HISTORY -- Initial: #1 --    03/29/02	K9KNW   EL95  Florida 

  On Feb 12th moon conditions were quite good, and I worked several stations on
moon rise with the tropo antenna (13B2). Just when things were really getting
"good" we had a local power failure. It was a nice winter day and as I waited
for the power to return, I started thinking about the 2SA13 yagis that I had
built a year or two before. Looking at the moon rising well above the pattern
of the tropo antenna I got inspired.

  Since the yard was full of trees, I started looking "anywhere" for some open
space where I could set up an antenna that could be rotated as well as elevated.
Hummm. The only place I could see was in the driveway! We share our driveway 
with a neighbor to the south and that neighbor is a summer only resident. 

   So I set up one of the 2SA13 4Wl yagis on a 12ft mast in the driveway to play
a bit with JT65b EME, using an antenna with elevation. The mast was guyed with 3 
lengths of rope, One to a pine tree, another to our apple tree and the third to 
the snow blower. I tied a length of rope to the reflector and it was tied to a
gas can to hold the antenna on a given heading and elevation. Pretty "basic" but
it worked! After all, I was thinking this would just be for the weekend, since
the mast was set up in my driveway.
The "armstrong" rotator and cloudy days made for a real challenge, but I really 
had a "blast". In the first month of operation I had 58 initial contacts off 
the moon, WAC and DXCC 26, using the homebrew 2SA13 "driveway" yagi. Many very 
good signals on the weekend of the Feb 13th. I needed to figure out a way to do 
this easier and more often. I even worked three stations that were running 
single yagis, Cool! The "Driveway EME Yagi" was taken down on the afternoon of 
March 15.


SM5BSZ's 2SA13 Yagi Design

  For the winter 2005 EME season I set up my 4Wl 13elem 2 meter yagi on the 
mast in the driveway again. The plan was to allow EME operations the entire 
winter now since I had had such good results the previous year. I purchased a 
used a CDR rotator at a hamfest and used it for AZ control this time. That is 
an improvement since it avoids the necessity of the compass reading and 
anchoring the antenna. Elevation is still manual using a nylon line tied to the
yagi boom with "anchoring loops" every 5deg of elevation. Another change was 
the use of "rigid" guys and placing the antenna just beyond the driveway to 
allow operations all winter. The rotator cables and LMR400 feedline was run
across the end of the driveway and to the shack window where it can be routed
into the shack when EME operations are to be conducted. 

  As long as the neighbor continues to be gone during the winter and the same 
neighbor, I plan to set up for "driveway EME operation" each winter.

  The "Driveway EME Yagi" is set up for the winter 08/09 today. A bit later 
than last year, back on again. No antenna changes except the rotator cable
and feedline this year come into the shack through the little tower cable chase.
In the past I had been just running them in the window when I ran EME. This will
be better for sure. Moon conditions have been pretty good and 4 new initials
were worked in the first 2 days of continued operation.

Here is the link for WSJT FSK441/JT65 Software  
Most schedules are made on Ping Jockey .