June's EME Moonrise Window

With the QSL's from spring's EME activity gradually showing up in the mail, June's EME moonrise action should keep the postman busy next month as well.

Dmitrij - UA3PTW - Initial #60

Vlad - RZ3BA/1 - Initial #61

Oleg, UX5UL - Initial #72

Val - UT6UG - Initial #73 ...both Oleg & Val are in the same city

Jorg - DK3WG - Initial #74

Bernie - ZS4TX - Initial #75

I have about five days of favorable moonrises directly over the ocean in front of my antenna (9el m2 Yagi), and a couple of hours each day before the moon gets too high for my antenna as it lacks any elevation control. After five days the moonrises usually move too far to the south and I am pointing into too many RF-absorbing Douglas Firs on my neighbor's property.

I started on Tuesday morning, which according the EME data graph shown below, should have been the best of the week since the moon was as close as it would get and the skynoise was low but unexpectedly, no signals at all were heard!

courtesy: http://www.mmmonvhf.de/eme.php

On Wednesday, things should not have been as favorable since the moon was another 5000 miles further away, but the magic of radio did not disappoint ... my first CQ, with the moon barely 1 degree high, brought something that has never occurred here before ... three replies!

I soon completed three new initials with my QRP (140 watts) station ... RW1AY (# 76 ), DK3BU (#77 ) and DK5SO (#78 ). I have no idea why Tuesday was so poor or why Wednesday was so good, but I'll take it.

Today's conditions were also good again, with my first CQ being answered by N2CV in Florida, for #79.

Barry - NC2V - Initial #79  4 x 20 el array

About an hour later, the strong CQ of YU7AA was heard who responded to my first call. After that his signal faded for some time and eventually returned to speaker quality level and the contact was completed for #80 ... I keep wondering if or when I'll run out of stations large enough to work.

Jozef - YU7AA - Initial #80

Who knows what tomorrow will bring, but as the moon climbs further away and rises further to the south, working anyone will be a nice surprise. I've usually avoided summer EME work, as often the best moonrises are very close to the sunrise, making it difficult for bigger stations to hear me when pointing near the sun. After June's good luck, it seems that summers might require more attention ... the next few months might be more interesting than I had thought.