Moon Pass March 9th/10th

Complete QSOs:
FK8CP, UA3PTW, RX1AS, I3MEK, UR3EE, S52LM, OK1IL, SM5DIC, SM6NOC, IK4WLV, DL2HWA, ZS6JON, IK2DDR, SP4KM, SK5AA, ZS4TX, IW4ARD, S56P, DK4RC, SM2BYC, S57M.

Not Complete:
YO5BIN.

Story
After a 10 hour night drive from JO30RN and bumpy ferry crossing Jersey welcomed us with sunshine and nice weather - which sadly did not last long. Setup inhouse was quickly completed, outside it took a little longer for a number of different reasons but was finally completed at 1300Z. After 1400Z we made some tropo QSOs in FT8 with JO30, JO31 (roughly 700 km) with loud signals though our antennas were at just 2 m height only which meant everything was working fine. At moonrise we look a little downhill slope with the sea in about 2 km and France at the horizon.

Before we started operations on our dedicated frequency 144,114 MHz we ran two skeds with stations from Oceania and New Zealand on a different frequency for reasons of their really short window with us which is even getting shorter and shorter every day. We trust everybody will understand the reasons. At least with FK8CP (RG37FR) we completed a QSO.

Next moonpath which starts at 1918Z we will again try the 15 minutes common window with  ZL3NW on a different frequency and we ask please not to call in. Then we'll move to .114, MJ/DH7FB calling first. We will stay up until we loose moon due to the building but we should still see the Western USA before.

Some trouble arose with local French and GJ stations believing they needed to call us in JT65, SSB and CW while we were doing EME, and sometimes just tuning on our frequency. That was no fun and destroyed some QSOs. We hope this situation will not return next pass.

WX was not our friend, it's cold, very windy and was raining heavily last night. Long periods we had S5 - S9 static noise which finally killed our preamp. Since it was 2200 h local here and one of us was already sleeping after having stayed up > 36 hours without sleep operations were ceased: A single person at night with just a torch could not replace a LNA in our LNA box while it was raining heavily. Now the LNA is replaced and we look forward to a successful 2nd moon pass from here.

70 cm operations are scheduled for Wednesday.


Please use Lance W7GJ Procedure!
In order to help us use the time efficiently and speed up the QSO process we ask you all to use the W7GJ EME procedure. It is described at the right side at "How To Maximize Chances Working Us".

                                                   Can you find the antennas on the picture?