[NLRS] 2011 10 GHz Cumulative (loooong)

[WBØLJC]

 Hi Everyone,

 It's been pretty quiet about this year 10 G Cumulative.
 Maybe everyone's logs are still wet from the second weekend.

 If you roved with us or operated from a fixed site.
 THANK YOU to everyone one of you who got on the
 air for the contest.

 Don't forget to send in your entry to the ARRL. You can send it in
 regular mail or as I have done send it in as an attachment to an
 email where I let them know what is in the attachments.
 To help you organize the log and do the score sheet check
 the NLRS web site for John, WØJT's, spread sheet.

 The August weekend  saw the rovers traveling in SW MN.
 The rover pack was small consisting on Chris, NØUK, Holly,
 KØHAC, Donn, WA2VOI, Jim, KØMHC and Gary,
 WBØLJC. Jim left the rover group after the first few stops.
 There was  a good sized group on the hill, at times there were
 12 ops on the air.The group included regulars Dave, NØKP,
 Jon, WØZQ, Glen, KCØIYT, Mel , KCØP, Bud, WØLCP,
 Ed, NBØM using a club loaner rig, Don, WAØSSN using one
 of Mel's loaners, Charlie, NØAKC and Scott, NØEDV.
 Charlie and Scott were on both days even though they had
 to make the trip to the hill from Wisconsin. Later in the day
 John, WØJT, and Ed, WBØVHF, got on too. Mel brought
 a number of new ops with him from the Rochester area so that
 they could check out 10 GHz.  Rodney, KDØEBT, was one
 of those ops. Rodney also came up to the hill for the second
 weekend. He became interested in 10 G when Mel gave
 a talk at the local club. Jim, MHC, joined the group on the
 hill for Sunday. Ed, WØOHU, also came up the hill to see what
 10 G propagation is like. We worked Arliss, W7XU,
 from EN13if, a site near his home  in SD.

 We started out just north of Montevideo with the intention of
 heading west into ND. We made it just a little west of Madison
 and then turned South on US 75 as one of the rovers was
 having equipment problems. We made nine stops for the day
 and spent the night in Pipestone. Sunday we started east of
 Pipestone at a site just north of MN 30. We worked our way
 generally east. I ended the day near Medelia. Our longest Q
 for the weekend was 331 kM.For that Q we worked Jim,
 KØKFC, Sunday morning when he was at his QTH in EN35rj.

 Donn picked up a nail in his tire and had to stop to get it fixed.
Chris and Holly went with him. I had been separated from
 them while looking for a operating site and so  I decided to
 make a couple of quick stops while they waited for the repair.
 I made two stops before rejoining them. The others called it
 a day before I was ready to quit so I made another two stops.
 Distances were pretty short for the later stops, but a Q is a Q.
 I had twelve stops on Sunday while the others made eight stops.

 Signals were good both days. We also worked Arliss when he
 returned to his home QTH in EN13lm. Jim, KØKFC, and Bud,
 WØLCP, were worked a number of times while at Jim's QTH.
 Gary, WØGHZ, also made it into the log a few times from his
 home QTH in EN34lx.

 I ended the first weekend with 206 Q's  41,160 distance points,
 24 uniques for a total of 43,560 points. There will be a little decrease
 in the totals when everything is sorted out because I think we had one
 of the rigs being used by more then one operator.

 The September weekend started out a little cool for the rovers.
 It must have been cool on the hill too, as Dave didn't have his shirt
 sleeves rolled up and actually put on a sweat shirt.

 The membership of the rover group was constantly in flux up until
 Saturday, with some people having to drop out and others making
 a last minute decision to join the rovers. The second weekend
 rover group consisted of Jon, WØZQ,  John, WØJT, WBØLJC,
 with Arliss, W7XU, and Jerry, KØCQ, as first time 10 G rovers.

 We started near Blairsburg, Iowa  north of Ames, just West of I-35.
 Our intention was to go South if conditions were good. They were
 just fair. Since Jerry was only running 100 mW, we went north and
 then east. We zigzagged north and south a little so that we could
 get more stops in before arriving in Waterloo where we spent
 the night. We made contacts from 11 stops on Saturday.

 Sunday started with cloudy skies and moderate temperatures.
 However, all the rovers had been looking at the radar and knew
 that rain was on the way. The question was just how long could
 we stay ahead of it. Jerry had gone home for the night and was
 getting rain at his house. He had said he might join us.When we
 called him as we were leaving the hotel, he told us
 that he decided to stay home and stay dry. A wise decision as
 his 100 mW wouldn't have made many contacts this day.

 To avoid the rain we chose to go north rather then east as we
 had hoped. There was a solid mass of rain to the west of us,
 moving  from the SW to the NE. Thanks to Dave and the
 group at the hill for the weather updates that helped us try to
 keep ahead of the rain. The first site only netted Q's with
 Dave and Mel as others in the Metro area had checked the
 radar and noticed that the hill was going to get rain too.
 By the time we got to our second stop it had started to
 drizzle. On the hill Scott and Charlie joined the group as
 did Mike, KBØOZN with his 200 mW DB6NT rig. At the
 third stop the rovers got dumped on. We all hurried to cover
 the rigs before making contact with the hill. Pencils don't write
 well on wet paper. Fortunately for us, the rain let up a little so
 we decided to keep moving north. The consensus was that
 if the rain had continued to be as intense as it was that we
 were going to call it a day.

 We continued north dodging the rain, but often having drizzle
 at each stop. At one stop we did observe a yellow orb in the
 sky, it didn't last for more then a few minutes though.

