ARRL EME Contest 2014 Results This year your By Rick Rosen, K1DS ([email protected]) Moonbounce? Yes, you can! moonrise and moonset for about an hour during each “pass,” or add elevation and track the Moon with your Hundreds of stations around the globe focused their antenna during its full passage. Two meters is often a antennas on the Moon during the three ARRL EME starting band for many, although some jump right in on Contest weekends this past fall. From 144 MHz through 432 MHz or the microwaves with gear for 1296 MHz. A 10 GHz, the airwaves were ringing with CW and digital long Yagi and a low noise, high gain preamp mounted at activity. Yes, you can do it too! Despite concern that you or as close to the antenna as possible is next. Maximizing can’t work stations in this mode, there were many who gain and minimizing noise is essential to hear or decode were successful using modest power and a single Yagi the very weak reflected signals which have traveled antenna. Fortunately, the “big gun” stations with large almost one-half-million miles round trip. Short runs of multi-antenna arrays and huge dishes are able to low-loss coaxial cable help. Once you have the receive communicate with the simplest of stations. Try it—you’ll capability, add transmit power, amplifiers and antenna be amazed at what can be done, even with a single long changeover relays to protect the sensitive receive Yagi aimed at the horizon at moonrise or moonset and preamp. There is an excellent chapter on EME theory and about 100 watts of transmit power. The exhilaration of operation on the CD-ROM included with the current that first contact will entice you to continue your efforts. ARRL Handbook. If you are fortunate enough to have an EME “Elmer” to help you get started, you’ll be that much further along for Outside the contest, you can find which stations are on your first EME contact. the air and their frequencies by using information found on various reflectors at Top Three Scores in Each Category vhfdx.radiocorner.net/EME/loggers.html. Some A=50 MHz, B=144 MHz, D=432 MHz, E=1296 MHz, F= 2.3 GH z, G=3.4 GHz, weekends are optima l for EME when the Moon is at H=5.7 GHz, I=10 GHz perigee and activity is highest. There are also several Call Sign Bands QSOs Mults Score EME activity weekends sponsored by the Italian ARI and DUBUS (April 25th and 26th are the 1.2 GHz weekend Single-Operator, All-Mode, All-Band UA3PTW BDEFH 328 147 4,821,600 this year).You may be able to hear CW EME QSOs by ear or decode JT65 signals using the WSJT programs. DF3RU DEF 142 76 1,079,200 YL2GD BDE 117 73 854,100 Scheduling a first QSO with a large established EME station is often useful. Patience and personal resolve are Single-Operator, CW-Only All-Band essential. Top-scoring stations are certainly appreciated OK1CA DEFGHI 142 96 1,363,200 by the smaller stations which are able to easily find their G3LTF DEFGH 142 92 1,306,400 signals and complete contacts. S53MM EFG 91 61 555,100 Operating time is one of the most important elements of Multioperator, All-Mode, All-Band this contest as the Earth turns and the Moon becomes K1JT BDEFGHI 341 167 5,694,700 visible to different groups of operators at various times. W6YX BDEI 256 126 3,225,600 Since the multipliers for this contest are both countries K4EME BD 128 73 934,400 and states, moonbounce ops in the western part of the US have a shortened window of opportunity to Europe, but a Multioperator, CW-Only, All-Band far greater one to Asia than those stations on the East SP6JLW DEI 124 67 830,800 Coast. Of course, total gain and noise factor of