13 cm band: The first ever EME activation from EA8

After many attempts, we managed to pull off the first-ever 13 cm EME QSO from the Canary Islands (as far as I know).

Huge thanks to Jac, PA3DZL, for his persistence and patience! This was our third attempt, and the QSO is finally in the log.

On my end, the setup consisted of a portable dish covered in aluminum foil, a brand new 150W amplifier from Petr (AG6EE), and an IC-905. On Jac’s end, he was running a 4-meter dish and 400 watts. His entire station, as always, performed flawlessly.

Our first attempt was made a year ago, but back then, neither I nor Jac could hear a thing. My suspicion was that the first stage of the SG Labs transverter had gone into self-oscillation. After that, I decided to steer clear of that Bulgarian-made gear and switched over to the IC-905.

On May 20th, I aimed the dish at the sun, but the sun-to-cold-sky ratio was basically non-existent—only about 1 to 1.5 dB, compared to the usual 7 dB I get on 23 cm. The antenna pattern was slightly skewed to the left by about 3 to 4 degrees (just like on 23 cm), but I’m aware of this quirk of my dish, and since the moon was clearly visible to the naked eye, I compensated for it by manual aiming.

Right away, I saw an excellent path and decodes from PA3DZL—a stable -23 dB every single period. I kept my fingers crossed, but unfortunately, Jac couldn’t hear me at all—literally zero! After half an hour of “voodoo dancing,” I realized that the 10-meter transmit cable (13 mm from Messi & Paoloni) might be introducing massive losses. So, I went QRT, rescheduled with Jac for the next day, and went to build a new, short 4-meter cable so I could move the amplifier right under the antenna for tomorrow’s run.

The next morning, I quickly put everything together with the amp positioned right under the dish. But while testing the PA, a new curse struck—the PTT line stopped working. It would key up manually, but over the 6-meter control line, there wasn’t enough current anymore. By the time I figured out what was wrong, the moon was already high up. I decided to hold off on soldering a new reed relay until tomorrow and instead attempted to complete the QSO manually, keying the PTT by hand every single cycle.

Just like the day before, I saw PA3DZL stably at -22 to -24 dB, and today—eureka!—the QSO is in the log. I believe this is the first-ever 13 cm QSO between EA8 and PA.

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For me, this band has always been somewhat “cursed.” The whole saga started back in the autumn of either 2016 or 2017—I can’t even remember exactly anymore.

I had a 4.5m dish, a 270W amplifier, and an SG Labs transverter hooked up to my good old Elecraft K3. We were rushing to get ready for the autumn leg of the ARRL EME 13 cm contest. As the moon cleared the horizon, several excellent signals popped up on the waterfall—the dish and the G4DDK preamp were working beautifully. I got my first decode, hit the TX, and upon switching back to RX, I realized that the LNA was completely dead. It had left our mortal world and “gone to heaven.”

Further investigation revealed that the SG Labs unit features a built-in VOX that wasn’t documented anywhere—with the predictable outcome.

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I was hoping to do some operating with the portable setup this past winter, but during my expeditions to Albania and Turkey in the autumn of 2025, the amplifier stopped putting out power. Huge thanks to Petr, AG6EE—this spring, he shipped me a brand new replacement amplifier, which safely reached me.

Now, the plan is to swap out the feed on my 4.5m dish and hook up my 270W amplifier. But that will have to wait until after the EME conference.