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Mike's first contact on two meters was with Ray Naughton, VK3ATN on December 31, 1964 using this 320 element collinear array on the South Western hill side above Stanford University where Mike worked at the time. His boss, Taylor Howard then W6UGL (now W6HD lighting up the moon on 1296 with his KW and 7 meter dish), and Bill Faulkerson K6CLM (now AH8A in Western Samoa) helped get this array going. Since the array went up in June 1964, we had fought desense problem in our Tixm05 transistor preamp. In November of that same year, Tay finally designed a small filter for the preamp. Suddenly echoes and other signals appeared. Mike listened to a QSO between the Bell Labs 60 foot dish and VK3ATN. Next month was Mikes turn. For those of you with long memories, Tay Wrote The Moon Bounce problem; 28 mc and up for QST in 1963. See how this moonbounce stuff kinda grabs you! |
This is the shack at the Stanford site. Bill Faulkerson, K6CLM, built up the final amplifier from an early prototype of the 3CX1000 (later to become the famous 8877). The 1/4 wave cavity worked well delivering over 1 kW to the dummy load (antenna) A Collins R-390 and a Collins transverter were also used. Bill owned the other half of the 320 element array but Bill took up flying and by the end of the summer, Mike was left alone to operate the EME system. The Shack was actually an abandoned trailer dragged to a flat spot on the hillside just above the array. Each time Mike had a sched with VK3ATN, the amp, hi voltage supply and the preamp were slid down the hill and placed directly below the center of the array on saw horses to minimize feed line loss. This was tricky when it rained! The moon passed in front of VK3ATNs rhombic 2 to 4 times per month for about 20 minutes of usable moon time. These schedules occurred at all kinds of crazy hours. The first QSO occurred at 4:30AM PST in California on December 31, 1964, as his wife stayed home with a newborn baby. Think about it! |
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| This 160 element collinear array was Mikes half of the Stanford array. Mike built the first AZ-EL and Polarity rotation system every tried. Unfortunately, the tower height prevented full polarity rotation at this location. This array was on the one end of the first two-way SSB EME QSO on two meters. Dick Hart, K0MQS, with his large rhombic, patterned after the VK3ATN 50 wave length per leg rhombic, helped make the SSB QSO a memorable one. (he was loud!) On the tower are Mike, K6MYC, Mel, K6KBE and Ed WA6MIA. The non climber on the roof is Pat, WA6UAP. Mike and Mel (Leland) later formed KLM Electronics with another great helper not shown here, Ken Holladay, K6HCP. KLM stood for Ken, Lee and Mike!!! Ray Naughton was the first person to suggest the T-M-O reporting scheme for EME. The T or single dash stood for readability 1 and was later dropped as things got easier. |
Mike, K6MYC and Ed Holmes, WA6MIA in Mikes garage / shack in 1965. The 160 element colinear array above them on the roof is pictured in the next photo with all the guys that helped get it up and running. It was Mikes half of the 320 Element array originally used at Stanford. We also did some early 1296 EME in this shack inviting the whole W6GD vhf club to attend our first attempt. We used 5 separate receivers and 15 pairs of earphones to listen to the strange upside down FSK signals coming from the 60 foot dish at the Bell labs. We used a pair of water cooled 2C39s rat race split feeding two more pairs of 2C39s and recombined in another rat race combiner for 400W into our 8 foot solid dish. A10 GHZ klystron pumped preamp established the 2 dB noise figure on receive. |
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| This is the AZ-EL and full mechanical polarity system at K6MYC. A large Prop Pitch was used for Azimuth. A large 28 VDC motor into a 30:1 worm drive coupled to and Chevy powerglide starter ring drove the elevation. Another prop pitch mounted on pillow block bearings did the polarity rotation. Readouts were accomplished with small 110VAC selsins. One panel in the rack was dedicated to large dial readouts made from a clear plastic protractor photographed, enlarged and printed on heavy white paper stock by a friend in the printing business. Mikes second amplifier was donated by Bob Sutherland and Eimac. It originally appeared on the cover of a CQ magazine in 1965 featuring the brand new 4CX1000K Tetrode and the famous W6PO 1/2 wave line tank circuit design! When the 8877 came out Mike converted the amp to grounded grid and still uses the amp today on EME DXpeditions like the Antarctic (KC4) and Dominique (J79). |
Mike moved to San Jose in 1969 and of course the Collinear was again installed; this time on a taller tower allowing full AZ EL and Polarity rotation. Lionel Edwards, VE7BQH also found the collinear a fine EME antenna and still uses his highly modified Collinear / Yagi. Today with AZ, EL and mechanical Polarity. Another early EMEer K0IJN came to see Mikes array in Saratoga and promptly went home and put his own up in the dead of a Minnesota winter. By 1971, Ken, Lee and Mike had started KLM leaving no time for EME. Bob Sutherland, W6PO took Mikes array and kept California very active on two meter EME for several years. Bob also put together the EIMAC Moonbounce Notes that many current EMEers still refer to today for ideas and solutions for their EME systems. |