[NLRS] 10 Ghz Weekends, all weekends should be like this :)

[Mike A. King - KM0T]

Hey everyone in NLRS land,

Had an outstanding time this weekend. The 10 Ghz contest was lots of fun and
had a few surprises for me.

Had 7:00AM scheds with the guys at Flying Cloud Saturday morning, but not
much luck.  Conditions were very poor and the only guy I worked was Dave,
N0KP.  Tried for over an hour with a few others there, but power was the
key.  The dish I had borrowed to Dave is in the 4 watt range.  My wife
happened to be going to the cities for the weekend, so she dropped it off
Friday night.

With that, Dave headed for my place in Sioux Center, which is normally a 4
hour drive, but not when you try to stop every 10 miles!

The first few places he stopped were awfully rough, conditions were still
very poor and signals had considerable QSB.  5x5 to nothing on a few
occasion, very bizarre.  IT was very windy that day down here and the dish
moving around the crank-up mast was evident.

Gene, N0DQS got out with the rover and we made a QSO, then he tried with
Dave a few times.  Then Gene had another meltdown in the 10 Ghz transverter.
It got blown up again just like what happened in the June contest after 10
grids.  It had just got done surviving a 14 grid rove during
September.....The blowup/meltdown did serve a purpose however, Gene was able
to isolate and find the problem.  Now we can resolve it.  Back to the bench
for repair!

Anyway....As Dave got into some elevation after getting south of Mankato,
things picked up and contacts began to get very easy.

Dave got to the house around 5:00PM and we had 13 QSOs by then.  We got to
do the tour here, BBQ steaks and pork chops and hit the hay around 11:00.
We had a good time just hanging out and exchanging information, ham radio
related as well as lots of other stuff!  It was Dave's Birthday, he forgot
to tell me in time so I was at a loss as I had not baked a cake.

Scheds Sunday morning were again at 7:00 AM for Flying Cloud.  We had a band
of rain go thru the area from 5:30AM that stopped at 6:30.  The radar showed
that band running from the south of me all the way into Minnesota, but EN34
was not in it yet.  It was just a band of rain moving from the West to East.

That turned out to be the ticket cause as I got done sending for 2 minutes,
Both Gary WB0LJC and Jim - K0KFC were 5x3 signals on SSB.  Forward rain
scatter for sure, little AU quality, not hardly distorted.

As I got done with the QSOs, Dave decided to get out of bed and came into
the shack.  I then told him the news.  We decided to call Eric, KT8O to see
if we could roust him to get on his roof with W0AUS - Bob's 100 mW
transverter.  I don't really think Eric thought he had a shot, I just made
the comment to get up on the roof ASAP, no time to put on clothing.....just
get up there!

Well, as it turned out, no problem.  Rain scatter again, 519 CW sigs, and
also able to work on SSB with a bit of effort to no effort.  Not bad for the
power level and distance involved! 307KM  Bob's RIG rocks the world again!

I then had scheds for 8:00AM and Mendota and Gary was easy copy there,
Chris, N0UK was there as well.  Good copy.  They asked me to give Eric a
shout to tell him to point his dish towards them!  Called him on 10 Ghz
again and they worked it out!  307KM 10 Ghz liaison!

With that, Dave couldn't stand it anymore and we got him all packed and
ready to go.  The extension cord charging the battery in his truck was
barely disconnected as he took off out of the driveway!

Dave got out there a bit and managed to work Eric from EN12, that was a good
one!  Grid #4 I believe!

In the meantime, Chris, N0UK and I were CQing on the same frequency.  Just
to see what would happen, things were quiet for a bit and I worked Dave in
his first few locations of the day.

Back to CQing and Gary, W0GHZ came back, 519 signals.  Pretty neat, my first
real random on 10 Ghz!  And the longest QSO of the weekend - 328 KM.  I was
then back to make a few contacts with Dave, then back to CQings.

As I was CQing, I thought I heard someone come back, but was gone right
away.  I looked up at the band scope and I could see a "bogy" on the radar
about 5 KHZ down.  I tuned down there and heard the CW and got on top, -
QRZ?? And back came Bob, W0AUS.  Apparently, he was answering my CQ, but had
just turned the rig on and was really moving!  Without the bandscope,
probably would have missed him!  Good signals!  The second longest of the
weekend - 326 KM

Got Bob to get his 5.7 Ghz dish out to give it a go since I needed EN35, but
the rain just went away....dang it!  This was also around the time I tried
with W0ZQ, sorry Jon, conditions just ran out.

After that, conditions to MPLS were pretty flat, however - Dave N0KP was
headed east before north.  His path to the due east from here is almost
flat, then to the North up 169 was pretty much under mist, which served as a
great scattering medium.  Most of the contacts, except for the last two
places, he was 5x5 to 5x7 SSB on 10 Ghz.  Since he had the dual band dish,
we worked on 5.7 GHZ lots of times just for grins.  Signals were better
there most of the time.  The last two places, 150 and 160 miles or so, the
signals were down to 5x1 SSB, we never had to do CW.  From there he was only
30 miles from home and decided to pack it in!  Which was good, it was about
6:00PM.  Most contacts were done without liaison.  I just looked for
"bogies" on the bandscope, and kept ever so slightly adjusting the headings
from each location.  With the cool WX, the drifting was not a problem.
Signals were usually within a 2.4 KHZ passband of the last contact
frequency.

By the time Dave got home, we had some 38 QSOs between us.  Longest on the
way down Saturday was 291KM and longest on the way back on Sunday was 260
KM.  I think he had a good time, as I know I did chasing him!

Also, my dual band dish got quite the workout, almost 500 miles of pounding
dusty roads while powered on, no failures, so I guess its ready to go out
west for some remote grids :)

I had one QSO during the first weekend with Bill, K0AWU.  Bill, if your
reading this and have the dates and time, grid, I lost all that. Thanks!

It was all good fun, looks like per the "JT" logger excel sheet, Im just
above 8000 points.  I have no idea if that's good or not, but really was not
in it for the points.

Thanks everyone.

73 - Mike - KM0T
www.qsl.net/km0t