KA6U Update - August 24, 2022 - 1700UTC 

West Virginia Activation Complete

Thank-you everyone who called during the two day operation in West Virginia, FM19bg this week.  36 QSOs logged and uploaded to LoTW.  23cm WAS completed by two and several others are very close.

I do not have any additional activations planned until at least August 29th.  If my roving vehicle brakes are fixed this Friday, the 26th, I will do an activation in MD starting on August 29 at about 1300UTC after the New Moon.

If the repair does not happen until next week, I will get started again the day after the repairs are completed.

After MD I will activate Virginia.

Please watch this page for updates over the weekend.

The remaining states planned for this trip in order are:

• Maryland - FM19
• Virginia - FM19
• Tennessee
• North Carolina
• South Carolina

Unfortunately due to delays some of these activations will be at Moon elevations that are not good for EU stations.  If this is the case I will come back and activate these states again with high declination.  I will be doing several trips from Florida to Washington DC area and back over the next year.

I may be able to do Georgia also, however it may be difficult to stop after almost 4 months on the road when I am only 4 hours from home :-)

I plan to activate Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana this Fall.

I may also get back to New Mexico this Fall.

Over the last two days my 23cm station has performed better than it has over the full trip.  This is while running in the parking lot of an urban area.  I received consistent signal reports on my TX signal that were the highest of my trip.  My RX performance appeared to be about 3db better also based on how easily I found some of the smaller stations (but still bigger than mine) compared to previous stops.

I carefully inspected my dish and used spare parts provided by W2HRO Paul to do minor repairs.  After the repairs the dish shape was noticeably better.

73 KA6U Peter