I wanted to try something a bit different this year in the contest. In the past, the focus was on 10 GHz and making as many contacts as possible. This year I tried to focus on working contacts above 10 GHz. Here in New England, there are a number of stations on 24 G and also 47 G and 78 G.

During the first weekend, I was on Mt Equinox for day one. Along with Tom, WA1MBA we extended the NE 78 GHz DX record to 125 km working Don, W1FKF on Mt Wachusett. We were all using the WA1MBA LNA's for both transmit and receive. My system is a 0.25 M Procomm dish with LX1DU shepard's crook feed. We had good dew points and the signal was peaking about 20 dB out of the noise. I've attached a screen shot in HDSDR of Don's signal on 78 G.

For the second day, the weather had changed so I went to Mt Mansfield where I can work inside under cover. I was joined by Paul, W1GHZ and Chip, W1AIM. We were in the clouds the whole day, but managed to work quite a few stations.

On the Friday before the second weekend, Tom, Don and I saw that we had a rare opportunity to try and extend the 78 GHz DX record here in New England again. The dew points between Mt Washington and Mt Wachusett were very good for this time of year during the day. Tom went to Mt Wachusett and Don and I headed to Mt Washington. We expected to possibly be delayed going up Mt Washington because there was icing the night before, but the road was open to the top!

We were successful in extending the record again this time to 205 km. Signals were peaking 20 dB out of the noise and Tom and I worked in SSB! Unfortunately, it was one day before the contest so we couldn't count the points, but we were happy over our success!

For the second weekend, I traveled to Whiteface in NY with KT1J. We encountered wind and heavy cloud throughout our stay. This appeared to really affect any contacts we tried heading south. 2M Liaison also didn't seem to work as well either. We never worked AF1T/W1MKY or the Block Island crew! We also struck out trying to work Ray, VE3FN to our north. We did manage to work three stations on Equinox, but only on 10 G. We tried 24 G, but they only heard an initial signal and we heard nothing. This was strange as the path is only 147 km and LOS. Henry, KT1J was running 5 watts into a 2' dish on 24 G!

All was not lost. We did end up working KA1LEX on 10/24/47 in two locations. The distance was 56 km and 82 km. Randy only runs mixers on 24/47 but we worked in SSB. Unfortunately, his 78 G rig appeared DOA. We most likely would have worked there as well.

The other high spot was working Brian, N1BQ. This was his first 10 GHz narrowband contact ove 82 km. We worked easily in SSB once we found each other's frequency.

On Sunday, I ran out of steam. WX conditions were predicted to be poor, so instead of going out, I invited Randy over to check out his 78G rig - figuring maybe we could repair it and then go out and make some short haul contacts. Unfortunately it appears his mixer is dead.

Overall a good year even though my score is way down.