[Elecraft] OT: RARE GRID EL84!

Wed Jul 3 11:21:29 EDT 2013

RARE GRID EL84!!!

I know many EU 6m operators are very serious about collecting grids, and some are 
even trying for the very difficult FFMA award (working all the continental US grids 
on 6m).  This grid will be in a spot where they will very likely have the opportunity 
or multihop Es to EU, and NA, EME on moonrise and moonset, and will be active 
throughout the period, due to the team of experienced operators. Please widely spread 
the word about this amazing VHF DXpedition to a VERY rare grid in the USA!

It is a group of very experienced grid activators and EME'ers going out at an
ideal time with top notch equipment. They are looking for your support, but more
importantly, they are looking for your contacts on both 6m and 2m.   Please mark your 
calendars and don't miss this rare opportunity!  GL to all!!!!  VY 73, Lance

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:     [FFMA] The K4N EL84 DXpedition--Update 2
Date:     Tue, 02 Jul 2013 19:44:14 -0500
From:     Marshall-K5QE <k5qe at k5qe.com>
Reply-To:     FFMA at yahoogroups.com
To:     FFMA <FFMA at yahoogroups.com>, VHF Contesting <vhfcontesting at contesting.com>,
Texas VHF <texasvhf at yahoogroups.com>, Pacific NW VHF Society <PNWVHFS at googlegroups.com>

Hello everyone interested in the super rare grid of EL84.  Here is our second update 
and current situation:

We will begin our drive down to Key West on Tuesday, July 9th and plan to arrive at 
the Yankee Capts berth at about 12 Noon on Thursday, July 11th.  We will load our 
gear on the boat as soon as the Captain is ready for us and believe that we will
depart Key West about 3-4PM local time.  Pete, George, and Dan(see below) will be 
flying into Key West.

K4N will be operational from July 11th(late afternoon or early evening local time) to 
10AM local time on July 15th.  I cannot give an exact starting time because we don't 
know how long it will take us to set up the stations and the antennas after we arrive 
in EL84 and Captain anchors the boat.  10AM local time on July 15th is 1400Z on July 
15th, so there is no ambiguity there.  After 10AM EDST on July 15th, we will tear 
down, pack up, have the Captain bring the boat back to Key West, and begin our 
journeys home.

K5YG-Bill(a.k.a. Bill2) has joined up with the group, so we now stand at 7 (brave?)
souls.  The current group of "Un-indicted Co-conspiritors" are K5YG-Bill2,
N5YA-Bill1, N5NU-Jason, NR5M-George, K9PW-Pete, N5TM-Dan, and K5QE-Marshall.  This 
will constitute "The Magnificent Seven", the "Seven Samurai", the "Lucky Seven", or 
some other hopelessly bad movie reference, for this trip.  It seems to me that seven 
were aboard the S.S. Minnow.....

Bill1 and I have spent a couple of weeks rounding up all the bits of flotsam and
jetsam that will be needed for this DXpedition to come off well. Most all of it is
stacked in a pile in Bill1's shack.  We are trying to round it all up into a small
pile so we won't miss anything.  I am in receipt of Mel's "Emergency Repair Kit" in
case I find my self with a PL259 cable in one hand and a Type N cable in the other
hand that have to go together.

We will be operating 6M with two stations.  Station1 will be a 756Pro2 with an M2
6M1K2 amp and a 6M5XHP with a rotator.  We plan to have this station on the air
almost continuously.....on Es whenever possible and on MS when no E-clouds are in
evidence.  Station1 will operate on 50.165MHz for Es and on 50.265MHz for FSK441 
meteor scatter.  K4N will operate MS on First Sequence at all times.

Station2 will be a 756Pro2 with a Lunar-Link LA-62 and a DEMI preamp.  The antenna 
will be a 6M7JHV with Armstrong rotation. That means that a whole lot of antenna 
swinging is not going to happen.  My concept is to leave the 6M7JHV pointed at 
WA(except when doing EME), which will cover almost all the country towards the west.

