loading is a
 > bit off to one side ... so, with that and the
 > excitement of seeing the data on the screen,  I missed
 > several sequences where I should have been sending 73
 > and by then the moon was quite high.
 >
 > I tried calling you on my mobile and even on the
 > satphone to offer congratulations, but all I got on
 > those modes was "sorry, the number will not go through
 > as dialed"!
 >
 > Funny thing is, I was joking with myself earlier in
 > the evening when playing with the WSJT program and
 > noting the degredation was about 0.5dB lower than the
 > previous sked ... I figured with that lower
 > degredation we would surely make a contact at
 > moonrise!!
 >
 > OK, well that has me all fired up to get on this mode
 > a bit more.  It was not until a few weeks ago that I
 > found a solution on the laptop for two com ports ...
 > one for the GPS data interface to allow time
 > syncronisation, and another for the tx key-line (I
 > don't like the idea of using VOX with an amplifier).
 > We had an issue with the Motorola radio programming
 > interface not working on the com port of the latest
 > laptop until we tried a USB-ComPort adapter.  When I
 > go my hands on this little beast I immediately saw
 > another application for it!!   :-)
 >
 > I must get back to the house and get on with my
 > packing.  My room looks like a bomb site with stuff
 > everywhere ....
 >
 > I'll send you a QSL card and a couple of photos of the
 > station when I get to Canada or New Zealand.
 >
 > Cheers for now, Bob  YA1RS and WSJT convertee.
 >
-- 
Lance Collister, W7GJ (ex: WN3GPL, WA3GPL, WA1JXN, WA1JXN/C6A, ZF2OC/ZF8)
P.O. Box 73
Frenchtown, MT  59834  USA
QTH: DN27UB
TEL: (406) 626-5728   FAX:(406) 626-5728
URL: http://www.bigskyspaces.com/w7gj