2018 Winter VHF/UHF Field Day - 23 and 24 June 2018

[VK4EA]

I got active for microwave only contacts Sunday morning from QG63mk, Maleny escarpment. The weather initially promised low dew point conditions however the persistent Southeast breezes we had over the last few days pushed the dew point to 15 degrees. Easy contacts to Doug VK4OE/p at Kamuran Lookout (QG61nu) on 5760 and 10368MHz, 150km path length. I was pleased that my effort to relocate the 10GHz preamp to the feed point made contacts quite easy. We then attempted 24GHz and while I heard tones and was able to peak up my dish on Doug he was unable to hear anything from me. With nothing to lose we had a go at 47GHz and again I could hear Doug’s dits, he could not hear anything from me. I am running fairly modest RF levels where Doug had 1W in 24GHz and 0.5W on 47GHz. So it appears that a bit of brute force was required to punch through the moisture.

The we had a bit of fun with Scott VK4CZ operating from his driveway with 10GHz. Once he had completed with Doug we worked on a reflection path that we _think_ may have been off the CBD buildings.

And then Stefan VK4CSD came on with 5, 24 and 76 GHz.

Rare to have a 3 way chat on 5.7GHz!

While Stefan and Doug attempted a 24 and 76GHz contact I sat back and enjoyed the view

Unfortunately Stefan’s 24GHz had a receive issue so unable to complete a contact on that band. I suspect my QRP level transmit and high dew point conditions did not help.

Lessons learned, even though it was a cool morning, dew point was quite high for this time of year & I need more pocket money to buy a couple of PAs :-).......


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