[Moon] Microwave Activity weekends 2015

Tue Feb 10 09:49:20 CET 2015

Hi John, Yes, you are absolutely right, the idea is to encourage new stations to come on the higher bands. As the introduction points out, the hope is that these “old people” stations with big signals come on and provide a beacon. Stations like LX1DB,OK1KIR and W5LUA have generously done this in the past. People then know that there is a good chance of hearing a signal. We re-started this idea ( which comes from the very early days of EME) about 7 years ago now and I think it has been quite sucessful. My first venture on to 6cm was in one of the AWs with a 7w PA loaned by Brian G4NNS and if I look at my 9 and 6cm lists about half of the 50 or so initials there are from the AWs.
The reason that we have promoted these weekends in the summer months is simply weather, often when people put together stuff for a new band its a temporary job thrown together to try it out. Thats easier in the summer.
As regards winter AWs, anyone can propose them... the only reason that I put these emails out is that it seems a good idea and it usually gets support.... no “authority” needed,  just find some dates and suggest them just as Peter SM2CEW does for 432MHz CW ATPs
What is happening on 3cm is interesting and I suspect that some of it has to do with there being a strong beacon signal available, audible on sub 1m dishes.
73 Peter 
From: g4bao 
Sent: Monday, February 09, 2015 10:54 PM
To: Peter Blair 
Cc: freetalk moonnet ; Moon-Net ; Al Katz 
Subject: Re: [Moon] Microwave Activity weekends 2015

Hi Peter,  
Speaking as relative newbie to EME, who's QTH precludes me from ever having a 10m dish and 1kW, these weekends should aim to generate NEW activity, not the same old people coming on again and again and working each other. That soon gets very boring for everyone very quickly.

Therefore, I think its a no brainer to include 13cm as it should be considered "next band up" by the many 23cm EMErs out there who are in similar QTHs as me. I certainly will try to support that band unless (as usually seems to happen) I'm on vacation that weekend. Can I suggest  we also have some Winter activity weekends? Why none already or am I missing something?

Activity seems at the moment to be at an all time low on 13, I guess that's because it's "old hat" to those who've been around for a long time and "been there, done that" and there is much more activity on 23. They will be getting bored soon so we need to point the way to the next band. In fact, I see more activity on 3cm, but that is not a "beginner" band whereas 13 can be.

Hope these thoughts are helpful.

Those who want to read more about what can be achieved with a "REALLY" small dish (not a 3m one which seems to be considered small by some!) look at.

http://www.g4bao.com/Files/MRT2010.pdf
http://www.g4bao.com/Files/G4BAO_MRT2013.pdf 

73
John
www.g4bao.com  

On 8 February 2015 at 11:09, Peter Blair <g3ltf at btinternet.com> wrote:

  For newcomers: The idea of activity weekends is to encourage activity on the less well used microwave bands outside contest weekends, no restrictions... if you wish then use the logger, telephone, HF....use any mode. It enables everyone to make QSOs, test new equipment, feeds, preamps etc. Hopefully some of the big guns get on and give signals for newcomers to look for.  In past years I have suggested dates but last year I screwed up and left it rather late so this year I’m trying to be a bit earlier. I’m assuming that there is still support for the idea. 

  My thoughts for this year are as follows.
  1) High Northern declination weekends give the highest number of participants, otherwise SM, W6 and KL7 get a very short window. The VKs have less of a horizon problem than us in the N, if there’s a tree in the way they just cut it down. We cannot have, at present, high N dec. and low loss, but remember the loss variation is only +/- 1.2dB.
  2) Should we  include 13cm this year? Activity has been dropping recently but IMHO it is the best band for EME ( lowest sky noise, plenty of SS power and low NFs and HB dishes easy to achieve)
  3) Should we leave out 24 GHz this year and go for 13,9,6 and 3cm?
  4) I can see four weekends that look reasonable .. date, declination, loss.  (One of these dates I can’t make because of a granddaughter’s wedding but I wont say which one.) Maybe you have other weekends  to suggest?
    June 20/21 12 deg  2.2dB
  July 11/12  14 deg  1.25dB
  July 18/19 10 deg  2.3dB
  August 8/9 15deg  1.4dB
  If you are active on these bands or planning to be active this year then please give this some thought on bands and dates and reply to the reflectors with them and we’ll try and get a schedule together.
  Note that the latest VK3UM planner software now makes looking for suitable dates very simple. http://www.vk3um.com/eme%20planner.html
  73 Peter G3LTF 

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