the SP7DCS BE 96 49 470,400 receive system and effective radiated power (ERP) of the SP6OPN FG 21 19 39,900 transmit system are the next biggest contributors to success. What do you need to make an EME contact? Get the Who’s On the Moon? antenna and receive portion established first. Start by Overall there were 123 participant logs received by noting where the Moon rises and sets at your QTH and ARRL. This number represents less than half of the total consider how you will aim your antenna. You can use 2014 ARRL EME Contest Full Results – Version 1.01 Page 1 of 12 participants, as Alex, RU1AA, had 239 QSOs on 144 nearby tower with FM broadcast on 3 meters and DVB-T MHz alone! Activity this year was slightly greater for the broadcast on UHF, which is especially bad during my digital modes, with a reported 4,370 contacts while CW moonset period when I'm looking for W6 stations. As the numbers included 3,045 contacts. The first weekend of result I use a cavity band-pass filter. Despite of my small the contest had activity focused on bands 2.3 GHz and antennas and local problems with noise and interference, up. The second and third weekends of the contest opened my current overall results on EME are 436 EME initials up activity on the 50 MHz through the 1.2 GHz bands. + 107 DXCC on 2 meters (27 CW/SSB only) and 95 The 144 MHz band was hopping with digital activity and initials on 70 cm (27 CW/SSB only). I'm occasionally a modest amount of CW also. Many stations took active on 23 cm with a small 1 meter WiFi dish, advantage of using the MAP65 software from Joe primarily used for tropo operation. With 400 W at the LP Taylor’s WSJT programs to enhance their ability to feed, I have worked 15 initials for the fun (2x in CW). As rapidly find and work digital contacts. With EME path I'm the age of 31, I don't have so much free time for losses far lower on 144 MHz than 1296 MHz, one might EME activities, but that could be partially solved by think that the greatest activity focus was on the lower sleepless nights! band. However, the results from the submitted logs show that there were more QSOs on the higher band: 3,401 as For the 2014 ARRL EME contest, I was active on the compared to 3,003. second and third weekends, focused on my favorite band—70 cm. I like CW as well as JT65, and if it's Seventeen percent of the entries, 21 out of 123, were possible, I prefer to first try the contact in CW because from the United States. The other 83 percent were DX it's more fun. I use a modified FT847 with separate participants from every corner of the world, including the RX/TX ports, homebrew 800 W SSPA made by my dad, Åland Islands (OHØ), activated this year by the Mike & Vladimir, OK1VPZ. With feed line attenuation, I Monica portable team, DL1YMK. Typhoon winds measure 600 W at the dipole of my 23-el DK7DB 5.7 brushed the coast of Japan, causing some of the JA meter long Yagi. For RX I use a CZX3500 relay and a operators to anchor their dishes for parts of the first 0.4 dB nF LNA using an ATF54143 device (made by activity weekend. Mr. Murphy was making his rounds as OK1VPZ). More info about some of my equipment is many reported cable, connector and relay problems — online at: www.ok2kkw.com/qro_en.htm. EME stations have a lot of connected parts, both stationary and moving. Although some of the entrants from last year’s EME contest were missing from this year’s log submissions, the total submitted log count was up 5 percent. The 2015 ARRL EME contest weekends are scheduled for September 5-6 for 2.3 GHz and up followed by October 31-Nov 1 and Nov 28-29 for 50 