Word must have spread well as we had over 20 members and friends in attendance at Kington Langley Village Hall yesterday. Everyone was ready but at the last minute Dave rang through and his car had broken down on route the Club.
Within a few minutes Brian G6HUI had come to the rescue and picked Dave up and the EME presentation was still on as scheduled – Thanks Brian !!
And so just after 8pm Dave’s presentation began and unexpectedly to a video by a lady pianist called Katy Paterson (look her up on Youtube) who was discussing how she had played “Moonlight Sonata” and it had been transmitted to the Moon by Radio Amateurs bounced back and replayed through a pianola with only very few notes lost over 500,000 miles there and back. Clearly this had been done with some impressive equipment and most likely a large antenna array or large dish, but it got Dave thinking…. “I could do that” well not the piano playing …. or maybe it did mean that but we had to wait till the end for his grand finale and “performance”
Dave G8TTI – Club EME Advisor
As the night unfolded we learned about how Dave set up his station, made a 400 watt amplifier and swopped out a 9 element Tonna for a DK7ZB 10 element yagi giving him the 13dbd required to reach the moon and the contacts began in earnest using WSJT-X JT65b, MAP65 & Power SDR. We also learnt about the ground effect with a yagi at near ground level and elevations of no more than 10 to 15 deg.
Behind the camera it was standing room only!
Dave has now worked every continent on 144mhz including Australia !! A very entertaining and educational evening and much fun had by all.
