Dish bore site to Norfolk Island at 848 km. VK9NA team worked on 1296 SSB and Digital. First known 23 cm external Digital contact. SSB 1296 was worked also.
Dish is a 1.25 m Andrew, and in this picture shown is a 1296 MHz loop feed. There was no enhanced tropo this day. The VK9NA team were only S2 on the 2 m band. On 1296 the PA used was 100 Watt TX power with sub 1 dB N/F preamp.
Above; Simon ZL1SWW was part of the team effort. Harry ZL1BK was also a team member in January 2011 at this same site.
Below; On the same day with working VK9NA on 1296 tropo (Purple line towards VK9NA) an Es opening occured on 2 m to add more contacts to VK in the log. Times are +/- 4 hours at 00:01 UTC on the 13th January 2011 all all Red is 2 m Spoardic E (Es)
Above; Steve ZL1TPH pointing in the direction towards VK9NA in Norfolk Island. 848 km on 1296 MHz, under non enhanced conditions requires high performance stations at each end.
Below; A simple plastic protractor for dish allignment off a reference bearing.