MHz through 1296 MHz. Check out the calls of EME contest participants to find an “Elmer” near you. There are also moonbounce reflectors for discussion of technical and operating issues at [email protected] and [email protected]. The excitement of EME operation will grab you. Get started now. Yes, you can! The 2014 EME Contest - by Matej OK1TEH Four days before the contest I worked my first ever 1 I've been working EME with my small antennas Yagi to 1 Yagi 70 cm EME contact with Z21EME. (DK7ZB's design) on 2 meters (10-el) and 70 cm (23-el) Degradation was still fine, so I was looking forward to since April 2005. (The antennas are shown in the the contest weekend. During the first leg I was very photograph at right.) It's quite difficult to work EME happy with excellent propagation and activity, especially from my QTH in Prague because it's situated on the hill during the Saturday morning of November 8th with with good view to downtown so I'm getting very big perfect conditions to the US. The strongest stations from amount of city noise. Because of that noise I'm not able the US were K3MF and K4EME. I was hearing and to effectively use the Moon below some 15 degrees of decoding them every time when I tuned the band. The elevation and due to my QTH in city I'm not able to use strongest stations from Europe were HB9Q, DL7APV any advantage of ground gain. Another problem is a and OH2PO. As I suffer from many birdies on this band, 2014 ARRL EME Contest Full Results – Version 1.01 Page 2 of 12 I don’t use MAP65 and an SDR. I use my SSB filter located. Relative to a station on the Eastern USA shore, bandwidth and SpecJT capability to search for JT65 we have 3 hours less Moon time with Europe per pass. stations randomly by tuning my FT847 between 432.050 Although this 18-hour deficit across all three contest - 432.100 MHz with about 2 kHz steps every 2 minutes. weekends is challenging to overcome, we don't feel we have the right to complain compared to our friends in the My final results included 18 QSOs for 25,200 points in southern hemisphere, far north, or over the Pacific. the 432 All-mode category. Two contacts were Nevertheless, time is of the essence for us, and we completed in CW with Franta, OK1CA, and Jan, welcome the challenge, as it forces us to work harder, DL9KR. You can listen to Jan's signal during our QSO at innovate, and stay awake longer to score competitively. ok1teh.nagano.cz/eme/dl9kr_70cm061214cq.mp3. I Effective use of software defined radio was critical to heard and decoded 10 more stations and I worked a few make the most of our European window, whether we contacts on 2 meters also, just for give points to others. I operated a large or small station on the band. was especially happy to contact K1JT and HB9Q on both Photo by Lisa Ji, KK6SLO bands and W6YX. Final thoughts: If you are thinking about the sense of EME operation with a single Yagi, even from the noisy city, the answer is: TRY IT, IT'S FUN, BUT SOME PATIENCE IS REQUIRED! Some basic info for EME beginners can be found at:  dl7apv.darc.de/start/start.htm  www.ok2kkw.com/next/dj3jj_70cm2010.htm  www.yu7ef.com/ef0210lt_dubus.htm  ok1teh.nagano.cz & ok2kkw.com The EME Contest from Stanford by W6YX 10368 MHz - 10 contacts. We operated our new 4.6 The Stanford Amateur Radio Club worked harder than meter dish (seen in the photo above) making its first full ever to prepare for the 2014 ARRL EME contest. Our contest weekend debut as can be seen in this video. The EME team grew larger than ever, and our scores were 290 dB path loss to the moon and back at 10 GHz is quite