K9MU

Greg - N8CJK said it best, "On January 4th, 2006 I lost my lunar virginity".

On the morning of 1/4/06 Johan - ON4IQ posted on the dxers.info chat room that he was looking to run 6M EME JT65A with any USA stations on their moonrise, quoting, '7el/400w will do fine'. I've operated a couple 2M EME contests before at N0AKC which gave me experience using WSJT in JT65A. Nothing was going on at the time so I decided to give it a try even though EME from my small station would be next to impossible. I wasn't expecting to hear anything with my homebrew 6 element at 30 feet. Just imagine my reaction when 'K9MU ON4IQ JO22' popped up on my screen! I nearly fell out of my chair just minutes after moonrise! I started sending 'ON4IQ K9MU EN44 OOO' at 300w from my old Gonset 4CX250 amplifier. Again, I had little confidence that Johan would ever hear me. I kept receiving Johan's calls over and over. His signal kept getting stronger and stronger as the moon slowly moved into my antenna's elevation lobe. At 1728z, Johan's signal peaked at -23dB with 6 degrees of moon elevation. Knowing that the moon was now in my peak gain lobe, it was now or never. I climbed up on my roof with a compass and made sure my antenna was at the correct heading. I moved it about 5 degrees south and when I got back into my room at 1736z I saw RO's on the screen! I started to send RRR's and at 1745z Johan notified me on the dxers.info chat room that he had received them! Bingo, good QSO!! I copied Johan's -31dB 73 signal at 1746z and heard nothing else after that. I reached the end of my main lobe just in time for the completion! Johan informed me that I would have a second lobe at around 12 degrees but heard nothing from the big cheese during that time. I'm now hooked and can't wait to run again!

Screen shots of my 6M EME QSO with ON4IQ:

Johan, ON4IQ was first heard at 2 degrees

Johan was heard again at 3.7 degrees

At 5.6 degrees, I recieved Johan at -23dB (his strongest)!

At 6.6 degrees, Johan heard me and I copied RO's at -29dB!

More RO's at -30dB
Johan then informed me on dxers.info chat room that he had received my RRR's!

73's are copied at -31dB with 8.5 degrees of moon elevation

Chat room text.

Here is what Johan heard on his end!

173300 1 -29 1.8 -51 4 # ON4IQ K9MU en44 OOO 0 10
173409 Transmitting: JT65A K9MU ON4IQ JO20 (Shorthand)
173409 Transmitting: JT65A RO (Shorthand)
173300 1 -29 1.8 -51 25 # ON4IQ K9MU en44 OOO 0 10
174300 1 -31 -55 3 RRR ? 0 0
174400 Transmitting: JT65A 73 (Shorthand)
174700 3 -29 -55 2 RRR 0 0
175001 Transmitting: JT65A 73
175001 Transmitting: JT65A CQ ON4IQ JO20

My best -29dB.

IC-746, 300w, 6 ele @ 30 feet, 75 feet of 9913 coax

ON4IQ

IC-7800, 200w, 4x6M9KHW, full az/el, 1 5/8" heliax

Moonrise EME QSO attempt with W1JJ on 1/05/06

Must of had some faraday as Mick - W1JJ had 5 good decodes on me and I heard nothing.

This was your best off the moon 174100 4 -25 1.9 129 2 * W1JJ K9MU EN44

And this was from MS 175900 0 -16 -0.6 40 3 * W1JJ K9MU EN44 Notice the differance in DT and DF

I have had skeds before when only one side copies, we should try agn