During my artist residency at the Dwingeloo radio telescope, the enthusiastic CAMRAS team, guided by Mr Jan van Muijlwijk, successfully moonbounced images for the first time in history, using HAM radio equipment. Ultimately my goal is to work 100 DXCC countries and finish my 2M WAS which currently stands at about 35 states worked by terrestrial propagation modes.I initiated OPTICKS in October 2009 in collaboration with radio amateurs based at the Dwingeloo radio telescope (CAMRAS), with the proposal of sending visual data to the moon and back in form of radio signals. I have been able to work stations with arrays of 4 Yagis with 12 or more elements running a KW or so when conditions are right. So far I am happy with the results at Phase 1. Build a larger antenna system consisting of 4 home brew Yagis. I have an RF deck obtained in a swap that uses a pair of 4CX250s. Increase power from current 160W amplifier.
This was completed at the end of December, 2009. Install tower with two 13 element Yagis with azimuth and elevation control. I wanted to be able to contact more stations which would require a bigger antenna and more power.
Contacts were at moon rise (which can give several extra dB from the signal reflected off the ground) and were with monster stations like W5UN. I made my first EME contacts a few years ago with a single Yagi and 120 watts. More modest stations are now capable of making EME contacts. DSP algorithms using the PC sound card dig deep into the noise to extract the signals. The JT65 mode’s modulation is optimized for the propagation mode. The bar was lowered when Joe Taylor, K1JT, introduced the WSJT suite of software programs for VHF work. EME (Earth-Moon-Earth) contacts were made with slow speed CW (Morse code). Historically it required full legal limit power and monster antenna systems. The difficulty of moon bounce is the due to the path loss, about 250 dB on 2 Meters (144 MHz). The other part is the technical challenge involved. Part of the allure is the exotic concept of communicating with another station half way around the world by bouncing your signal off the moon. Achieving contacts by moon bounce has been a ham radio goal of mine since I was first licensed.