03/02/2006 | WA6PY I always have a lot of fun operating the EME contest. So far, my antennas are manually tracked; this makes operation even more exciting. On 2.3 and 10 GHz I am tracking for maximum moon noise. My window to Europe is much shorter than for East Coast stations and I have to run QSO's as quick as I can. I hope to be able to solve the problems with the CC&R antenna restrictions in the near future. This will enable me to get my big dish back in operation.

The crossed yagi for 70 cm was made using DJ9BV directors based on a 8.5 WL prototype with modifications of the first 9 directors to match to the dual dipole feed excitation section. This is not perfect, but it was the easiest way to use my old existing dual dipole feed with all switching controls, coax cables and relays.

The 144 MHz yagis are old 19 el Cushcrafts from 1981, modified per VE7BQH design. This makes basically an entire new antenna design. All the elements have different length and positions. I also used a different balun than the original made of 7/8: 72 ohm heliax cable. This helped me to lower the side lobes and noise plus interference when I elevate this antenna. Unfortunately, due to my local limitations, vertical stacking is only 3 meters and I am losing about 0.8 dB of gain.

I rebuilt first one yagi in 1996 when I came to San Diego, and I was QRV with single yagi from a rented house. At that time, I worked single yagi to single yagi stations on 144 MHz CW and if I remember right two QSO's with two yagi stations. -- WA6PY