higher than ever. W6YX (see photo at right) entered as a challenging to overcome. AA6IW and KD6BPP have Multioperator, Multi-band team on 10368 MHz, 1296 been very generous with their resources and MHz, 432 MHz and 144 MHz. It was a rewarding contributions to build this station. We've had everyone challenge to design, build, and operate four stations, from freshman and recently licensed students to senior optimized well enough to use the surface of the Moon as Silicon Valley engineers help with this project. The a passive reflector to communicate with others on Earth. station is still far from optimized. Initial draft We heard digital modes, Morse code, and even human calculations show a substantial 5 dB improvement is voices bouncing off of the Moon! obtainable. Team participation was the highest ever with K2YY, 1296 MHz - 95 contacts made with our 8 meter dish. KG4UHM, KJ6SDF, AD6FP, W6TCP, K6KLY, From what we can tell, this score could be an all-time KG6NUB, AA6XV, W6LD, KJ6JEX, and DL6DR record for a non-European/Russian 1296 MHz station in making radio contacts. Several team members including the ARRL EME contest. We ran Linrad on CW, while AG6MZ, KJ4QKA, and AA6IW could not operate, but simultaneously feeding MAP65 for digital decoding. The notably contributed to design and station building. homebrew amplifier built earlier this year worked At W6YX, we effectively utilized software defined excellently. Linrad proved to be very popular, especially radios on all bands with Linrad as our prime software, with our Morse code operators. Virtually all of our and MAP65 as our wide-band JT65 (digital) signal contacts were made using a software defined radio as the decoder. receiver. The joy of operating random CW has been elevated, and the days of laboriously tuning up and down Compared to most other entrants, being located on the the band have been permanently replaced with point-and- California Pacific coast gives us less mutual Moon time click efficiency. with Europe, where the bulk of the EME stations are 2014 ARRL EME Contest Full Results – Version 1.01 Page 3 of 12 The final weekend of the contest resulted in a setback. intrinsically adept with software defined radios and Around midnight, while the Moon was rising for Japan, digital modes. Thank you to everyone who participated our azimuth drive motor stopped working. Given the late in, contributed to, or supported this event. Your design hour and the stormy conditions, most would have given input, lab access, manual labor, and station operation up for the night, but giving up is inconsistent with were invaluable. See you in 2015, as we're already busy W6YX's reputation in radio contesting. A valiant effort putting ambitious projects on the drawing board. by AD6FP, K2YY and KG6NUB resulted in the heavy azimuth motor being removed, temporarily repaired, and reassembled — all in the late-night rain! By 2 AM we were on the air again with soggy operators making contacts! 432 MHz - 15 contacts made, exceeding our expectations for a temporary and far-from-optimized station. Mike Staal's (K6MYC, founder of M2 Antennas) generosity and contributions were essential to our success. Four of his 12 element Yagi antennas were temporarily attached to our satellite array. This basic station performed surprisingly well and was very fun to operate. 