KA6U Update - October 23, 2023 1100UTC

October 2023 Roving Trip Complete

Thanks everyone who called me during the October roving trip.

245 902 QSOs in the log from 25 states.  Total distance traveled was about 7,000 miles in 21 days.

W5LUA, Al completed 902 WAS.  W7JW and ON4AOI completed 70cm WAS and hopefully on Wednesday ZS4TX will also complete 70cm WAS.  I think another 10 operators should have 25+ states confirmed by now on 902.  Please email me an updated list of the states you still need.

The portable station worked well.  The 2.4M dish from Paul W2HRO worked great.  Thanks to Dan W5AFY for the loan of the 250 watt PA.

A few problems with cables, connectors, relays and rotators however in most cases I was able to resolve the issues and complete activations.  By the end of the trip the setup/packing time for the 902 station took less than 10 minutes.

In most cases the weather was excellent with temperatures from 29F to 80F.  Light rain at a few stops.  I was able to see the Moon at about 2/3 of the stops, other operations were under overcast conditions.  One stop was affected by too much wind.

Most activations were done from the side of rural roads in quiet areas.

RF noise was not as significant as I thought it would be.  On only one occasion was it necessary to move the activation location because of noise.  The most common type of noise was loud strong "clicks" that happened at one second intervals.  Some vehicles generated broadband noise which I also see on 23cm.  Power lines and outdoor lighting did not seem to be an issue.

Faraday rotation was interesting and challenging.  I removed the polarity switching from my station (problem with relay) and the home stations did the polarity switching.  In many cases the home stations had to switch polarity between TX and RX.   Close polarity switching coordination over HB9Q chat worked very well.

Circular polarity will be the best choice for 902 EME.  I think if I was using circular polarity with the 2.4M dish and only 250W it may have been difficult to complete some QSOs.  In the future I plan to run 500W which should be plenty to work with circular polarity.  I typically saw 7-8 db of Sun noise on RX.  I could operate without Sun noise impact as long as the Sun and Moon were separated by at least 10 degrees.  This means that in most cases two days are not available during the new Moon period.

We don't know yet if 2.4M base stations will be able to reliably work my 2.4M portable station.

3M and larger dishes with 400W can work me reliably at this point.

I had many visitors.  As usual weather chasing and talking to aliens were the most common opinions about what I was doing.  I actually had someone ask about aliens!  Several visitors where ham operators.

At several operating locations in rural areas the corn harvest was underway.  Several farmers told me that the harvest was good even with the drought conditions during this growing season.

I chose many of my travel routes to use US highways when possible and not the Interstate highways.  Many spectacular sites during the trip.  The mountains were snow covered due to the first significant snow event about 10 days ago.

Most of the driving was in daylight hours. Most days I drove about 5 hours.  On one day I had 14 hours of driving time.   I did one 5 hour drive starting at 3am local time across the Wyoming prairie.  I expected to see wildlife on the road and was not surprised or disappointed.  I drove at 45mph (speed limit 70) and encountered deer three times and coyotes twice.  On one of the deer "stops" I actually drove through a herd of about 10 deer which were in no hurry to leave the road.  Too bad I didn't have a dashboard camera.

This winter I plan continue doing 902 EME activations east of the Rocky Mountains.  In particular I will cover the Southeastern states I have not activated yet.  I will probably do another trip as far west as Washington state in the Spring of 2024.  I will probably do a short trip through the Southeast when I drive from Florida to Kansas City sometime between November 13 and November 19.  This trip would probably include MS, AL, AR, KY, TN.

One of the benefits of the roving trips is the opportunity to see many sunrises, sunsets, and the night sky from remote locations.  The photo below taken at sunrise in Western NY is my favorite from this trip.

73 Peter KA6U