 Conditions were not good but we continued to make contacts.
 Dave is usually S9. Even though we were getting closer to the
 hill his signals were relatively weak, at times only an S2. To give
 you an idea of how poor conditions were, when we are within
 200 kM, 125 miles, it usually doesn't matter if you peak carefully,
 signals will be S9 even from the low power stations. At 140 kM
 we could barely hear the lower power stations.

 I've been told that Paul, WØUC, came up the hill and made
 short range Q's with the Buck Hill ops. He didn't try to work
 the rovers as he only had a bare bones transverter with about
 5 mW output. Glad you could make it to the hill Paul. I hope
 you can get the power output up for next year.

 Later in the day Donn, Chris and Holly made it up to the hill.
 They were worked from a number of stops.

 We tried to work Gary, GHZ, at his home a number of times,
 nothing was heard either way.

 Since conditions were so poor we decided to call it a day at
 about 2:30 PM. However, Ed, NBØM, finally made it to the
 hill, at what was going to be our last stop. We weren't
 able to work him so I talked the other rovers into one more
 stop, our ninth of the day, just so Ed could get a few Q's and make
 his trip up the hill worth while.. We ended the day only 130 kM
 from the hill. Again, signals were terrible.We were in a constant
 drizzle and fog. I know that the hill was getting rained on too. They
 will have to fill in the details.

 At one of our last sites we could see a line wind
 mills out in the field. The tops of the blades were visible at first..
 As the others were working the hill the blades started to get
 lost in the low clouds/fog. There were more towers to our
 west, as time passed, one by one, they disappeared into the
 fog. Signals from the hill dropped at the same time.
 It's hard to pick a good site when you can't see more then
 quarter mile away. On a normal day most of the sites would
 have been chip shots..

 Jon, ZQ, has the skew T data from Chanhassen. It showed
 normal propagation conditions above about 500 ft. Below that
 you could see that there was excessive bending of the signals.
 It seems as though our 10 G signals didn't get out of that lower
 layer so that we could use normal troposcatter propagation.

 When I got back into the cities I wanted to see if I could make
 a few more Q's with any locals who hadn't been on the air. I
 went to the Burnsville office park site. It has become overgrown
 with trees along the edge of the parking lot and down the hill.
 It's hard to find a good operating  site. I gave up as it was so
 foggy that couldn't see the Minneapolis buildings. I went to the
 Park and Ride east of the Mall Of America. I still couldn't see
 the buildings but I did know the general heading. Gary, GHZ,
 was willing to beacon off of the buildings so I could peak.
 I worked Gary and then Lenny, KØSHF. Lenny was
 working out of his bedroom window so signals were pretty weak.
 John, WØJT, heard us on 2M FM and wanted to make a few more
 Q's too. John was adventurous enough to go up Buck Hill. Gary and
 I both worked John. He never did make contact with Lenny. John
 told me that it was an pretty slippery coming down the hill. .

 Our longest contacts for the weekend occurred both days on
 our first Q's. The distance was 247 kM.

 Due to the poor weather and conditions I only had 158 contacts
 the second weekend.

 Subject to minor checking my total for the contest weekends are
 27 unique calls, 73,113 distance points for a total of 75,813.
 I stopped at 41 sites during both weekends and had 364 Q's.
 This is up about 20,000 points and over 100 Q's more then last year.

 If you took pictures on the hill or when with the rovers, I would
 appreciate getting copies. I enjoy looking at the during the winter
 months.


 What do we want to do next year? I know Barry and Fast Eddie
 would like us to operate on Lake Superior. I would be interested
 in going up there for the August weekend even though the number
 of operating sites is limited. My interest would be in working
 24 G across the lake to the UP. We would need to have capable
 systems on the UP and I would have to improve my equipment too.
 Since we now have more experience, better equipment,
 specifically frequency accuracy, more power and larger dishes
 we might be able to make the path on 10 G from the North Shore
 to WaWa.

 The last hurrah for the microwave season is the Microwave
 Sprint on Saturday October 22nd. It runs from 7 AM to 1 PM
 local time. Scoring is distance based this year. You can use
 all the bands from 900 MHz and up. If the weather is favorable
 I am willing to get on with 10 G and maybe 24 G, WBFM
 and/ or narrow band modes. How about the rest of you?


 .
 On thing that the rovers noted, and was probably true to
 those of the hill, was that there was a BIG disparity in
 signal strength from the ops on the hill. Those on the hill
 will have to comment about the relative signal strengths
 of the rovers. In many cases the 2 and 3 W systems
 had signals that were only a little bit better and sometimes
 about the same as Mike's 200 mW equipment which always
 seems to work pretty well. I don't know if it's because some
 of the ops could hear the rovers pretty well and didn't think
 they needed to fully peak their dishes or, more likely, we have
 a number of systems that are performing poorly.
 Most of the rovers were running 6-8W. I do know that it was
 easier for me to peak the dish when one of the lower power
 stations was the last one to turn off their beacon.

 I think we need to have a fix-it clinic(s) next year. We can
 measure the power outputs of the rigs, power at the antenna feed,
 antenna gains, Return Loss of the feeds and RX sensitivity.
 These test don't need to all occur on the same day. We
 should have a July tune-up/ test out day too. We didn't
 do one this year.

 Another suggestion is, if you know you will be operating at the
 fixed site, try to get a bigger dish on your system. By going from
 an 18" dish to a 3/4 M dish system gain can be improved by
 4.5 dB for the same dish efficiency. You gain that on both TX
 and RX. Yes, it is harder to aim. I have done a side-by-side
 comparison of an 18" and a 75 cm dishes. Even with an extra
 1 dB of feed line loss to the bigger dish the signal strength
 improvement was dramatic.

 If you have any comments, corrections, suggestions or additions
 please let me know.

 Thanks to everyone who got on this year. Don't forget to
 send in you logs.

 73, Gary  WBØLJC

 .