KB8RQ - VHF Moonbounce.

New Location EM79sv

My present antenna system is 24X13 element home brew with a split driven element.  I am using two ferrite cores on the MLR 400 coax to keep the current from flowing down the coax.  The SWR is great on the new design.  Rain does not change the SWR.  The new system is using two truck chassis to support the system in wind and ice.  The array goes through 40 miles an hour wind without being tied down.  I can also operate in windy conditions.  The new system has worked even better than I expected.  I am very pleased with the arrays performance.  I give the credit to VE7BQH and K5GW that designed it from the 2SA13 antenna.

Software:

I am using K5GW software with W5LBT boards with absolute encoders.  The tracking system is simple to install and works great.

My equipment is Yaesu FT-847 with 1801 Gasfet preamp with 8877 amplifier.  I would be glad to run CW or JT44 sked with anybody that wants to give it a try.  I have two E-Mail accounts.  If first one does not work try the second one.  KB8RQ@SPASALON.COM or KB8RQ@YAHOO.COM I call CQ on 144.046 and 144.125 on JT44.

I retired from General Motors in March of 1992. My wife Barbara N8DFN and I also have a Hair and Tanning business that we have been in for over 31 years. We have a son Kent N8CUT that is married to Ruthann. They also have a son Alex that was born January 4, 1994 and a daughter Ashtyn that was born July 28 1998. Kent writes software for hair salons and Day spas. My wife and I are very proud grand parents. 

Amateur Radio:

Now for my radio history on VHF. I got my ham ticket July 21, 1979. I went from Novice to Advance in one year and now hold Extra class. VE7BQH was my first E.M.E. contact October 25 1981. That is when I got the bug bad HI HI.  My first array was four 32-19 Cushcraft at 100 feet with elevation and a lot of nightmares. I was using a KR-500 for elevation and replaced a lot of gears in it. After getting tired of climbing up and down the 100-foot tower, I decide to put the array closer to the ground and make it bigger. I then purchased four more 32-19 and put up eight at about 20 feet. Those seemed to work ok until a storm came and down they went. The next array I decided to get a bigger tower and put up 16 of the 32-19 Cushcraft antennas. They were phased with 3/4 inch CATV cable. That array stayed up, so I decided to move it to my side yard to make it bigger. I then went from 16 to 32 antennas with the phasing of the 3/4 CATV cable. The array just didn't seem to work like I thought it should. So Mother Nature took care of my problem and took the array down in a storm. That was over four thousand dollars of damage. Now it was time to build a new array. I contacted Mike K6MYC from M2 and ordered 24 of the 17-5wl's. The new array worked a lot better than the 32 of the 32-19 Cushcraft antennas. Now I was on my way for DXCC. I was working a lot of single antennas with this array. Then August 28 1990 we had a tornado with 100 mile an hour winds. It took the array down with some trees and a window out of our house. That was over 10 thousand dollars in damage. Well it was back to building again. I called Mike K6MYC from M2 and told him that I wanted something better than what I was running. So Mike went to the computer and designed the 2m-19xxx that is 15.6 DBD gain. The antenna is 39 feet 5.7 wavelength. It took me three month to build this array. I was back up and running November 3 1990. The array worked great for about 29 days when I was trying to operate in high winds. The main boom bent and down came the array with me standing on top of the tower. It was a very sad day for me. I had some friends from south of Dayton come up and we disassembled the array in about six hours. Well it was back on the phone to Mike from M2 to order parts to replace the damaged parts of the array. I was back up with 16 antennas January 19 1991. It was very cold putting the 16 antennas up, but I wanted to get back on the air to chase those new countries. I lost a few countries in between the array being built. April 20 1991 I got the other eight antennas up. Now running the present 24 bay array that has been up for over 2 and 1/2 years with out any damage. I've had a lot of experience building arrays now. My last ten countries seemed like it took forever. This is a list of the last ten countries in the order I worked them. Number 91 was EA6VQ a single antenna, ZA0DXC was number 92 with 4x17 and 800 watts. Number 93 was Jimmy PJ7/W6JKV that gave me many countries with a single antenna and some times very low power. 94 were Joel N6AMG in Morocco using the call CN2JP. CX9BT was my number 95 that I missed the first time he called me on random. Number 96 was FK1TK that was a sked in the 1991 contest. Number 97 was one of my best contacts with Arne Coro. It was his moonrise and my moonrise at the same time with very low sky temperature. Arne was running two 5 element antennas and 25 watts. That made history in Cuba for being the first contact on E.M.E.  Arne works for a radio broadcast station in Havana, Cuba and does a daily radio broadcast promoting amateur radio. Arne called me on the telephone the next day and told me that he was going to interview me on the telephone and play it back on his radio amateur broadcast station. Which he did! I listened to it when it was broadcast a few days later. Well back to number 98 that was Jimmy again at a new country W6JKV/HK0 with a single antenna. C53GS was number 99 and my number 100 was UZ2FWA on July 31, 1992. I now have 152 countries on two meters. I still love to run with new and very small stations.