Building up my own EME station failed during the years because of the
costs. I did not earn that much money (I was a student on a collage up
to the age of 27) and when you consider that you need about 2500USD for
a good power amplifier on 2m or 70cm you know what I mean. But I was always
thinking about a way to work EME. One good chance was taking part on the
ARRL EME Contest in 1993 at the station of my friend Hubert (DG9NCX) and
trying to work one of the big guns (stations with 16 or more antennas)
or VE3ONT with his 46m dish on 2m. The only thing Hubert did not have was
a power amplifier for 2m with more than 70W output. With my 130W power
amplifier the equipment of DG9NCX was as follows:
- 4 x 17-ele M2 (5 lambda long) with Emotator
rotor ERC-5a
- Mast preamplifier with about 1.0dB NF
- Daiwa power amplifier with about 130W output
(later I borrowed a power amplifier
with a 4CX250 and about 300W output)
- FT 736 with 600Hz IF-Filter
It needed some time to get used to all the equipment and I needed to
face some problems. One problem was that I placed the Diawa power amplifier
outside near the mast, because of about 30m coaxial cable from the shack
to the antennas. Due to the coldness in the October night the internal
protecting circuit switched the power amplifier off and we noticed that
error after one night hardly trying to run our first EME QSO.
I remember that night sitting in the shack listening to loud EME signals,
but not being able to work any station. The second night we placed the
130W PA in the warm check and I was able to work KB8RQ. This was my first
EME QSO followed later on by a QSO with W5UN.