I have done a fair share of portable 2M EME activations and recently activated 432 on the moon for the first time in history from CY9C and CY0S. I thought it would be fun to start going a bit higher in frequency and hopefully take a lot less gear on future DXpeditions as weight and size limitations are getting more and more difficult.

The second most popular band on the moon is 23cm (1296mhz) and the activity seems to be increasing lately probably due to the plethora of gear one can purchase off the shelf for 23cm like the IC-9700 and the awesome portable 2.4m foldable dish from W2HRO.

I wanted to design an ultra portable system that hopefully meet the following requirements.

• The “station” fits in a single Pelican case.
• Full moon tracking
• Single ethernet cable from the pelican to the operators laptop which sits in a comfortable operating position. (Ethernet is not used for what you think it might be)
• 110-240v input into the Pelican to power all the gear (regardless of where you are in the world).
• Short Coax lengths to minimize signal loss.
• 250W at the feed point
• Automatic corrective dish pointing with a magnetometer.
• GPS freq locked.

I ran my first test of the station while I was in NC at my OM’s(SK) QTH during the ARRL EME Contest.

Seems to be performing well for the first time out of the gate. I will add more information on the details of the how things are glued together.