[NLRS] Rain Scatter on 10G tonight...

[Bruce Richardson]

First off, thanks to the ops last Sunday who got out to do 10G off of
downtown.  I was home for a few hours and the five or six operators were
very helpful to me to verify that my new dish system is working ok.  Many
thanks to W0ZQ, WA2VOI, and WB0LJC for leaving their homes and operating
elsewhere.  Also thanks to K0SHF, W0GHZ, and W0AUS.

So today I was watching the radar and ragchewed on 2m with W0GHZ about the
possibility of doing 10G bounce off of a cell that was out near Redwood
Falls.  We sweeped around in the afternoon and heard nothing except for what
we could do off of downtown.  We both pledged to watch the radar for later
in the day and in to the evening.

Then tonight W0ZQ and W0GHZ noted that there was another cell just east of
Redwood Falls to try.  We coordinated on 2m.  We got on 10G and Gary and I
found each other easily.  We started on CW but quickly switched to FM.  Jon,
W0ZQ, drove to Burnsville and found us immediately.  FM was used primarily
but Jon reports that the audio was not as clear as his Q's with WA2VOI back
on Saturday.  We surmise it might be funny movements of the water column
that was causing distortion to the FM audio.  So about this time W0AUS got
on from his dock and backyard.  Bob had clear audio but about S5 signals off
the storm.  Impressive considering his location.

Then each of us would beacon for awhile while the others looked around for
other highlights.  I was surprised that there really weren't any.  Three of
us are convinced that we tipped up about 2-3 degrees for max peak.  We tried
on the horizontal setting but each of us is convinced we picked up a few db
by bringing the dishes up slightly.

W0GHZ put in a call to KM0T to see if he was available to light up the same
piece of sky.  Within a few minutes, he was on the air and Gary and Mike
banged away to find each other.  They found a water shaft about 20 degrees
south of the one we had been using for Twin Cities to Twin Cities Q's.  They
used CW initially but switched to FM.  Jon ZQ had to take down because rain
arrived in Burnsville.  Bob, W0AUS, from his dock/backyard was able to work
KM0T on FM.  Then lastly, I was able to pick up Mike on 10G FM.  I was
operating from my apartment porch.  Quite thrilling to work 3 grids (and 2
states) within a few minutes all on 10G!!!!

Then Gary and Mike switched to 5.7Ghz.  They worked within a few minutes off
of the storm.  Again they noted the doppler distortion and the beam headings
were not direct but rather about 25 degrees off of direct.  The sigs on 5.7
were not as strong so FM was not successful.  They settled for slowly spoken
voice on USB.  So Gary has two states already on 10G for the new year.

Later in the evening, K0FQA, W0GHZ, and I tried again to work off a smaller
cell that was in the Wilmar to Alex area.  We never did hook up but I'm glad
we gave it the effort.

Bruce Richardson - W9FZ

Anger is an Energy --PIL