QSOs on a New Band. 2400MHz.

 A few days ago I got a mail, someone was planning to do activity from the island of Moen. A distance of about 77km from me.

The operation was planned for this afternoon, and they would acttivate both 1296 and 2400MHz.

I went out about 2km from home and set up the IC905 with small antennas for the 2 bands.

I think they stopped activity about the ime I got set up, so I called some of the locals who had 2400MHz capability.I was not on the hilltop as the earlier tests, so it's always interestingt to see how a new band works. I called OZ4HZ, who had a station with antenna on a balcony. Signals on 1296 were booming in, so we decided to test 2400. Signals from Hans were weak, but readable, and we made a marginal QSO in SSB, exchanging callsigns and reports both ways, 52-53 reports. Not bad for a first test on the band.

I had texted OZ1GIN and told him about the activity, and h came on after a while. Also with booming signals on 23cm. The test on 2300MHz had weak, but easily readable signals in CW. We exchanged 559 reports at 25km distance. This is a special case as Allan was running with a completely indoor system, including the antennas.

After the experiments I started listening for beacons on 1296, and heard 2 in SM6, at least one in LA, and also OZ5SHF at Yding, one of the highest points in OZ, and the whole time, most of the time booning in, and audibl with the antenna in all directions. There was most certainly tropo today. It's now about 2200 local time, and with my vertical at home it's still coming in with  solid copy, even at the other end of th4e house.

There is still a lot to optimize in the portable microwave system, so maybe better results next time.

Right now I am not complaining.

New Repeater on 1297MHz in the Copenhagen Area.

 A while ago I wrote about signs of a possible new repeater not too far from me.

Then it was gone for a while, and in the past week it reappeared, fully functional.

It is located on a tall building on the island of Amager (not terribly far from the airport for Copenhagen.

I don't have any technical information but I can say that it works very well.

Ii is located between 20 and 25km from me, and I made a test with the IC9700 connected to a reasonably well placed antenna with the feed point about 7m above ground.

I called in with the normal power (10W), and the signal was completely noise free. Not surprising, as the repeater antenna is high up.

Then I tried reducing power, to 5W, 2W, 1W. Still completely noise free.

0.5W, no change, 0.2W hardly any change.

I tried to go to 1% power output of the '9700, yes, a little bit of noise. 

Finally I tried to reduce the power to the absolute minimum od the radio. Still a readable signal.

The sensitivity of the receive system is simply excellent.

Now it's time to find an alternative setup to operate via the repeater, the '9700 is so much overkill.

I have an old Kenwood TM741 that is in need of a repair and possibly alignment. I found the settings for operation with this repeater (needed the "odd split" memory to set it up, byt when testing no transmission (at least at the wanted frequency), and reception wasn't good either. Initially I could use my IC.905 for repeater operation (even if it's even more overkill), with a much lower (and smaller) antenna, until I can make a dedicated set up.

I may come up with a post with some crazy ideas that might never be used, for getting to operate such a local repeater on 23cm.

Here is what I know about the new repeater:
Output frequency: 1297.000MHz

Input frequency: 1257MHz (yes, 40MHz spacing)

Activation: CTCSS 82.5Hz