51.7 MHz DATV (part 3) and DATV august contest
(2023-08-27) PE1ITR
The DATV contest was on August 19 and 20, 2023. I went to luxembourg on 20 August and was QRV as LX/PE1ITR from the locator square JO30BA. This web page describes my experiences and results at 51.7 MHz and the results at 144.6 MHz.
Station at 51.7 MHz was a 6 elements LFA yagi. The station is described on this web page. At 144.6 MHz I had the same station as last year and also the same as on my HB9 dxpedition.
51.7 MHz 6 element LFA yagi at JO30BA
51.7 MHz
I've had a sked with PA3BYV, PA3AOD, PA0T, PE1ASH, PE1CVJ, PE1GLX and ON7MOR. I was only able to make a 2-way QSO with ON7MOR. This is a distance of 194 km. I could certainly detect PE1GLX in ssb bandwidth, but the signal was not strong enough for DATV video. My reception was severely limited by interference. It was a lot of unstable carriers every few khz probably caused by solar panel optimisers. I'm going to look into this closely to make sure it didn't come from my own station.
I've checked reception with regular beacon transmitters. The PI4/CW beacon PI7SIX came in via tropo with good signals. This is over a distance of 239 km.
It was the first time I used the modified LFA yagi portable. This antenna is quite heavy with the 40 mm boom. Normally I have a loose foot on the ground, but for this antenna I had to anchor it to the ground with a hinge construction. This worked perfectly and without much effort I was able to put the antenna upright. The SWR was also fine.
SWR at 51.7 MHz
The 6m DATV setup. On the right side, the 19 inch cabinet that is on its side is the datv transmitter including reception upconverter.
On the left on the shelf the 6m SSPA.
144.6 MHz
At 2m it went very well. Within an hour I had almost all stations qrv received an image. Despite my 200w output, the other way around was more difficult. I need to look further into why my reception is so much better. On a future web page I will describe the characteristics of my receiver so that counterpart stations can compare. Below is a map showing the QSO's made.
blue lines: 3 QSO's on 6m; red lines: 6 QSO's on 2m.
Resume:
6m: PE1GLX 2-way from JO21QK, ON7MOR 1-way from JO21QK, ON7MOR 2-way from JO30BA. This is 194 km!.
2m: PA0T 1-way, PA3BYV 1-way, PA3AOD 1-way, PE1ASH 2-way, PE1CVJ 1-way, ON7MOR 2-way. All from JO30BA.
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