Microwave Test and Tune Day 2013

On Sunday 10th November EMDRC hosted the 2nd annual VK3 / Microwave test and tune day at the club’s rooms located in Burwood.

The format this year included the normal field testing of TX and RX systems, from 1.3GHz, 2.4GHz, 3.4GHz, 5.4GHz, 10GHz and 47GHz, but also feature a special visitor from Tasmania , Rex VK7MO and his high performance portable 10GHz EME station.

A number of us arrived at 8am and began to set up for the day, getting the tables, bbq, hall and test equipment ready, and as the morning progressed more people arrived and began to set up stations and mingle. The weather was cool, and the wind a bit brisk at times, but typically glorious Melbourne saw no rain and a very nice day.

We also had a bench of test equipment maned by peter to assist with testing and tuning gear people needed help trouble shooting, and a number of people took advantage of this throughout the day with some tinkering of a 10GHz station and a 1.3GHz transverter among the activities I saw through the day. Thanks Peter for taking the time to offer your expertise and resources.

Inside was some show and tell with Graham having a number of his kits available and others with gear to show off and explain.

As the day progressed, the bbq was fired up and we even had a fancy field strength meter to test exposure limits from the devices in operation around the grounds, public max exposure (20%) on the systems was typically around ~1m in front of the antenna’s.

After lunch more testing and tuning, before we all got ready for the moon rise and Rex’s turn to fire up his 10GHz 50w EME station. This comprises of a 90cm dish, and was connected to a laptop running JT4F mode using the WSJT software. We worked Al, W5LUA in Texas from this station. and for the next 2 hours, many got a chance to work 10GHz EME.

Thanks to everyone who assisted with the day and helped make it successful, the club is more than happy to offer our facilities again in 2014 should the microwave community once again want to hold such an event.

And finally, 4 videos of the day.