BA7LOK is a member of the Foshan Zhandong District Wireless Radio Association's collective station. The more widely known callsign is B7P, and it is located in the suburbs of Foshan City.
I've known the station manager for a long time, and I've always heard about the B7P base. However, I never had the opportunity to visit it. Fortunately, when I left my job at the end of June, I was traveling around, and in mid-July, I went to Foshan to travel and also visited the station manager's base.
As soon as I arrived at the base, I was assigned to do manual labor. There's not much else I can say about it; the antenna system inside the base is very comprehensive, and even some shortwave Yagi antennas have been stacked for multiple bands. Personally, I am most interested in the UV frequency band and lunar reflection communication, which are my main learning objectives.
The BA7LOK base station's configuration in the 6-meter band is truly impressive, featuring a luxurious setup that includes a 8-meter main boom Yagi antenna for directional stacking, as well as a top-mounted 10-element Yagi with a 12-meter main boom that can be freely swiveled. This configuration should be considered state-of-the-art, and after discussing it with the station manager, I learned about the propagation conditions in the 6-meter band. I was particularly interested in understanding the system's principles and specific architecture, as the station manager was very helpful and not only explained the entire remote system for the 6-meter band but also allowed me to examine some of the equipment firsthand.
Secondly, another important aspect was the installation of two parabolic antennas by the site manager. One antenna was 4.2 meters in diameter, and the other was 4.5 meters. Fortunately, the 4.5-meter parabolic antenna was scheduled to be installed at that time, so I immediately started working on the installation phase upon arriving at the base.
I am very interested in the existing 2.4m parabolic reflector system, as I also have a strong personal interest in lunar surface communication via reflection. Furthermore, I own a 2.1m diameter parabolic telescope at home, but due to various reasons, I haven't been able to set it up yet. During this visit, I was particularly interested in learning about the parabolic antenna system here. The experience was very rewarding; not only did it provide me with a comprehensive understanding of the entire antenna architecture, but I also incorporated many ingenious ideas from the station's antenna system into my current setup on the rooftop. Yes, after studying and visiting, the 1296MHz EME system that had been dormant for three years suddenly made significant progress, and it has now been successfully set up on the rooftop.
In addition to the system operating at 1296 kHz, the station also has a lunar reflector communication system operating at 432 kHz, which is ready for immediate use. The system uses four Yagi antennas arranged in a stack, and the enthusiastic operator led us to test the system's solar noise performance. (Note: Solar noise refers to the increased noise received when the antenna system is pointed towards the sun. Since the sun is theoretically an infinitely strong interference source, the noise received will be higher than when pointing at a clear sky. This increase in noise is referred to as solar noise. Experienced enthusiasts can use the intensity of the decrease in solar noise to calculate the antenna gain.)
As night fell, and the most exciting part arrived, we would put into practice a 2.4-meter diameter antenna. We would receive reflected communication signals from the moon. After afternoon debugging, the performance of the 2.4-meter antenna had been further improved, and during the evening test, we successfully received many signals from enthusiasts.
At that time, the ARRL competition was in progress, and I had the opportunity to visit and learn about the competition firsthand while B7HQ was on duty.
After two days of playing, we reluctantly left Foshan due to our travel schedule and headed for Changsha. Our next destination was the Battle of Xiangjiang.
闽ICP备2021006864号-7
闽公网安备35020602002794号