[NLRS] Eclipse-o-Mania --- Long, but I hope entertaining

[Bill Davis]

  Pat and I arrived back in MN last night after the 13 1/2 hr drive back from the Missouri farm. A successful 10GHz weekend as well as eclipse viewing. Because of the eclipse, it seemed only logical to operate the 10GHz Aug weekend in MO, hoping to make a few new 10GHz friends and work a few old friends too. 

  Some background on our trip --
About 3 weeks ago during Gary W0GHZ and my twice daily 10Ghz skeds, we found conditions a bit above normal. I decided I would take the portable 10GHz system down to the dock and see if I could work him. The portable system had set the almost 3 years since my last rove. I heard Gary, not strong, but well. I called him but he heard nothing. I don't recall why, but I was very hurried and wrote it off as the difference in power and quickly brought things back to the house. I thought I recalled normal RF indication when I STARTED beaconing.

Flash forward Aug 9th ... I had a restless night and had a premonition about 6am ... I felt that the reason Gary did not hear me, was that the Qualcom power supply for my Qualcom PA had failed. I could NOT go back to sleep, ended up coming down to the basement and discovering that INDEED, the power supply had failed. I had 2 unknown spare power supplies and one was ok. In the end I ordered parts and repaired the two dead power supplies. One had bad caps and the other had a failed LTC1044 voltage converter chip for the -5V. That is the way it all started ... 
----

  In MO, I had only operated from a location about 3 miles from the farm EM39ka great horizon from 97deg on around to the SW. So that was a start. I spent 3+ days searching for other possible locations using Google Earth and Street View. Identified only three pretty certain locations and a half dozen possibles. On the way down, we visited my first new Mt Leonard, MO site ... EM39hc ... GREAT location. Thursday 17th, after driving 660miles down the day before, I drove another 220 miles between 6:45am and 2pm. Not a single "possible" location was usable, one "good one" was "so so" and the one farthest away (Over an hour from the farm) was truly good. EM38ng. This was the location I would use to work KO0Z and family, hopefully many times from Sat and Sunday.
---- Contest time ---

  Saturday 8am on location in EM39hr, first up WA2VOI, KC0IYT, KA9VVQ, W9FZ, KC0SKM  SSB at 320km. Good start from sure. Signals from S6 to S1. These are the only stations we expected to work from this location other than WB0JQQ in EM39cu 91km. Quickly worked Randy on SSB 59 / 59. This was only Randy's 2nd 10GHz contact, with his first being about a mile. With these QSOs our day was "made already". Bruce suggested I try the northern pack, "what a dreamer". Got Jon's phone number and called him, they could run at that moment.  "Bang" N0AKC, K0CQ and K0KFC located in EN12hh 491km were in the log. Q5 S1 CW. This is getting better! Then Jon said I should check with Radar hill, again "oh sure!". Got Jim's MHC's number called him, worked K0KFC, K0MHC, WB0LJC EN03sb 613km away S9 - S9+ SSB .... WOW!!  Waited for KO0Z availability only to find out too many trees in the way. Made the 1 1/2hr trip to EM38ng. Set up and was there from 11:45am to 5:30pm to only work Kevin AF7OI and KI7GVT in EN20kt  51 to 53 SSB. Returned to the EM39ka farm site and worked AF4JF in EM49rq CW and SSB.
--- Sunday ---
  Went to early church, after church still thunderstorms ..... 11am went to the EM39ka site. Carried EVERYTHING about 250ft from the road into a pasture where I could "see" 90deg heading. Worked Herbert AF4JF and N0PQU located in EM38xw 5-8 SSB in the first 5 min AFTER being rained on heavily for about 20min. Umbrella covering the 10GHz system and my rain coat cover everything else in a pile in the pasture. Lightning popping all around making me fear for my life running back to the fence and crawling over the metal gate to get back in the car wondering when the wind would blow the umbrella away or blow water all over the 10GHz gear. ARGH  ... Once the rain was over,  Worked Kevin and XYL twice more from EM38xw 112km and EM39os 88km. At 4pm at last worked Ron KO0Z and family for the first time after 2 days of trying, alas at only 138km sad to say. In the process of working Ron it was discovered that his battery booster was OFF ... TX drift was so rapid I could barely track him with the 290R "indent" tuning. Signal only about S4, not as strong as expected. Once that was resolved, Ron had multiple 817 issues crop up making his operation a nightmare. It is unknown how long one or both of the issues had haunted Ron as we had tried MANY MANY times during the two days. I had had enough of 87deg, rain and unrelenting sun. I had had nothing to eat since 7am and headed back to "my old MO home". Started to eat and my phone ran, Ron was in EM39wf, his old farm home and wanted to run. It was 6pm by now, took a couple of bites of food and went out and set up in the front yard. The idea was to work rainscatter off of a storm that was to the EAST of us BOTH .... backscatter ..... WIDE signals .... 817 issues verging  on unsolvable. After 45 min we were at last able to work on FM ... rain scatter / backscatter with the most marginal of signals.   EOL

  I had thought many times prior to the trip, do I really want to haul everything to MO and try 10GHz ... so many pitfalls and roving alone. So many struggles getting parts in time and repairing power supply boards in case I had a failure while in MO. Saturday my nephew KE0CYV kept me company and documented my operations. His first chance to see roving and 10GHz!  It will be fun to update my 10Ghz web page with the assistance of his photos and a video of my best ever 10GHz tropo QSOs. It was indeed worth it. GREAT memories

19 unique calls and about 7,000 distance points. For me it's not about the score, it is about the challenges and joy of QSOs on 10Ghz. Great fun. Thanks guys!! 
  ---- Oh Yes, the eclipse ----
  I had to make a semi emergency trip to the Honda dealer 60miles away to resolve a total failure of the airbag system in our Accord. Clouds covered the farm, I arrived back at the farm 3min before totality, clouds diminished to thin overcast through totality and cleared completely immediately after totality. Wonderful experience with 12 family members from 93 to 10yrs of age, all marveling at this rare astronomical event with the center of totality only 3 miles away. Breathtaking ... 



73  Bill  K0AWU