[NLRS] EN37 report

[Bill K0AWU]

GM Guys

    Some of you are aware and some perhaps not, I'm now on 902Mhz. For the 
Jan contest I was just "sorta on", 10elem yagi on a wooden boom fixed toward 
Gary GHZ and Chris JCF. The week before last the WX broke for several days 
with temps in the 40s. I had built a 33elem looper and I ran it up the tower 
and have it now jammed between the 6m and 222 yagis. The antenna provides 
more of an improvement than I expected and is now rotatable.

    Last night after working Gary on 10Ghz tropo we as usual, checked 902 
... signals were really poor.... Bummer ..... I wrapped things up and told 
Gary I'd see him in the AM when I realized I HAVE THE ANTENNAS POINTED NNE 
.. 60deg to be exact!!  How did I hear anything with the antenna 105deg off 
of path??

   I caught Gary before he left the shack and we had a nice SSB QSO on 902. 
Signals were peaking 35db above the noise on the SDR 144Mhz IF. Great 
signals. At the time the temp here was 14deg and 57% humidity, not what you 
would consider great tropo WX. We "marked it up" as a neat QSO, a bit odd, 
but neat.

  This morning after working Gary 5-2 to 5-3 on 10Ghz snow scatter that did 
NOT appear on the radar, we once again tried 902 ... WOW .... signals were 
even better (9:33am) than last night CW signals 5-6 to 5-7! CW dashes on QSB 
peaks almost quieting the receiver completely. SSB copy 5-5 with better 
peaks. This sure looks like an interesting band!! The QSB seems to be always 
present but I still can't imagine why the signals have been so good on these 
last two skeds. We normally check twice a day (~ 9am and ~10pm 902.080Mhz) 
ad have never seen anything close to this.

  If you want to play on 902 before the contests, that will work with me 
...... Now I "need" to get back to my QRP 40m "operations" with my 1/2watt 
SDR Transceiver... $32 and over 50 contacts in the last 3 weeks without 
really "trying" .... I'll tell you ALL about that and more at AU07 :>))

  73  Bill  K0AWU  EN37ed