[NLRS] 10GHz cumulative summary (long)

[Chris Cox]

Very late incoming, I know, but anyway...

My operating time was very limited this year for the 10GHz cumulative.  
Most of my operating was done on the first Saturday, for the most part 
running around with Lenny (or at least on his tail).

The first two sites that I operated from I was unable to make any 
contacts.  However, the first stop at Flying Cloud at least let me find 
the source of my utter deafness since last years event on the band.  There 
was indeed one small piece of bad UT-141 hardline.  Most peculiar is the 
fact that it seemed to only have negligible effect on the TX path, but 
rendered the RX path effectively dead.  DC wise it looks fine.  I am 
suspecting that the combination of coax jumpers and the relay in the RX 
line was acting as a very effective RF stub.  Haven't proven that.  I 
still can't figure out how during our field trial in June where we 
completely bypassed that piece of cable I still could hear diddly.

Oh well, having that problem eliminated I tried working a few guys that I 
could hear very well.  ZIP now FROM me to them.  I had already found 
and replaced the defective DC changeover relay on the IF interface board 
prior to the contest, so that wasn't the trouble.  BUT, I then decided to 
actually measure the power being supplied to the RF changeover relay.  
Sure enough, 12V was being supplied, however, this is a 28V relay!  The 
voltage doubler had died on me (probably had been momentarily shorted to 
ground and that had been the cause of the IF relay failure noted above).
Fortunately I had brought along a couple of spare gel cells.  I hooked 
them up in series using croc clip jumpers and gave a shout.  Blam - K0FQA 
called me back immediately and I had the first Q in the log.  I worked the 
rest of the day manually keying the RF changeover relay in said manner.  
Incidentally, this was almost identical t the problem that Bruce had from 
the UP during the second weekend.

Next morning I got up a couple of hours early and completely rebuilt the 
DC control and relay driver board from scratch.  Ran out to the cul-de-sac 
by Lenny's house which is only a little over a mile from me and quickly 
worked Gary, 'GHZ, for a test.  All was working tickedy-boo!  Gary and I 
ragchewed on 10368.1 for about 20 minutes whilst Lenny was getting to his 
second location and Bruce was going to his first.  We were actually 
passing scheduling traffic back and forth on that band for stations that 
couldn't hear each other on 144MHz - EXCELLENT FUN!!!  So, worked Lenny 
and Bruce for new initials from there plus a couple of others and then 
quit for the weekend's family stuff.

Second weekend was another busy family one for me.  I had arranged a sked 
with Mike, KM0T, for early Sunday morning with me at Flying Cloud.  
Arrived about 5 minutes before sked time and got setup.  Right on the nose 
at 1230Z there was Mike calling on CW at S8.  Ran through the contact 
skipping the sked procedure we'd arranged and then switched to SSB.  We 
ragchewed for about 15 minutes waiting for Gary, GHZ, to come up on the 
band - couldn't hear anything at all of each other on 144MHz.  I was 
coordinating with Gary on two to try Mike on 10GHz.  Another easy one for 
those two and then I tried Gary on 10GHz.  Nothing on th direct heading 
nor on the path via downtown Mpls, however, I could hear him at S4 a few 
degrees to the South of my heading to Mike - rainscatter - most cool!  We 
didn't quite complete via r/s but reoriented to use the Mpls buildings to 
complete from that location.  I then moved to the Mendota overlook for my 
second sked with Mike.

Another easy path, however, it was barely workable on SSB, easy on CW.  
Mike acted as liason for me to work Gary on 10GHz as I didn't have any 
144MHz gear with me away from the van.

And that wrapped up my 10GHz cumulative contest for 2002.

Score breakdown was 12 initials plus 2035 distance points for a score of 
3235.  Measly in comparison to what the others guys were able to do 
devoting both weekends to the event, but pleasing for me.  I beat last 
years score by a comfortable margin, and raised my DX from 57 to 312km.

Thanks to everyone that was on.

-- 
73  Chris Cox  N0UK, G4JEC, ex-AB0CN, ex-G8PTC  RNARS #1157  EN34jv

chrisc@Chris.Org        Ping Jockey's do it until they HEAR the burn...
  WWW Home Page: http://WWW.Chris.Org/   http://www.pingjockey.net 
Cultural observation:
	Europeans think 100 miles is a long way;
	Americans think 100 years is a long time!