New Claimed World and North American Distance Record for the 145GHz Amateur Radio Allocation

12-Jan-2003

Hi all-

I'd like to claim what should be a new World and North American DX record for the 145GHz band.

Today, W2SZ/4 worked WA1ZMS/4 with FSK-CW on 145GHz at a distance of 79.6km.(The former record was 61.7km by W2SZ/4)

Details of today's QSO:
Date: Jan 12th, 2003
Time: 20:50z
W2SZ/4 in FM07fm (37-31-04N 79-30-40W)
WA1ZMS/4 in EM96wx (36-59-28N 80-07-17W)

WX at time of QSO on the EM96 end was:
Temp: -1.5C
Dew Point: -18.3C
Relative Humidity: 26%
Calculated atmospheric loss: .193dB/Km

WA4RTS was the CW op at W2SZ/4 and was being helped at the time by W4WWQ and KA4YNO. WA1ZMS/4 was op of his own station and roving in EM96. Signal margin was about 2dB on the 'ZMS end and about 6dB on the W2SZ end. One station has a better RX mixer than the other.

This QSO is also the 5th grid needed for the ARRL VUCC award for the 145GHz band for W2SZ/4. This claim should be the very first VUCC for that band, and it took two years of hard work to make it happen.

More information with photos and an audio file will be posted over the next few days. (these have been posted, please see below - ED)

73,
Brian Justin, WA1ZMS

Random 145GHz Station Pictures

Testing of the 145GHz station on a 0.5km path to measure signal margin

More testing of the 145GHz station on a 0.5km path to measure signal margin

A picture of the rig showing the Frequency West brand PLL block used in the phase locking scheme to lock a 72.5GHz Gunn source that them feeds a X2 multiplier to get about 5mW on 145GHz

One very cold WA1ZMS during the Jan 1st, 2001 DX record of 61km

A screen shot of Spectran software showing the grid on the 79.6km QSO sent by W2SZ/4 at about 4wpm slow-speed CW.

145GHz QSO Audio Files

You can listen to a an excerpt from the 79.6km 145GHz QSO (the file is a 550kB .WAV file).
Description: "W2SZ de WA1ZMS EM96 EM96"