)īy "modest" station I mean one like mine. Watching a super station at GM4FVM provides hours of innocent fun (note the failed call. Taking advantage of the "super stations" with good set-ups at the other end of the QSO. After data modes it became possibleįor modest stations to achieve EME contacts, though possibly only by Modes EME was the preserve of the technically brilliant and the veryĭetermined amateur (i.e. Means before the advent of home computers with sound cards. So in the days before specially designed data modes, which basically Radio it has the potential to take over your life. Technical efficiency to be reached, whereas for others it is an For me it is not an end in itself but a level of Object to use to scatter your radio signals back to Earth.įact remains that EME can be done, and therefore many of us set it as a Add to that the fact that its elliptical orbit moves it closerĪnd farther away from the Earth over time and you have a pretty tricky Towards the Earth it wobbles, and for a lot of the time it is below the Despite what you hear about it always having one face turned The Moon is not a flat surface, and it moves around in To reach the Moon and only about 7% of that is going to be "bounced" Path length is about three-quarters of a million kilometres, and the Good operating still makes the difference.Ĭommunication, "EME" (or "Moonbounce" as it is often rather inaccuratelyĬalled), is bound to be on the edge of radio amateur capabilities. These callsign suggestions are occasionally wrong (false) but that does not, in my view call the entire process into question. SUMMARY: Deep Search only generates callsign suggestions, it does not generate QSOs. Sorry this is so long but it is both complex and complicated. You will see where this changed the tack of my article. Furthermore, it creates an imbalance when comparing achievements for awards, toplists or in contests." I think that maybe he doesn't like the idea that JT65 used with Deep Search challenges the efforts of those who did EME before JT65 and Deep Search came along. However, then I began to look again at SM2CEW's note and I realised that a central plank in his argument is not that DS produces doubtful QSOs but that:- "There is, therefore, a great risk that over time this will devalue the achievement of making QSO’s. Sometimes mistakes are made, sometimes I get QSL requests for SSB QSOs I never made. The statistics of this are clear to me - JT65 with or without "Deep Search" is unlikely ever to produce any more false QSOs than may happen anyway using other modes. I initially spent quite some time dealing with issues around the possibility of false QSOs - indeed the possibility of JT65 QSOs carried out using JT65 not being QSOs at all.