[amsat-bb] Re: 25 watt Moonbounce

[Joe]

Not to take anything away from Angus, and Yes this is indeed a great 
accomplishment, but hardly from new.

Myself have done this  many times with a tad bit more power, 35 to 40 
watts. And this was in the days of no fancy software's or anything like 
that just antenna,  rig, a nd good headphones.

I worked 18 different stations off Oscar 0  (Moon)  back in the late 
80's  My station was a
Kenwood TS-700,  10 watts into a Mirage 40 watt  amp  that was tired and 
only put out 35 or so watts.
feed line was 1/2" heliax that was about 100  feet long,
no Pre-amp for receive,
antennas were 8 element yagis, W1JR design (4 of them)

standard WIDE  SSB filters on receive, and a set of headphones.  That's it.

One thing that DID  make a HUGE difference I think on my system, was i 
was able by the design of my array I was able to rotate polarity of the 
beams along their axis.  Granted,  the spacing was optimum when they 
were horizontal,  but and were wrong in other polarities,  but the gain 
it made making sure the polarity was right after faraday happens was 
incredible. every 5 minutes or so i'd have to change the polarity to 
optimize the signal.

18 different stations in a little over 2 weeks  or so of operating,  who 
knows how many I could have worked, but will  never know due to  going 
qrt off  the moon because a Kenwood TS-700  doesn't really like 110 VAC  
being applied to the 12VDC input.

Joe WB9SBD

Trevor wrote:

>The story in the UK Scarborough Evening News about Angus Young M0IKB achieving
>Moonbounce with just 25 watts is a good illustration of the huge advances
>Amateurs have made in Moonbounce techniques over recent years. Not long ago it
>would have taken over 400 watts to achieve it. 
>
>Why Angus is over the Moon - Scarborough Today (with picture of Angus) 
>http://www.scarborougheveningnews.co.uk/news/Why-Angus-is-over-the.3686368.jp 
>
>Ham makes EME contact with just 25 watts
>http://www.southgatearc.org/news/january2008/record_eme_contact.htm 
>
>The call book entry for Angus Young M0IKB can be seen at 
>http://www.eham.net/callbook/M0IKB 
>
>73 Trevor M5AKA
>
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