- New 145 GHz record -
"Four amateurs from the Lynchburg, Virginia, area celebrated the new
year
January 12 by breaking their own distance record on 145 GHz and by
confirming a fifth grid for VUCC on
yet
another microwave band. Brian Justin, WA1ZMS; Pete Lascell, W4WWQ; Hal
DeVuyst, KA4YNO; and G. P. "Geep" Howell, WA4RTS, spanned a nearly
80-km
path to set a new North American and world DX record.
"This claim should be the very first VUCC for that band, and it took
two
years of hard work to make it happen," said Justin. Both stations
exchanged contact information using FSK-CW. All participants are
members
of the Lynchburg Amateur Radio Club (K4CQ), of which Justin is
president.
The group already has earned the first-issued VUCC awards on the 47 and
76
GHz bands.
Justin, who designed and built all of the equipment, set up his station
in
grid square EM96wx in Southwest Virginia. On the other end of the
circuit
was the W2SZ/4 station, with Howell, Lascell and De Vuyst. W2SZ/4 was
at
approximately 4000 feet above sea level in Virginia's Bedford County in
grid square FM07fm. Lascell said while the team was setting up, he was
able to snag a 20-meter contact with KM1CC, the Marconi special event
station on Cape Cod. "A neat way to tie the bottom of the spectrum and
the
beginning of radio to a new frontier 100 years later," he said.
Weather conditions were just right for the QSO to take place with
little
wind and an extremely low dew point and no haze. Both stations ran
about 4
mW of power and used one-foot dish antennas, which must be precisely
aimed.
Additional information is available on the Mt Greylock Expeditionary
Force
Web site http://www.mgef.org "...........from the ARRL News.
- Quadrantids Meteor Shower -
"EI5FK reports working S51AT, I4XCC, DD1JN, DK4NJ and
EA4LU on 144mhz during the recent Quadrantids meteor
shower which peaked on the third and fourth of January,
he was using WSJT or FSK441, EI4DQ was also heard
working meteor scatter during this shower. The
Quadrantids is one of the more reliable showers during
the year. Activity drops off from now until May due to
the fall off in meteor debris that the Earth encounters
at this time of the year."
.............from the IRTS News.
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