To the Moon and Back

Darling Downs Radio Club's newsletter for this month is reporting that, on December 4th, Phil, VK4CDI and Dave, W5UN completed what may have very well been the very first moonbounce QSO ever from this VK4 club region on 2 metres, using WSJT65.

At 794,000 kilometres round trip, this is beyond a doubt Phil's best DX ever.

While Phil is running relatively modest power and a single yagi, his QSO partner, W5UN, is the undisputed top gun of moonbounce, with 32 phased long-boom yagis and several kilowatts of RF on transmit.

The path length is so long that stations can send off a test transmission, flick over to receive, wait a couple of seconds, then hear (or see) their own signals come back from the moon!

To prove that this QSO was no fluke, Phil rapidly followed it up with a QSO with Dmitry, RA3AQ, near Moscow. Dmitry is more of a little pistol rather than a big gun, running only 6 yagis, (each 43 feet long!).

Not long after, Phil worked another Russian, and an Italian station.

Hmmm - his 2 metre DXCC totals for the month are edging closer to some of our 20-metre totals!

Source: Wireless Institute of Australia

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