[50mhz] E51SIX Results

[Lance Collister]

Hello from Montana!

Today apparently is the first day it has not snowed in the last couple of weeks. 
The sun is out, there are no clouds in the sky, and it is supposed to be 60 
degrees F today - it is a very pleasant change from the hot, humid and buggy 
climate in Rarotonga!

I have put a quick summary of the 6m EME results, along with some photos, on my 
web page at:

http://www.bigskyspaces.com/w7gj/E51SIX.htm

We had a lot of obstacles during our moonrise :-(   Only the first couple of days 
and the last couple of days provided a clear shot over the water on moonrise - the 
rest of the time, moonrise was blocked by the neighbor's close house. Furthermore, 
we had strong RFI from that direction during moonrise, and I believe also 
experienced the effects from the high TEC that was shielding EME-bound signals as 
our moonrise became later in the day:

http://iono.jpl.nasa.gov/latest_rti_global.html

The result was that, after the first few days, I could not copy any stations until 
the moon was over 10 degrees elevation and I had elevated the antenna. 
Fortunately, the antenna had enough gain to permit contacts even while I was 
elevated without any contribution from ground gain (look at the photos and you can 
see that our two story concrete house was less than a half wavelength from the end 
of the yagi, so it was a very large obstacle).

I was very pleased to complete with 26 different 6m stations, which is more than 
twice the number of contacts made during any previous 6m EME DXpeditions. 
Especially gratifying were the number of small single yagi stations that I copied, 
even though I was elevated most of the time.

Hopefully there will be a number of other 6m EME DXpeditions over the next year, 
while we are still at the bottom of the solar cycle, and cndx for 6m EME are 
optimum!  MNI TNX for all who took the time to call ;-)   GL and DX to you all!

VY 73, Lance


-- 
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   URL: http://www.bigskyspaces.com/w7gj
2m DXCC #11, 6m DXCC #815