First ever 24 GHz amateur contact between Finland and Sweden:
- so the family decided once again to join fun with fun by visiting Moomin Land and attempting a new MW record
- eventually located a suitable area by the sea (for inversion) from where to attempt a new 24 GHz record
- after some months of off-and-on studying of maps, Google Earth and different tools, I decided to give Rihtniemi KP01PA/KP01PB, nr. Rauma a try
- and once again Roger Hedin's great GCM software helped in calculating the range and pointing (Maidenhead center to center)
- further analysis of the path using topographic maps and Google Earth show the unobstructed inversion channel path between Maidenhead KP01PB and JP90JC
- as usual, it did not take long to pursuade OM Per, SM0DFP to partner-in with this project ;-)
- OM Per was running the SK0CT club transverter with 1 W to a 40 cm prime focus dish
- the 24 GHz contact was established around sunset at 1833 UTC August 4th, 2009
- at OH2AUE I used my old rig with 300 mW to a 60 cm prime focus dish, but converted from 24192 to 24048 MHz and the IF from 432 MHz to 144 MHz
- initial pointing alignment at OH2AUE was made using the sun and F1EHN tracking software
- first we made contact on 10 GHz with 59+++ signals; this helped align the pointing at SM0DFP
- at my end I used my second 10 GHz rig with it's 200 mW and 4.9 dB noise figure serving a 60 cm dish via a short length of coax
- this photo is of my setup: here I am working the 24 GHz station with the 10 GHz station on the right hand side
- here is a view out to sea from behind my 24 GHz 60 cm dish: my antenna elevation is about 2 m ASL, just about ideal for sea inversion
- a general view of the equipment taken with the camera at about 50 cm ASL ;-)
- here are some photos from Per on his setup for 10 & 24 GHz:
- front/side view
- rear/side view
- rear left view
- rear right view
- ready for transport
- a short, but cool video taken during initial contact on 24 GHz
- another short video about 10 minutes into the rag chew...the poor old IC-202S IF radio S meter is peaking S9+40 dB (S2 residual noise from converter)
- and another short video some 20 minutes into the rag chew...
- and a fourth take some half hour into the rag chew ;-)
- not only is this a new country, but also a new distance record at 173 km calculated from Maidenhead center to center
- the previous record was handed over to OH2Z by myself (the former one was just under 100 km with OH2AXH and myself) during a microwave roaming contest back in 2000
- I made this previous 129 km record from OH2Z (KP30CR) using the same equipment with OH2BUF as the counter station in KP20AG on 31.10.2000
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- playing around with the numbers, just for fun, you realize that this equipment under similar conditions could make a new world record with 59 reports on SSB...
- needless to say, Per and myself thoroughly enjoyed this evening of intense microwave testing "out in the wilderness" - micwrowaving is just so cool :-)
Created 05.08.2009, updated 19.01.2019/OH2AUE
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