IF some big Es opening happens out to the west, we can always rotate the 6M5XHP on 
Station1 out that way.  Station2 will operate 6M EME when the moon is setting and is 
below 20° of elevation. Station2 will operate EME on 50.195MHz First Sequence. During 
EME operations, Station1 will either be silent OR they might try JT65a operations 
over tropo paths.  This would allow Station1 to take First Sequence and thus not 
interfere with Station2 for the approximately 1 hour of EME operations.

Station2 will be operating on FSK441 on 50.270MHz First Sequence in the late evening 
or early morning hours whenever Station1 is also running MS.  My idea here is to have 
both stations running FSK441 MS at night.  Station1 will be covering everything from 
the Dakotas eastward(more or less), while Station2 will cover the western US.

Bill2 is bringing along a 2M station this time.  He will have an ICOM 7000 with a
2M12 antenna and about 350W of power.  He will run Es(if we get so lucky), any tropo 
he can find, and FSK441 meteor scatter on 144.145MHz.  He probably will try some EME 
on 2M on our moonsets and maybe on the moonrises as well.  That is his call....

We plan to have Internet via a cell phone lash-up.  Hopefully, this will allow us to
"chat" with those interested in working us. We will be using the FB chat pages
provided by Dan-N5TM.  I just asked Dan to create a "K4N EL84 6M" chat page and a 
"K4N EL84 2M" chat page. This will allow those interested in 6M to chat with the 6M 
ops and those interested in 2M to chat with Bill2 or whoever is operating that 
station.  Two separate chat pages means no confusion between posts for the different 
bands.  The URL for Dan's FB chat pages is URL =

http://meteorscatter.n5tm.com/chat/HSMS_ChatRoom

OR just Google "N5TM Chat pages" and take the first choice. When you sign into Dan's 
chat pages, please make your Nickname to be Call + Name + 6digit grid. Thanks for that.

We will NOT be posting to PingJockey, the N0UK EME-1 reflector, or the ON4KST
reflector pages.  These are very fine reflectors, but they take a LOT of data traffic
for each post(coming or going).  On a cell phone connection, this is just a serious
problem.  Dan's chat pages are very low traffic and there will not be posts from
others that are not interested in what we are doing.  Anyone is free to cross post us 
onto one or more of the other reflectors. Thanks for that too.

I personally want to thank the three folks that have helped sponsor this DXpedition.  
I don't want to embarrass them by posting their names, but you know who you are and I 
thank you for your help.

We certainly hope to work a bunch of folks this time.  Almost no one has EL84 for
FFMA and we hope to fix that.  Please don't worry about trying to get your grid
across to us.  We don't need to know that for a valid QSO to be put into the logs.
You already know where we are going to be, so we probably will say EL84 occasionally, 
but that is not required for a valid QSO.  On MS, we will use the standard 26 for a 
signal report, so please follow suit there as well.  We don't need to know that you 
are in EM98 or some such.  Just send K4N {Your Call} 26 or R26 and we will make more 
MS contacts faster.  That gives everyone a chance. GL to everyone....

73 de

N5YA-Bill1
K5YG-Bill2
NR5M-George
N5NU-Jason
K9PW-Pete
N5TM-Dan
K5QE-Marshall

-- 
Lance Collister, W7GJ
(ex WA3GPL, WA1JXN, WA1JXN/C6A, ZF2OC/ZF8, E51SIX, 3D2LR, 5W0GJ, E6M, TX5K)
P.O. Box 73
Frenchtown, MT   59834-0073
USA
TEL: (406) 626-5728
QTH: DN27ub
URL: http://www.bigskyspaces.com/w7gj
Windows Messenger: W7GJ at hotmail.com
Skype: lanceW7GJ
2m DXCC #11/6m DXCC #815

Interested in 6m EME?  Ask me about subscribing to the Magic Band EME
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