ARRL EME CONTEST 2020 - second leg - 1296 MHz

I tied 52 QSOs in the first round of the ARRL EME contest. For the second round in November, I made a few minor adjustments to the septum feed, which I extended on the ascent by a square-circle transition and used the circular output for the second mode as calculated for W2IMU. This put me at a Sun Noise value of 11dB/CSN. As I'm on a time slide with the construction of the 8m offset dish, I also used a 260cm offset dish for the second round. The assembly used was therefore dish 260cm, 500W RF on feed and G4DDK VLNA 0,2dB N/F. Right at the start of the contest I managed to connect with CE3VRT which was the new country DXCC #116 and also the new JT init.  Alejandro uses 180cm dish and 50W on the feed. Conditions seemed good during the contest. However, there was a signal in the moon overhead due to the librations as well as in the 23-cm spread 50-70 Hz. In the second round, I tied another 84 QSOs and ended up with a score of 136 QSOs for the entire contest. I was very surprised by the activity from the US this year, working with many new stations. The Gene KB7Q, with his new 180cm and 300W power antenna, was a multiplier from Montana, a rare WAS state. The contest brought me a total of 18 new JT initials and 2 new CW initials. One connection to LX1DB was SSB 57/59. By next year, I'll hopefully be a QRV with a new antenna. I wish everyone a peaceful Christmas and I look forward to hearing from via Moon. Worked in second round were:

ARRL EME CONTEST 2020 - first leg - 1296 MHz
In the first round of this year's EME ARRL I was a QRV with a parabolic dish offset of 2.6m diameter. For the contest I made a new collar for the septum feed, which I have been using since 2000. New dish has F/D 0,6. Because I had finished making the feed just before the start of contest, there was no time for any experimentation and positioning. The next days after the contest, I saw the feeds and optimized the feed itself by having the SWR feed at -36dB and hearing my own -16dB reflections back. S/CS is 10dB. I look forward to round two in the November. Worked in first round were: