[NLRS] Early Bird gets the Q'

[Mike A. King - KM0T]

Hi all, Worked Gary, W0GHZ on 5.7 Ghz this morning.  Pretty exciting stuff
to have my first good DX on that band!

I heard him on 5.7 during the contest, but condix were pretty poor and no
hope of him hearing me.

We tried last night and signals were considerably better from him, but
again, he could not hear me.  At that point, one begins to wonder if its
working!

Then, we went at it again this morning, I have him logged at 1823 UTC.  5x7
SSB!  with 5x1 signal report.   Just over 200 miles or so.

My dish at this point is 250 mW output.  The exterior superflex feedline
made by K0PW (thanks John!) has a .4db loss.  Also, there is internal piping
and relay loss.  I figure around 1 to .75 db total loss from the 250 mw
before it hits the feedhorn.  Copper pipe feedhorn and 2' dish for 5.7 from
K1WHS at Directive systems.

We actually had a little chat on 5.7, pretty neat.  Hoping to add more power
soon.

Gary is running 20 watts from the shack, up to his dish via waveguide.
Wonder what the loss / lenght of the waveguide is to make a comparison?

Pointing was not too much of a problem.  Could hear him +/- 3 to 5 degrees
with the M2 digital readout rotor.  The Dishes are mounted on a Yaesu
elevation rotor, kinda neat to tilt the dishes up and down to peak the
signal, not much play there however, would loose the signal pretty quick.
Resolution on the Yaesu rotor did not appear to be an issue.

FYI!

Oh, picked up Rhode Island on 6M last night, 50 on 6M for the CSVHF.  Now
praying for good tropo for the high bands.

73

Mike -KM0T en13vc