QSLs

Hi, we are already receiving QSLs for J79DI, thank you very much!. Please be patient, our QSL should be ready to go early 2007. 73 .

Heavy snow on the screen ...

Infos , Comments and Thanks

This expedition is now over, we had great fun and learned a lot again.
The weather didn't help us with strong winds and heavy rain.
We also had to shorten by two days our operations due to boat availability.

The score made with our marginal setup looks good, 43 stations contacted and 21 heard.
For those last ones, trust us, we would have been more than pleased to have you on the 'contacted' status, and we want to thank you very much for your patience.

We definitely feel that dual polar receive, thus making the setup quite complex, is key. We've seen quite often 'quick' switch of polarization and also a couple of stations on H and V at the same time.

We are also fully convinced that ERP is a must, when we lost 1/2 SSPA going from >500w to 300w the QSOs became to be by far more difficult.

Now this Expe is over and we (F1BCS a F1HDI) want to share with you a special thank for our 'main back-office' dream team F1OAT,F5DJL and F6BIA. Without them, this Expedition would not have been possible. We hope to have them 'in operation' sometimes!.

We also want to thank you all for the endless fun we were and are sharing for EME.

What would be the next step ? who knows , stay tuned ...
Also we shouldconsider looking for some EME sponsors in the future if we wish to stick with 2 EME Expediton/year ...


RRR 73
J79DI

J79DI Logbook

J79DI	144MHz EME		2xBQH8b 14,8dBd		500w SSPA	JT65B	Contacted/Heard
	DATE	QTR	CALL	Freq	Traffic	Mode		Sig
1	26/11/2006	18:23	EA6VQ	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-21
2		18:43	KB8RQ	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-18
3		19:22	W5UN	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-19
4		19:40	WQ5S	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-22
5			K6MYC	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-20
6		21:25	K9MRI	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-20
7		22:03	K7MAC	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-18
8	27/11/2006	17:20	DL8YHR	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-24
9		17:47	DK3BU	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-24
10		18:15	DF2ZC	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-25
11		18:23	RN6BN	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-20
12	28/11/2006	18:23	DF7KF	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-26
13		18:47	DL9MS	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-25
14	29/11/2006	20:05	ES6RQ	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-21
15		20:44	PA3CMC	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-22
16		20:51	DK3EE	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-19
17		21:47	CT1HZE	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-23
18		21:59	SM7GVF	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-21
19		22:07	OZ1LPR	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-21
20		22:17	F6FHP	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-21
21		22:49	K1CA	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-17
22		23:31	S52LM	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-25
23	30/11/2006	20:01	F6HVK	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-25
24		20:17	I2RV	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-22
25		20:35	RU1AA	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-21
26		20:49	DL8GP	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-20
27		21:01	EI4DQ	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-25
28		21:23	DL2NUD	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-25
29		22:29	YO9FRJ	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-18
30		23:19	K9KNW	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-23
31		00:35	FM5CS	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-20
32		02:26	G4FUF	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-25
33	01/12/2006	19:41	RA3AQ	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-21
34		19:51	RX1AS	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-17
35		20:09	PA2CHR	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-17
36		20:55	HB9Q	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-17
37		21:39	DK3WG	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-20
38	02/12/2006	21:01	SV8CS	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-29
39		21:47	IK1UWL	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-23
40		21:29	RA6DA	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-20
41		22:21	OK1UGA	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-22
42		02:19	K6MYC	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-20
43		02:31	W0PT	144	EME	JT65B	Contacted	-20
1			AA7A	144	EME	JT65B	Heard	-20
2			DK5EW	145	EME	JT65B	Heard	-25
3			DM2BHG	146	EME	JT65B	Heard	-22
4			EA3DXU	147	EME	JT65B	Heard	-20
5			ES2CM	148	EME	JT65B	Heard	-22
6			F1TE	149	EME	JT65B	Heard	-21
7			F6BEG	150	EME	JT65B	Heard	?
8			F8DO	151	EME	JT65B	Heard	?
9			F9HS	152	EME	JT65B	Heard	-21
10			JH2COZ	164	EME	JT65B	Heard	-25
11			K5GMX	153	EME	JT65B	Heard	-23
12			LY2BAW	154	EME	JT65B	Heard	?
13			PA0JMV	155	EME	JT65B	Heard	-24
14			PA0ZH	156	EME	JT65B	Heard	?
15			SP2OFW	157	EME	JT65B	Heard	-25
16			SP6GWB	158	EME	JT65B	Heard	-21
17			UA4AQL	159	EME	JT65B	Heard	-21
18			VE2JWH	160	EME	JT65B	Heard	-24
19			W5UWB	161	EME	JT65B	Heard	-22
20			W7GJ	162	EME	JT65B	Heard	-21
21			WA4NJP	163	EME	JT65B	Heard	-21

