03/02/2006 | VA3TO After some careful research and planning, I finally finished assembling my very modest EME station at the end of August 2005. Using a pair of vertically polarized home-brew K1FO-12 yagis with a total gain of about 15dBd (roughly equal to one long boom yagi) and a 160 watt brick amplifier, I was able to make quite a few WSJT contacts. That was exciting in itself but the real thrill came during the fall ARRL EME Contest.

I figured that the Contest would be a good opportunity for me to check if my small station could at least hear some CW EME activity so I tuned up and down the band and to my amazement heard W5UN calling CQ on 144.041 MHz. Without any great expectations I decided to reply to Dave's CQ and lo and behold got "QRZ" back from him. I sent our callsigns again and the next reply from Dave was "VA3TO W5UN OOO". I couldn't believe that he was hearing me with my 15dBd and 160 watts! We completed the contact and I was so blown away that I e-mailed Dave to confirm that I wasn't hearing things and sure enough, he confirmed it. It was so unexpected that I never bothered to set up the computer to record our QSO. (I do have recordings of Dave calling CQ just after our QSO.) During the second leg of the contest I heard IK3MAC calling CQ around 144.045 MHz. I replied to his call and he came right back to me and we completed the contact quickly. Wow...my second CW EME contact! I was on top of things this time around and managed to get a WAV file recording of our QSO. I later heard F3VS and tried replying to him but heard nothing but "QRZ" back. I also heard IK2DDR and SV1BTR in QSOs near the end of their visible moon but quickly lost them before I could try to work them.

Well, I had proven that my small station could not only hear CW stations off the moon but I managed to complete a couple of contacts using my QRP setup. This is the coolest! I am very much aware that the 2 stations I did work are among the largest operating 2m off the moon and completing more contacts will be increasingly difficult. I've since attempted skeds with IK2DDR and SV1BTR where they heard me but I could not hear them so I am realizing the challenges of one-way conditions and other degradation factors that can make or break a successful contact, especially for a small station like mine. Nonetheless, the thrill is still with me. By no means am I a contest contender this time around but I submitted my results to confirm the contacts and had fun in the meantime. -- VA3TO