H40GJ Winding Down

[Charlie Young]

Lance is at the moment on standard FT8 because his moon elevation is too high to elevate.  His wet guy ropes will get into the antenna. 

This has been an interesting week.  On the first day of his activity the individual indicators were the poorest so far, yet he had a fantastic day. Best by far.   The last few days the degradation was as good as it gets, yet Lance has struggled to make contacts. The problem on his end appears to be something called high TEC (Total Electron Count).  High TEC occurs over the ocean at near equatorial latitudes typically during local daylight hours, and impedes signals from passing.  Lance tries to schedule operations in these regions when the moon path is in local darkness.   After the first day, the moon gradually moved into local daylight and TEC wreaked havoc. 

There are 3 more scheduled days:  Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.  Each day the moon is moving farther south and the common window is getting shorter.   When we started, our moon was at over 60 degrees elevation here, falling to our moonset.   Today our moon was at less than 40 degrees elevation and it is lowering with each succeeding day.  QSO's are getting harder to complete.  Degradation will increase from here on out, although it will still be reasonable. 

Those who indicated a desire to work through my  station have all had their turn and everyone who tried made the QSO.  This success rate is unusual.  One reason is the moon path is ideal for my terrain this time.  I will likely watch as Lance finishes up.  I may work him with W8AH at the end if he is struggling.   Probably Monday or Tuesday. 

There are several big stations who have multiple callsigns working Lance through them.  The RHR group is one set (WW2DX et al).   The cornfield group in IA is another.  

 There are some single yagi stations being successful.  I have watched many trying.  Most who succeed are running long yagi's up high and over FLAT ground.. I have watched Roger W4MW on top of the Blue Ridge trying over multiple days with no success (stacked 7"s).  He is far from alone.  It is just so unpredictable regarding who has  ground gain.   In our terrain it seems elusive.  

Sharing of EME capable hardware among ops seems to be a growing trend.   One positive benefit is it creates a bigger pool of station callsigns to work for Lance.  It also increases the pool of potential contributors to support his expedition efforts. 

I am asking those who use my hardware to send Lance a contribution.   

On future moon expeditions, we need to plan ahead. Ops need to have Team Viewer and make sure it works, to facilitate jumping into  the fray. Let your intentions be known early.   

Time to tie a ribbon on this one.  

73 Charlie N8RR