[NLRS] End of year 24 gig Q's

[W0ZQ at aol.com]

Hello NLRS land.   

Mike, KM0T,  gave me a call this afternoon when he noted some radar 
precipitation between us  in a favorable location.   Throwing the 10 and 24 GHz dishes 
in the  car I drove out to the Winstead grid corner arriving at around 3:00 pm 
or  so.   I first set up in EN25wb at the radio tower just south of Howard  
Lake, MN.   Mike and I aligned on 10 gigs pretty quickly with S7 to S8  
signals.  After looking down the bore sight on the 10 GHz dish, I lined up  the 24 
GHz dish on the same heading and started to beacon.   Mike  found me pretty 
quickly, we peaked up on both ends, and exchanged calls and  grids on CW.   
Signals were actually pretty good, S2 or S3, rough in  tone so scatter like, and on 
the direct heading to Mike.   I had a  little upward elevation, perhaps a few 
degrees, but this may be within the  tolerance of the bubble & dish/fed, etc.  
 I was either on the  horizon, or just up a degree or two.  EN13vc to EN25wb 
is 170.4 miles,  or 274.2 km, and grid # 14 for Mr. King.   We didn't play too 
long as  I wanted to take advantage of whatever the propagation path was so I 
threw the  dishes in the car to head over to EN35.    I found a spot to set  
up in EN35ab and proceeded to find Mike on 10 Gigs with no problem.    10 Gigs 
is such a great band !   We got lined up on 24 gig and found  each other, 
albeit with weaker signals, no better than S1 signals on my  end.   After 
exchanging calls and grids on CW, Mike had grid #15 in  the bank at a distance of 
175.5 miles, or 282.5 km.     

The weather on my end was 28 degrees, gray with a heavy overcast, and  light 
to no wind .... nice conditions for the end of December.   Mike  collected and 
saved the radar plots that showed precipitation between us, but  according to 
Mike none of the ground stations were reporting any .... perhaps  Verga ?   
It was not snowing on my end nor on Mikes end.   I'm not sure that we made this 
path because of snow scatter or because of  reduced water vapor pressure (28 
degrees vs summer time conditions) ..... I'm  leaning towards snow scatter, 
but I think we still have a lot to learn about  this.   I do know that our 
previous attempts at 24 gig rain scatter  during the summer over similar paths have 
not been successful; big signals on 10  gig, no signals on 24 gig.   More 
experimenting is needed, but  it SEEMS that snow is a better scattering material 
on 24 gig's than is rain  .... maybe coupled with lower water vapor pressure 
when its cold ....  maybe.

In any case, two new grids for Mike, 15 grids worked on 24  GHz, and an 
afternoon of fun for me.

73, Jon
W0ZQ



Come  and join us here in Bloomington, Minnesota, home of the Mall of 
America, July 27  & 28, 2006 for the 40th annual Central States VHF Society 
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