Post date: Jan 16, 2009 4:55:02 AM
We have reached the last day of operation. Tropo results across the Atlantic have been zero. Equipment failure and high winds have been big challenges.
Yesterday afternoon and night were very windy again. We lowered the EME array to the ground yesterday at noon. The winds were so strong we could not raise it again until local dawn today. I did raise the rope ladder yagi yesterday afternoon for tropo tests with ZD8I. No definite signals were heard, but there were hints of SSB signals twice. One note of interest is that I heard static crashes from thunderstorms the entire time of the ttest at 1730-1800 UTC. The antenna has a very narrow lobe, and with clear weather for 2000km or more in front of the antenna, we were very possibly hearing very distant storms.
The rope ladder yagi is a 51 element version of the VE7BQH yagi. It is 41m long, and 20.5 dBd before ground gain.
We plan on trying again later today with the EME array with ZD8I, and will also be active for tropo to PY with the EME array on WSJT.