Hello lunatics,
first a big thank you to all fellow-EMEers, who
worked us and did not disclose the call during our stay on Aland, in
order not to spoil the fun for others, who had to decode the call for
themselves. Interesting enough some stations thought until this morning
we were on OJ0, hi. Perhaps this might be the destination for a new
DXpedition?? Well, we think we had enough storms with this one…next
will be calmer, hopefully. Yes, we are on Aland, OH0, a group of 4500
islands with only 28000 residents, located 2 hours by ferry in front of
the Swedish East coast, but belonging to Finland. It is a really nice,
picturesque place – if there is no storm, which seems to be very
common during autumn and winter. Our holiday home was located in JP90sf
at the West coast of one of the main islands near Eckerö.
The idea, not to disclose where we are, was born in the European moon reflector discussing the question, what a real random QSO is all about. OK, 140 of our 150 QSO´s, which we made in the last 8 days on 4 bands were “really” random for both sides, whereas we had sometimes the more difficult part, as we had to decode many, many different stations, often in huge pile ups – but CW is king! 23 and 13 cm were really fun and very easy. We heard continuously our own echoes and were copied by many stations, so the optimi sations we made was worth the effort during the months after MI. The 9 cm - band is still difficult as our signal still is not as stable in frequency as it should be. The weakest band now seems to be 70 cm, here is room to improve.
During this morning we were again on 23 cm and worked several stations dupe for the contest and as initials: HB9Q, DL4MEA, LZ2US, OK3RM, PY2BS (JT), HB9SV, UT5JCW, K5JL, K8EB, RD3YA, W5LUA, IK2MMB, WW2R, IW2FZR, SM3LBN.
In total we made 96 qso´s on 23 cm and worked 67 initials in 32 DXCC´s.
Now we are awfully tired, because we were out for sightseeing during daytime and EME during the dark, but there was not enough time for sleeping – we urgently need holidays, hi
The dish was knocked down in the afternoon, the stuff is packed into the car (difficult enough!), and tomorrow morning we are on our way back home.
The idea, not to disclose where we are, was born in the European moon reflector discussing the question, what a real random QSO is all about. OK, 140 of our 150 QSO´s, which we made in the last 8 days on 4 bands were “really” random for both sides, whereas we had sometimes the more difficult part, as we had to decode many, many different stations, often in huge pile ups – but CW is king! 23 and 13 cm were really fun and very easy. We heard continuously our own echoes and were copied by many stations, so the optimi sations we made was worth the effort during the months after MI. The 9 cm - band is still difficult as our signal still is not as stable in frequency as it should be. The weakest band now seems to be 70 cm, here is room to improve.
During this morning we were again on 23 cm and worked several stations dupe for the contest and as initials: HB9Q, DL4MEA, LZ2US, OK3RM, PY2BS (JT), HB9SV, UT5JCW, K5JL, K8EB, RD3YA, W5LUA, IK2MMB, WW2R, IW2FZR, SM3LBN.
In total we made 96 qso´s on 23 cm and worked 67 initials in 32 DXCC´s.
Now we are awfully tired, because we were out for sightseeing during daytime and EME during the dark, but there was not enough time for sleeping – we urgently need holidays, hi
The dish was knocked down in the afternoon, the stuff is packed into the car (difficult enough!), and tomorrow morning we are on our way back home.
A big thanks to all, who shared this experience with
us, M & M-team hopes you had the same fun we had during the past
week. For those we could not dig out of the mud: past a DXpedition
is before a DXpedition…CU from ????
73/88 de M&M
this
night we were at first qrv on 70 cm, than on 23 cm. 70 cm was a hard
piece of work, because it is now obviously our weakest band after we
optimised the 3 other bands. In contrast to 23, 13 and 9 cm, we don’t
hear our own echoes, so we have to find the exact position of moon with
the signals of other stations and this was the real problem, because of
the broad beamwidth of the dish on 70 cm. It was frustrating to hear
stations calling, but to be unable to get the calls out of the “mud”
with a high level of librations fading, especially if 2 stations were
calling at the same time. So we worked this night additionally HB9Q,
DL7APV, G3LTF, DL9KR, UA3PTW, SP6JLW, OK1KIR, K1RQG, OZ4MM, DF3RU,
K1JT/K2UYH before changing the feed to 23 cm. Sorry for those, who
called, but were not heard! Still not really certain, if the new H/V-switchable
short backfire loop feed is advantageous in the stressed dish…some
reports were encouraging, th ough. Will have to work on improvement of
LNA, the current one is at 0.45 dB NF…well, the winter is long and
every tenth of a dB counts.
23 cm
was again very easy, so we worked in the remaining time of our limited
moon window: DL0SHF, LA9NEA, SP6JLW, DF3RU, IQ4DF, OK1DFC, IZ1BPN, W6YX,
SM6FHZ, RA3AQ, OH2DG. Tomorrow
it will be the last chance on 23 cm to work XXX/DL1YMK – nearly 100
stations, who worked us on the 4 bands already know, that this is a very
interesting DXCC! We will start Sunday, around 0100 UT and end
around 11 UT to knock down the dish and stuff all bits and pieces in the
car.
Vy
73 de M&M
Sunset in Aland
Landscape of Aland
Installing 23cm feed
Work place with 13cm units and new SSPA
Position of dish during QSO with VK3UM
M&M team front of dish.
M&M team at the station
