KA6U Update -  June 25, 2022 2100UTC

I have completed the activation in DN21px in Nevada.

I have corrected LoTW to show Nevada for the state. :-)

If you want paper QSL's please send to W6TCP, Ian (see QRZ.com for address)

I left to go to the site at 1:30AM local time and returned to hotel at 1:30PM local time.

DN21 in Nevada above.  Tomorrow's activation site is close-by across the border into Idaho.

The location is only 1 mile from my hotel.  Shortest drive to activation site ever.  2M antennas on tripod.

Operating plan for Sunday June 26, 2022 - DN21 Idaho

• 23cm and 2M EME at about 0400UTC
• 70cm EME at about 1000UTC - 1200UTC (pending completion with 2M callers)
• I will continue 23cm EM3 if required
• 222 EME and/or MS 1200UTC - 1500UTC
• Leave by 1600UTC to drive to Oregon/Washington border, Kennewick, WA (8 hour drive)
• Plan to arrive in WA by 2400UTC (5PM local time)
• Stay in Kennewick for 6 days until July 2nd.  Activations in OR and WA
• No activations during New Moon
• Leave for Billings, Montana on July 2nd

On my end conditions were difficult on 2M, 70cm and 222 at times (most of the time).  There appeared to be strong Faraday impact on these three bands resulting in lockout on my end and requiring changing POL on RX and TX.  In some cases signals that should have been very strong were weak or non visible at times.  Eventually conditions improved.

Because of the difficult conditions I wasn't able to pay a lot of attention to 2M.

Many of the QSO's today resulted in new states for operators.

All of the stations worked great with no setup or operating issues.  I was able to run 23cm and 2M concurrently for several hours.

I had one minor issue.  The ICOM705 exciter for 70cm was overheating resulting in 70cm PA output reduction from 600W to 300W.  I solved the overheating issue by building an air duct running from one of the truck air conditioning events directly to the ICOM705.  The 705 then ran cool and I could operate 70cm at full power.  The duct is made from my spare side window sun/heat reflector :-)

The photos below show how equipment and cables are stowed in the truck.  Note that the new 23cm PA is in a box in the truck bed with 110 to 220 auto-transformer to left.

All of the cables for the 23cm station and the EME antenna tripod are coiled and stored in the back of the pickup bed.  23cm station setup this morning took less than 15 minutes.  The gas container can run both generators at full power for 12 hours.

The two generators drop into the truck bed behind the 23cm PA and the slew drive rotator assembly for the 23cm dish

 

Station setup now requires the minimum possible number of connectors and connector "operations".  Most of my failures have been with cables.  For example the 23cm rotator is directly connected now the rotator controller with no intermediate cables.  All connections to the PAs are made through silver-plated N-N female connectors and the cables connected to PAs, exciters, etc. are never directly touched.  Where it could be possible to connect wrong cables, the type of connectors M/F are selected to it is not possible to make an incorrect connection.  I had some special cables made up with specific terminations to prevent incorrect connections and minimize adapter use.