Nice take-off from 'Seacliff'

Heading to the Moon

J79DI's shack

On the way back ....

The team is now on its way back ... they will leave Point a Pitre tonight, when they have arrived in Europe we should get full log and put it on line.

Latest news from J79DI

Very good activity yesterday but we still experience very rapid change in conditions: not just weather conditions but also reception level !!!A lot of signals filling the waterfall sceen for an hour, then it was very quiet, specially during the US window ( no activity ?)

Operating recomendation : Please spread over +/- 1kHz max and when J79DI is calling an identified station , please listen and wait until QSO is completed . Thanks in advance it will help to make even more contacts ...

No specific problem has been identified with the reception system , but very rapid change of polarisation are observed . Please consider that weather conditions are quite tough here , tropical rain and very heavy wind !!!

Skeds : If JA station ( but only JA and due to frequency limitation) want to arrange skeds please contact via moon-net list or JT65 EME link.

Change in end date of expedition : We must leave the island on Monday 4th at 15h00. We will try to be still operational on Sunday 3rd December night but we have to pack then must join the boat on time ! 73 Jacques and Jean-Marc


Liaison confirmed :

27/11/2006

DL8YHR-24
DK3BU-24
DF2ZC-25
RN6BN-20

28/11

DF7KF-26
DL9MS-25

29/11/2006

ES6RQ-21
PA3CMC-22
DK3EE-19
CT1HZE-23
SM7GVF-21
OZ1LPR-21
F6FHP-21
K1CA-17
S52LM-25

Stations heard but qso not completed

YO9FRJ-22
F6HVK-23
SP2OFW-25

22 QSOs !

22 stations contacted by J79DI. This is the score on 30th Nov 12:00Z
More news coming soon.

J79DI now operationnal

GO GO GO GO, first QSO in progress. Good luck everybody !

J79DI station photos

Some pictures just received from the team :

Last news

J79DI now on site. No broken equipment. Assembly in progress.
Activity start scheduled for sunday moonrise.

On the way to Sea Cliff ....

On 24th November at 12h05 (UTC) the team is on the way to Sea Cliff with all the equipment safely on the boat. Apparently just a "small" damage to the antenna container requires further assessment on arrival. ! So far, so good and weather is reported fantastic ... !

J79DI in the island

SMS just received : the team is leaving the airport.

J79DI in flight

J79DI operators have taken off around 1200Z. Storm announced in the Island for today.
Our friend should have landed now. Waiting for an SMS !

SSPA - final tests

Moon position at J79DI

Table available in "ORGANIZATION STUFF" section

Power Amplifier

Project source code

The full source code for the project is available here :

PICAXE-08M elevation sensor code
PIC16F877 tracking source code (for Oshon compiler)

Rotor mechanic

Java P-BUS / RS-485 test software

Tool used for elevation sensor qualification

RS-485 PC Interface

Interface used for P-BUS over RS-485 testing

Elevation sensor

The elevation sensor based on a MXD2125 X/Y accelerometer.
The CPU is a PICAXE-08M running CORDIC algorithm for ARCTAN computation.
Link with other devices done with a P-BUS implementation over RS-485

Elevation sensor schematic

System diagram

The original diagram for the antenna rotor electronic