The "Driveway EME Yagi" is now down. The neighbor sold her property and we are soon to have new neighbors.
It was sure fun while it lasted. Today I worked my 400th 2meter initial, so a nice round number to finish with.

73  Bill K0AWU

  The "Driveway EME Yagi" is set up for the winter 2013/2014 today. Back on again and no antenna or station changes.

Last night, as the moon rose locally, I was monitoring Ping Jockey to see who was "on the moon". Local time was 9:30pm so it was quite early in the morning in Europe. A bit of activity in North America however. I saw Ray WA4NJP had posted that he was looking for stations to work on 222Mhz EME. I asked Ray what his 222 station was, well ... he has a 36ft dish and 400w! Given that kind of station I suggested that we give it a try. At that time my moon was at about 5deg elevation and I should have a fair amount of moon time left. Using my 15elem terrestrial antenna and the homebrew 4CX250B amplifier at 250watts we worked without difficulty. We even had several db of margin on each end. That 36ft dish sure played well! At times our signals were strong enough to be heard in the speakers at both stations. So now I have had EME initials on 2, 222 and 432Mhz. Still more EME fun.

#1  222Mhz EME

My side of the WSJT QSO

Time  Sync  db   DT   
043300  1  -24  2.5  317  2 * K0AWU WA4NJP EM84         
043500  5  -28       320  2   RO                                    
043900  5  -28       326  3   73                                 
044100 10  -23       329  4   73   

This is standard WSJT formatted QSO data. The time is GMT to 1/100 of a second, Sync indicates now many sync pulses were captured during this 50second transmission, the "db" is a relative signal strength (-30 or so the lower threshold) and the DT being the delay time from the beginning of the message. (2.5 = two and a half seconds ... delay time to the moon and back.)

 The Dgrd is -6.3 today, so nothing much expected. Was I ever wrong. Take a look at the following link!


KØAWU 2 Meter EME -- Feb 13,2011  

-- New 2m Exciter for WSJT-- Feb 6,2011 -- 

  The Icom 746Pro that has been used since my first WSJT EME Initial has been retired. I just had too many issues with it on 2m SSB to continue to use it.
 I purchased a new Kenwood TS-2000 and rebuilt the sequencer for it's use on 432 tropo as well as 2m tropo/MS/EME. Today was the best test I have had 
off the moon since the TS2000 was intergrated into the station right before the Jan VHF Sweepstakes. I worked 4 stations and two new initials even through 
the Dgrd is -3.5 today, so feel like it may be "ok". The TS 2000 RX is assisted by a GasFet preamp in the shack. I will know more as time goes on but the 
old Pro sure heard good off the moon.



HISTORY -- Initial: #1 --    03/29/02	K9KNW   EL95  Florida 


 March  29, 2002 K1JT's JT44 software (and my station) were "put to the test" . On 
moon rise I was looking east and hoping to find someone that would run EME (Moon
Bounce) while the moon was within the vertical lobe of the 13B2 antenna. A 
posting on NØUK's Ping Jockey was responded to by Joe K9KNW in EL95dx, 
Naples Florida. I had not heard anything off the moon before, but I 
was willing to try while the moon was in a favorable position. Once the moon  
reached 2 degrees elevation (my eastern horizon) I received two sequences and 
Joe was hearing me. At that point the signals went away for both of us. We 
almost stopped, but Joe offered to continue. Then between elevations 8 deg and 
9.3 deg I had 6 decoded sequences. The contact was made with signals ranging
between -21db and -26db but JT44 still locked on and decoded data. It looks 
like my "ears" need help. I was running 400 watts into the 13B2 Yagi at 73ft 
and Joe was running 1 KW and 4x10 element Yagis.



 I considered the entire thing to be kind of "beginners luck" and attempted EME
only a few times over the next three years.

  Then in Feb 2005, things changed!




The Local Situation 



 Even though we live in a very rural area,we have close neighbors and we have 
many trees in our small yard. This makes a traditional approach to even a small
EME array low to the ground impossible. A tower mounted array will not work
either, since the tower is very full with multiple VHF/UHF tropo antennas. 




-- Upgraded Antenna Support -- Nov 12,2005 -- 




  For the winter 2005 EME season I set up my 4Wl 13elem 2 meter yagi on the 
mast in the driveway again. The plan was to allow EME operations the entire 
winter now since I had had such good results the previous year. I purchased a 
used a CDR rotator at a hamfest and used it for AZ control this time. That is 
an improvement since it avoids the necessity of the compass reading and 
anchoring the antenna. Elevation is still manual using a nylon line tied to the
yagi boom with "anchoring loops" every 5deg of elevation. Another change was 
the use of "rigid" guys and placing the antenna just beyond the driveway to 
allow operations all winter. The rotator cables and LMR400 feedline was run
across the end of the driveway and to the shack window where it can be routed
into the shack when EME operations are to be conducted. 

  As long as the neighbor continues to be gone during the winter and the same 
neighbor, I plan to set up for "driveway EME operation" each winter.

KØAWU 2 Meter EME Initials  








Larger image of "EME" Yagi in the driveway





   --     The "START" of it all   --
-- Feburary 12-March 15, 2005 EME Winter 2004-2005 --

  On Feb 12th moon conditions were quite good, and I worked several stations on
moon rise with the tropo antenna (13B2). Just when things were really getting
"good" we had a local power failure. It was a nice winter day and as I waited
for the power to return, I started thinking about the 2SA13 yagis that I had
built a year or two before. Looking at the moon rising well above the pattern
of the tropo antenna I got inspired.

  Since the yard was full of trees, I started looking "anywhere" for some open
space where I could set up an antenna that could be rotated as well as elevated.
Hummm. The only place I could see was in the driveway! We share our driveway 
with a neighbor to the south and that neighbor is a summer only resident. 

   So I set up one of the 2SA13 4Wl yagis on a 12ft mast in the driveway to play
a bit with JT65b EME, using an antenna with elevation. The mast was guyed with 3 
lengths of rope, One to a pine tree, another to our apple tree and the third to 
the snow blower. I tied a length of rope to the reflector and it was tied to a
gas can to hold the antenna on a given heading and elevation. Pretty "basic" but
it worked! After all, I was thinking this would just be for the weekend, since
the mast was set up in my driveway.
The "armstrong" rotator and cloudy days made for a real challenge, but I really 
had a "blast". In the first month of operation I had 58 initial contacts off 
the moon, WAC and DXCC 26, using the homebrew 2SA13 "driveway" yagi. Many very 
good signals on the weekend of the Feb 13th. I needed to figure out a way to do 
this easier and more often. I even worked three stations that were running 
single yagis, Cool! The "Driveway EME Yagi" was taken down on the afternoon of 
March 15.


SM5BSZ's 2SA13 Yagi Design







Here is the link for WSJT FSK441/JT65 Software  
Most schedules are made on Ping Jockey .




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