[NLRS] 10 GHz report

[W0ZQ@aol.com]

This Monday evening I went portable to the Burnsville site that has a good 
view to the west & north.   Donn (WA2VOI) was portable near his house in NE 
Mpls.   We quickly found each other using the IDS tower.   Bob, W0AUS, was home 
and set up his 10 GHz on the end of his dock.   Bob was able to copy both of us 
off the IDS tower but we could not copy his 10mW signal.

Donn and I then flipped over to the Carlson Tower which is more or less 
straight west of the Cities and work S5 on SSB.   Both of our locations had a line 
of site to the Tower.

We then started to work on our rain scatter experiment which is why we headed 
out.   A line of thunderstorms was located northwest of the Twin Cites up 
towards St. Cloud.    Meeker County had a tornado warning at the time.   We then 
guessed the heading of the thunderstorms ..... Donn pointed about 330 degrees 
and flipped on his beacon.   Within 30 seconds or so I found his signal with a 
very  strong "aurora" like signal .... his signal was a solid S9, actually a 
bit stronger than off the IDS tower on the bounce path.   After peaking up 
dishes on both ends we tried SSB but the distortion due to scattering made it 
impossible to copy, so we flipped to NB FM.   Donn was full quieting with good FM 
signal quality on the rain scatter path.    With Donn sending on CW I probed 
the T-storm by moving the dish in elevation and azmith.   I found two other 
areas of reflection, one about 20 degrees further south and a second about 10 or 
15 degrees further north.   On the far northern reflection I could elevate 
the dish a little bit and Donns signal would shift up in frequency .... when I 
move the dish back down it would drop his signal in freq.    I suspect that 
these three reflections were all "discrete" thunderstorm cells.    Bob, W0AUS, 
was listening along and also heard my "aurora" signal on the NNW heading.

We estimate that the T-storms were somewhere in the area of 100 miles away 
.... Bruce sent us a radar loop from close to the time of contact.   I could not 
visually see the T-storms from my location (due to haze ?).  

Following this I then worked Chris, N0UK, on a "direct" path from his tree 
surround QTH by the airport.   This is about an 11 mile path .... Chris was in 
the trees and reported stronger signals when pointing at some of the tops of 
the trees than on the simple direct heading "through" the trees.   

All in all a very fun evening on 10 GHz and my first rain scatter contact.   
I think this mode offers some very interesting possibilities for those of us 
living in thunderstorm country.     

73, Jon
W0ZQ


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