144 MHz - 136 contacts made. Past observers have noted for several years that W6YX has used only a single Yagi on this band, even though our score was competitive with many four-Yagi stations. Last year, our big contest upgrade project was extending our 1296 MHz dish from 6 to 8 meter diameter in about a week. This year we got considerably more ambitious. Thanks to the generous contributions of Gary Lauterbach, AD6FP, four dual-polarity Yagis arrived on October 24th with the second weekend of the contest just two weeks away! There was a tremendous rush to get this station built in time. Two weeks of non-stop designing, welding, wrenching, drilling and soldering ensued. A considerable amount of time was invested by AD6FP to build a top- performing station in short order. To meet our deadline, we spent most days working from the morning until midnight or later, and at one point, we even had a team member on a bucket truck, working with a dedicated ground support crew, from 10 AM until 3 AM the following day. Our new 144 MHz station became operational for the first time just minutes after moonrise on November 8th. The station was functional from the start, a testament to the hard work and sound engineering invested into the project. Making hundreds of random moonbounce contacts across four different frequency bands required a balanced mixture of electrical engineering, computer science, mechanical engineering, and team work. Diversity was key to our success. We greatly benefited from having operators with decades of Morse code operating experience and keen ears, as well as having team members who grew up with the Internet and were 2014 ARRL EME Contest Full Results – Version 1.01 Page 4 of 12 Complete Scores by Category Bands A=50 MHz B=144 MHz D=432 MHz E=1.2 GHz F =2.3 GHz G=3.4 GH z H=5.7 GH z I=10 GHz Call Sign Bands Used QSOS Mults Score Multioperator Call Signs Single-Operator, All-Mode UA3PTW BDEFH 328 147 4,821,600 RU1AA B 239 76 1,816,400 YTØEME B 236 73 1,722,800 OK1DIX B 209 73 1,525,700 DF3RU DEF 142 76 1,079,200 YL2GD BDE 117 73 854,100 K3RWR B 143 59 843,700 HG1W B 136 58 788,800 SM4GGC B 126 56 705,600 UR3EE B 121 57 689,700 OK2DL E 131 47 615,700 OK1DFC E 122 46 561,200 ON5TA EF 99 49 485,100 UA4HTS EI 99 49 485,100 YL2AJ B 85 49 416,500 JA6AHB DE 85 44 374,000 IK3COJ E 90 37 333,000 PA3FXB E 85 37 314,500 RA3AUB E 84 32 268,800 LZ1DX D 73 36 262,800 RX3A B 50 42 210,000 SP1JNY BD 49 39 191,100 LZ1DP B 53 33 174,900 KAØRYT B 48 34 163,200 UY2QQ B 51 31 158,100 UW7LL/A B 53 28 148,400 RZ6DD B 51 29 147,900 YO5BIN B 46 32 147,200 KL7UW B 49 30 147,000 I5YDI E 56 25 140,000 LZ1VPV B 49 28 137,200 2014 ARRL EME Contest Full Results – Version 1.01 Page 5 of 12 OK2ULQ E 47 28 131,600 VK4CDI BDEG 41 31 127,100 SQ7D E 49 25 122,500 RV3IG B 37 30 111,000 YO2BCT DI 46 24 110,400 UA3MBJ B 36 26 93,600 WDØE B 41 21 86,100 K3MF D 37 23 85,100 OK1YK E 39 20 78,000 RA9LR B 33 22 72,600 RD3DA E 35 20 70,000 W7MEM BDE 27 24 64,800 G4BRK E 32 18 57,600 EA3UM E 32 18 57,600 ES6FX E 34 16 54,400 W3HMS E 30 18 54,000 OK2POI D 25 20 50,000 EA1RJ E 28 17 47,600 DL2FCN B 28 16 44,800 UXØFF B 21 18 37,800 OK1TEH D 18 14 25,200 R7CK/6 E 19 12 22,800 KG7P B 17 13 22,100 US7GY B 16 13 20,800 KD7UO B 17 12 20,400 SM6FHZ H 15 12 18,000 RV3YM B 13 11 14,300 UAØLW B 13 10 13,000 RWØLDF E 13 9 11,700 PA5MS B 11 10 11,000 AI5I B 12 8 9,600 KC6ZWT B 11 8 8,800 YL3AEV E 9 7 6,300 OH3LWP E 7 6 4,200 K8DIO B 6 6 3,600 2014 ARRL EME Contest Full Results – Version 1.01 Page 6 of 12 R4YM E 8 4 3,200 HG5BMU B 6 4 2,400 LI7DHA B 4 4 1,600 SP5GDM E 3 2 600 KA1GT D 2 2 400 Single-Operator, CW-Only OK1CA DEFGHI 142 96 1,363,200 G3LTF DEFGH 142 92 1,306,400 S53MM EF 91 61 555,100 OE5JFL E 105 43 451,500 I1NDP E 102 44 448,800 G4CCH E 101 42 424,200 WA6PY DEFGHI 76 55 418,000 F5SE/P E 87 42 365,400 DL3EBJ E 78 39 304,200 OK1CS