Digital Moonbounce

Brief Description of Presentation #2: Ham Radio operators have been practicing the art of communicating via moonbounce for nearly fifty years. The act of using the moon as a passive reflector for VHF/UHF signals has defined the ultimate test for station design. Traditionally, moonbounce operators have erected massive antenna structures and assembled high powered amplifiers to overcome the incredible path loss of Earth-Moon-Earth circuit. In the past few years, new digital communication methods have been developed that dramatically improve station performance by using the digital signal processing available in ordinary personal computers. These improvements have opened the door to this exacting operating mode to operators of very modest stations, including "station-in-a-suitcase" DXpeditions. Ned Stearns, AA7A, has operated on EME for over twenty years and has made contacts using Moonbounce on many VHF/UHF bands using every operating mode. In his talk, he will provide a brief overview of the changes to the landscape in EME operation and will provide a glimpse of the future of digital, weak-signal operations

Biography:
Ned was first licensed in August 1963 as WN8JWY in Warren, Ohio at age 12. After college, he moved to Phoenix, AZ in 1974 and received the call sign WB7AEB. He seriously caught the DX bug in cycle 21 and has remained incredibly "radio active" in every solar cycle since then. He has maintained a very active presence on 160 meters, satellites, 6 m/ 2m/70cm Earth-Moon-Earth (EME) in addition to HF contesting and full-court-press DXing. He has completed Ten Band DXCC (160 through 6 meters) as well as DXCC on Satellites. And, has completed 5BWAZ award and has eclipsed the 2500 milestone on the ARRL DXCC Challenge. He has entered in hundreds of HF and VHF contests in his ham radio career and has lost every one of them except the ARRL CW sweepstakes in 1979. He is currently focused on DXing on the WARC bands and is often found working either 6 m or 2m EME. In 2005, he traveled to Mali, TZ, and participated in the CQWW CW DX Contest as a member of the VooDoo Contest Team placing second worldwide in the multi-transmitter / multi-operator category.

He has been employed at General Dynamics (previously Motorola, Government Electronics Group) in Phoenix, AZ since 1974 where he is a systems engineer. He has been involved the development of communication systems for both the US government and industry for over thirty years.

He was elected as Vice Director of the ARRL Southwestern Division in 2004. He enjoys the opportunity to promote amateur radio wherever he can and accepts the challenge of offering guidance to the hobby that has provided so much personal satisfaction and professional support to him over the years.