[NLRS] The desirability of 3456 MHz for the June contest?

[Jon Platt]

Congratulations on the soon-to-be new ham there David.  
Regarding 3456 antennas, here are my thoughts:   
   - Directive Systems makes several 9cm loop yagis.  Many of us rovers use their 5' boom model with 20 dBi gain.  Current price is $110 unassembled, $160 assembled.
   - At 3456, a 19" dish will have roughly the same amount of gain as the 5' loop yagi. maybe a few dB more.  You will need to come up with a feed.   
   - You can hunt around on the web and find some good bargains on dishes.  Still need a 9cm feed.
   - Regarding homebrew, probably better to go the dish route and work on a feed rather than a yagi or loop yagi.  At 3456 it may be harder to maintain tighter manufacturing tolerances for elements.  
   - A horn would be easy to build but big and lower gain.
I have no set plans myself for the June contest, so I could be portable/rover with 30 watts and my 5' yagi on that band, tbd.   
Let us know how your project list works out !
73, JonW0ZQ



-----Original Message-----
From: David Palm <thepalmhq at gmail.com>
To: NLRS List <nlrs at mailman.qth.net>; Badger Contesters List <badgercontesters at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Fri, May 8, 2020 8:03 am
Subject: [NLRS] The desirability of 3456 MHz for the June contest?

Hey folks,

I'm proposing this with some hesitancy because, to put it bluntly, I don't
follow through well on my ham radio aspirations.  With the lock-down I now
have three children at home again.  But I do also have a furlough from work
the first week of June and so I have an eye to what I could do that week to
get ready for the June contest.  One thing for sure I need to do is get an
amplifier working on 1296 so that I have a better footprint on that band.

My specific question has to do with 3456 MHz.  I have the ability to
receive and to generate some RF on that band (up to, say, 100 mW, having
sold my 3.4 GHz PA some time ago).  I would need to cobble together some
sort of antenna.  I could rove up to the St. Charles corner to make some
contacts.  If all went perfectly, I'd have a newly licensed daughter with
me (she's supposed to take a Technican class and the exam on June 6) so it
could be two contacts if we were able to use SSB (a long shot, I know.)

My general question is whether that would be realistic and worthwhile to
others.  If so, I'll make the effort.  If not, I'll skip it and focus on
other things.  If this would be useful to others then I'd need some
recommendations on a quick but effective antenna to build in the meantime
and some direction on who to look for and when.

73,

David  W9HQ
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