E 80 38 304,000 I5MPK E 77 35 269,500 SP6ITF E 72 35 252,000 RA3EC E 67 32 214,400 SM3AKW E 59 29 171,100 JA4BLC EHI 53 30 159,000 VE4SA E 34 23 78,200 I2FHW D 28 21 58,800 SP3XBO BE 30 19 57,000 OK1MS B 28 20 56,000 LZ2US B 29 18 52,200 OZ1HNE B 28 18 50,400 DG5CST E 55 8 44,000 DJ8FR E 24 14 33,600 YO2AMU B 16 12 19,200 IK1FJI B 15 11 16,500 DL8UCC B 13 11 14,300 K1DS E 13 11 14,300 JA4LJB E 13 10 13,000 F6HLC D 7 6 4,200 2014 ARRL EME Contest Full Results – Version 1.01 Page 7 of 12 W8TXT D 6 6 3,600 JA9BOH D 4 4 1,600 Multioperator, All Mode (+AG6GR, AK2F, K2BMI, K2QM, K2TXB, K2UYH, K1JT BDEFGHI 341 167 5,694,700 NE2U) (K2YY, KG4UHM, KJ6SDF, AD6FP, W6TCP, K6KLY, W6YX BDEI 256 126 3,225,600 KG6NUB, AA6XV, W6LD, KJ6JEX, DL6DR, ops) IK5VLS E 60 25 1,500,000 (+IK5AMB, IZ5DIY, IZ5OVP) K4EME BD 128 73 934,400 (+AD4TJ, KR4V) LU1C BDE 88 58 510,400 (LU8ENU, LU1CGB, LU9DO, LU1AEE,ops) OH2PO D 72 32 230,400 (+OH2BGR, OH2HYT, OH6DD) VA7MM E 63 29 182,700 (VE7CMK, VE7CNF,ops) F6HEO B 61 24 146,400 (+FØEUI, F1UKQ, F5UNH) RN3DKE E 43 24 103,200 (+RD3DA) YL3CT B 39 25 97,500 (+YL2OW, YL2NX) UA4AAV E 35 18 63,000 (+R4CR) OK1KIR I 27 19 51,300 (OK1DAI, OK1DAK,ops) DLØEF I 12 9 10,800 (DK2KA, DJ5BV,ops) TM8B H 13 8 10,400 (F2CT, F3ME, F1GVU,ops) SQ6OPG H 7 7 4,900 (+SP6OPN, SP6JLW) Multioperator, CW-Only SP6JLW EI 124 67 830,800 (+SP6OPN, SQ6OPG) SP7DCS BE 96 49 470,400 (+SP7MC) 9A5AA E 64 54 345,600 (+9A2WA) SP6OPN FG 21 19 39,900 (+SP6JLW) W1AIM E 24 15 36,000 (+W1GHZ) ON5GS E 24 14 33,600 (+ON4IA, ON6NL, ON6LEO) WD5AGO EF 19 17 32,300 (+KF5SYP, KG5EWM, KG5EWO + ops) Single-Operator, CW-Only, All Band OK1CA DEFGHI 142 96 1,363,200 G3LTF DEFGH 142 92 1,306,400 S53MM EF 91 61 555,100 WA6PY DEFGHI 76 55 418,000 JA4BLC EHI 53 30 159,000 SP3XBO BE 30 19 57,000 Single-Operator, All-Mode, All Band 2014 ARRL EME Contest Full Results – Version 1.01 Page 8 of 12 UA3PTW BDEFH 328 147 4,821,600 DF3RU DEF 142 76 1,079,200 YL2GD BDE 117 73 854,100 ON5TA EF 99 49 485,100 UA4HTS EI 99 49 485,100 JA6AHB DE 85 44 374,000 SP1JNY BD 49 39 191,100 VK4CDI BDEG 41 31 127,100 YO2BCT I 46 24 110,400 W7MEM BDE 27 24 64,800 Single-Operator, CW-Only 144 MHz OK1MS B 28 20 56,000 LZ2US B 29 18 52,200 OZ1HNE B 28 18 50,400 YO2AMU B 16 12 19,200 IK1FJI B 15 11 16,500 DL8UCC B 13 11 14,300 Single-Operator, All-Mode, 144 MHz RU1AA B 239 76 1,816,400 YTØEME B 236 73 1,722,800 OK1DIX B 209 73 1,525,700 K3RWR B 143 59 843,700 HG1W B 136 58 788,800 SM4GGC B 126 56 705,600 UR3EE B 121 57 689,700 YL2AJ B 85 49 416,500 RX3A B 50 42 210,000 LZ1DP B 53 33 174,900 KAØRYT B 48 34 163,200 UY2QQ B 51 31 158,100 UW7LL/A B 53 28 148,400 RZ6DD B 51 29 147,900 YO5BIN B 46 32 147,200 KL7UW B 49 30 147,000 LZ1VPV B 49 28 137,200 2014 ARRL EME Contest Full Results – Version 1.01 Page 9 of 12 RV3IG B 37 30 111,000 UA3MBJ B 36 26 93,600 WDØE B 41 21 86,100 RA9LR B 33 22 72,600 DL2FCN B 28 16 44,800 UXØFF B 21 18 37,800 KG7P B 17 13 22,100 US7GY B 16 13 20,800 KD7UO B 17 12 20,400 RV3YM B 13 11 14,300 UAØLW B 13 10 13,000 PA5MS B 11 10 11,000 AI5I B 12 8 9,600 KC6ZWT B 11 8 8,800 K8DIO B 6 6 3,600 HG5BMU B 6 4 2,400 LI7DHA B 4 4 1,600 Single-Operator,CW-Only, 432 MHz I2FHW D 28 21 58,800 F6HLC D 7 6 4,200 W8TXT D 6 6 3,600 JA9BOH D 4 4 1,600 Single-Operator, All-Mode, 432 MHz LZ1DX D 73 36 262,800 K3MF D 37 23 85,100 OK2POI D 25 20 50,000 OK1TEH D 18 14 25,200 KA1GT D 2 2 400 Single-Operator, CW-Only, 1.2 GHz OE5JFL E 105 43 451,500 I1NDP E 102 44 448,800 G4CCH E 101 42 424,200 F5SE/P E 87 42 365,400 DL3EBJ E 78 39 304,200 OK1CS E 80 38 304,000 2014 ARRL EME Contest Full Results – Version 1.01 Page 10 of 12