The first attempt from 9J2JD was in July 2005 operating with a single 2M7 & 200 W as I did not have the neccesary power supply to drive the 400W TE-Systems 1452G to full capacity.  In the limited time available at moonrise & moonset we eventually managed 5 EME QSO's with W5UN, KB8RQ, KJ9I, ON4IQ, ON4GG.  I was hooked - and the process came in motion to improve matters.  After blowing a power supply by trying to run the PA at full power from it we managed to secure a 70 Amp supply to drive the PA.

In May 2006 I was due to go to Zambia to finish a building project.  The initial plan was to camp at the building site and operate in the available time between managing the finalization of the project.  On arrival I was told by the local police I am not to camp at the site due to security concerns.  

So I had to stay at a hotel 50 km from the site and pay up $100 a day just to sleep.  As I left the hotel at 05:00 every morning and retuned at 19:00 just in time to get some supper.  Infortunately the area at the hotel was not very RF friendly - terribly noisy.  So I had to wait for a time slot where the work was sufficiently in progress that I could set-up the portable station.  At first I was also disappointed as the generator that I was using was also rf-unfriendly and it was causing birdies all over the spectrum.

I then decided to try something and used a 40m long 3 core lead of which the individual cables were 3.5mm in diameter.  With this I only needed approx 20m and used the rest to wind it in a coil of approx 75cm diameter and in this coil I used some 14g earth wire to wind it around the cable and this was then attached to a steel dropper that was driven into the ground and connected to the generators earth contact.

By hook or by crook - good or bad - this took care of the birdies and I could operate the TE-Systems 1452G pre-amp, and amplifier to make the 20 eme QSO's in 4 windows. It was moonrise - 30 deg and 30 deg - moonset elevation each of the 2 days.  The antenna I was using was a single 2M9SSB manufactured by M-Square and this was a real revelation.

Here is a photo of the antenna pointing to the spot where the moon is supposed to be within 10 - 15 degrees AZ/EL of where the sun is supposed to be Behind the clouds.  And 20 QSO's were made?

Here is a copy of the log of the 2 days operations.

I left shortly afterwards and was stopping in every new grid square along the way back to ZS land and made contact with ZS6WB, and ZS6OB from most of the grids available along the way via Meteor scatter with 50 W and the 2M9SSB in a portable setup.

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Last updated: January 02, 2007.