12/08/2006 | UA3DJG After almost a year of preparation Nick (UA3DJG) and I were QRV on 1296 portable EME under the call UA3DJG in both parts of the ARRL contest. The station consisted of a portable 3.6 m stressed dish with f/d = 0.4 and DFC septum/choke horn feed, RIG, transverter (2 m/23 cm), PA with 300 W out and 36077 LNA (all homebrew). In October we went to KO85xf and during 8 hours of operation made 8 contacts (all on random CW). QSOd were HB9BBD, G4CCH, OK1CA, SM4DHN, HB9SV, HB9Q, RW1AW and OH2DG. On the afternoon of 15th, we had very bad WX and our dish was blow over by a wind blast just before the US window. The parabola surface damaged and our gain appeared down by about 3 dB. So, we decided QRT. The dish was repaired before the next contest part. In November we remained the portable challenge moving to the roof of DJG apartment building in order to keep the low Tx losses. The shack was deployed inside the elevator tower and the dish itself was put some meters away. Strong wind with a wet snow prevented us to rise the dish till the second moon pass. Finally we fixed the dish freezing its supporting legs to the roof cover with plenty of water and made another 5 contacts with VK3UM, F2TU, K2UYH, K0YW, and OZ4MM. More photos from the field are available at

http://www.ec-arctic.ru/eng/photos/view.php3?section=23

73, Oleg -- UA3ATS