[MAMS] October MAD results

[W9SNR - Jim]

What can I say but lousy weather & lousy conditions.  More like winter than fall.  

To the east, I tried 10 GHz with WW8M, K2YAZ, and W9NU.  Only made contact with Neil, and that was a weak one.  Made a weak 1296 contact with K8MD.  Didn't bother trying any higher bands with Mark. 

To the west, I tried 10 GHz with W9ZIH, W9SZ, and K3SIW.  Ron was loud, as usual, so we had a long chat on 10 GHz.  I couldn't hear Zack at all on 10 GHz, and he didn't hear me.  This is a indicator of rock bottom band conditions, since we would make at least a weak contact under more normal conditions.  My brief 10 GHz contact with Garry (K3SIW) was mainly to align dishes for a try at 24 GHz.  After we got completely aligned, we had 559 signals at both ends on 24 GHz.  I think this is about normal for a 35 mile overland contact without any enhancement.  

More important to me is that this is the first non-trivial contact I've made on 24 GHz in over 2 years.  I had to completely rearrange the transverter to accept a "new" 1 Watt PA, and I added a tiny (about 1" by .75") horn to the dish feed to prevent illuminating the outer part of the dish, which I suspected to be too irregular for 24 GHz.  The PA appears to be working as expected, and the dish now has a normal pattern, with a peak on boresight, instead of the near null that I had with the old feed.

Gotta run now.

73 - Jim
W9SNR