Nov 24
144 MHz MMC
7/8 November 2009: 46 QSOs on 144 MHz with ODX 772 km in MMC.

10 GHz EME
7 November 2009: See the story in another entry.

WSPR
24 November 2009: WSPR (now version 2.0) ran almost every night on 40m with the softrock. Activity is increasing and this is interesting to see how propagation behaves really.
6 November 2009: I ran the WSPR on my Softrock RXTX for several nights with 0,5w of output power. This was very successful with my signal heard woldwide again. The 40m activity day on 4 November produced a stunning activity.

Posted by Christoph Petermann

Nov 8
This weekend there was not only EME going on. Throughout the weekend, I made 46 QSOs in the contest, with a total time at the rig of about 2 hours. Best DX was OE2 at about 772 km distance. VHF contests are no good from my place. Direction south is somewhat shaded and there is no direct sight of the horizon.

Posted by Christoph Petermann

Nov 7
I went to DK7LJ/DL0SHF on Saturday (7 November) morning to try some 10 GHz moonbounce. 13cm was not possible TX wise. A lot of stations could be heard although. While Per DK7LJ tried to find the fault inside the 13cm rig, I actvited the 10 GHz equipment. When I first heard the echoes I thought, aha not bad, but not strong. After adding the QRO amp giving about +11 dB,echoes were more than fine :-). I found IQ4DF and worked him immediately. Things were complicated (for me) as the morse keyer was not working and I had to use the CwType software. Little later WA7CJO came back with a big signal on a CQ. Then I heard someone calling, but could not figure out the callsign. Until then we had been RXing and TXing horizontal. When we switched to vertical receiving things went better. Suddenly IQ4DF was a big signal and I could work W5LUA, F2TU, WA6PY, ON5TA and ES5PC in a row. Signals became weaker as the moon dropped below 20 degrees of elevation and I stopped with the moon being at about 15 degrees. Sorry for I could not go there on Sunday too, but I had to look after the kiddies here .. The 10 GHz dish is not working correctly, we estimate a performance similar to a 2 .. 2,5m diameter type in the moment. Nevertheless I was pleased to work so many old friends in that short time, and weak signals and especially weak EME signal still have a one-of-a-kind fascination to me.

Posted by Christoph Petermann