Apr 29

RadioActivity April 2010

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50 MHz
22 April 2010: EA6NB is this year's first Sporadic-E station in my log !

144 MHz EME
26 April 2010: Worked DK2PH as number 90 on 2m
23 .. 24 April 2010: Worked SM5CFS, OK1UGA, T70A and PE1L. And I had a partial with ZL3TY - would have been too nice ...

I have my converter (144-28 MHz) with the SDR-IQ running with Linrad and MAP65-IQ. This shows me the complete JT65 activity on 2m now. Great stuff.

144 MHz
06 April 2010: Aurora after long time !!! Big signals were audible on 2m and 6m.

432 MHz EME
16 .. 18 April 2010: Echoes of Apollo Event. See entry on this site.

Posted by Christoph Petermann

Apr 25

Echoes of Apollo

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What a success !

I first setup my portable station in our garden on the evening of 16 April. In parallel I watched the live video stream from Arecibo in the internet. I early knew, that their PA was broken and so I did not receive any EME signals. But when they turned to CW, I immediately could copy them. Weak but Q4 .. Q5. So I decided to take the equipment to the AFT (Aschberg Frühjahrs Treffen), a local Astronomy Meeting, on the evening of 17 April. Just before the event started, I gave a short lecture about what this meant. I had about 20 listeners. The signals from Arecibo came strong enough in SSB that everyone around could understand what they were telling. I estimate, there were more than 50 visitors coming and listening to the noise and the voices of the operators at KP4AO.



The station I used was my IC820H, about 2m of RG58 cable, a GaAs-Fet amplifier with a noise figure of about 0,6dB and a short 10 element antenna on a tripod. The moon was well visible all the time. While others were listening I took the chance and observed the moon through a 12" Dobsonian telescope.

More images of the event on the AFT

Look at the Short Video of my setup
Somewhat more detailed write-up of the event.

Echoes of Apollo is an event to remember the landings on the moon in the late 60s and early 70s. This event brings a large number of amateur radio stations AND science stations to be active.

Look here : Echoes of Apollo
and here : WorldMoonbounceDay

Times in April:
Apr 16 1645 - 1930 UTC
Apr 17 1740 - 2020 UTC
Apr 18 1840 - 2125 UTC

Posted by Christoph Petermann